the rural new-yokkek 
January 24. 
Hope Farm Notes 
The Scrub Hens. —My bug-eaters 
are attracting some attention even though 
they do not lay eggs at the laying con¬ 
test. One expert far up in the poultry 
world is kind enough to say: 
“Entering these scrubs teas a fool 
thing to do. Doesn't everyone know such 
hens are failures ?” 
Then comes a practical man who makes 
his hens pay. 
“This is the brainiest thing ever at¬ 
tempted in the hen business, for I can see 
just what you are trying to get at." 
Now the Hope Farm man naturally 
disclaims the last statement, and matches 
his scrubs against the expert to disprove 
the first one. 
Up to January 2, after the contest had 
gone on for 63 days, the Hope Farm 
scrubs had not laid an egg. I was in 
hopes one of them would remember me 
with a little New Year’s offering, but 
they all declined. At home some of the 
birds from the same lot are laying, but 
those out in the limelight are either bash¬ 
ful, or else they want to give a good imi¬ 
tation of the turtle at the start and then 
come sailing along later. On January 5 
I got word that one scrub had died of 
some unknown disease. I had another 
one warming up to go into the box, and 
now we have sent another. 
Now let’s have a good laugh at the 
Hope Farm scrubs, and then analyze the 
situation a little. Three hens in other 
pens have died—two Reds and a Leghorn 
—since the contest opened. One pen of 
Reds, one of Silver Campines, and one of 
the new Cornish breed have not laid an 
egg, and are tied for the leather medal 
with my scrubs. In all 10 pens have laid 
less than a dozen eggs. In the week end¬ 
ing January 2 the 820 hens in the con¬ 
test laid S76 eggs. I found that 574 hens 
never laid an egg. Three birds laid seven 
eggs, or one every day; 13 laid six each ; 
44 laid five each, and 75 laid four each. 
Thus 135 hens out of 820 laid about 64 
per cent, of the egg yield. Of Tom Bar¬ 
ron’s 10 Wyandottes, two laid seven eggs 
each, three laid six, three laid five, one 
laid four, and one acted like my 10 
scrubs. At 50 cents a dozen you will 
realize that this means a weekly income 
of $2.16, or nearly 22 cents per hen. 
Now there is a fine chance for some 
wild man to preach to an audience of 
back-to-the-landers. The average income 
of a hen is 22 cents a week. There are 
52 weeks in a year; therefore a hen 
will earn an income of $11.44 a year. 
Throw off $1.44 for cost of feed and make 
it an even $10. Various gentlemen say 
they can take care of 1,000 or more hens. 
Therefore we have a clean profit of $10,- 
000 per year—if you will only buy my 
stock or my appliances! If I were to 
take this back-to-the-lander and lead him 
up to my pen of scrubs with their zero 
record, he wouldn’t thank me. Yet, down 
where they live rather than in the rosy 
dreams is where he would find himself 
until the hens taught him the game. 
What is the real meaning of this dif¬ 
ference between Tom Barron’s Wyan¬ 
dottes and my scrubs? That is the “fool 
thing” I started out to learn. I think 
my scrubs will eat more than the Wyan¬ 
dottes and make far more noise when 
they do lay. They have the same care 
and the same opportunity. What is there 
in the Wyandottes which spells and shells 
eggs? Men come to me with an air of 
superiority and say they have hens at 
home that are beating anything at this 
contest. Some of the sisters of birds in 
that scrub pen are laying at Hope Farm. 
If any man claims he has the birds to 
beat these Wyandottes 1 am enough of a 
sport to challenge him to enter them 
next year. We will each put up the en¬ 
trance fee. If his birds win he gets the 
entrance fee back; if they lose I get it 
back. No use for a man standing back 
and saying there is “nothing to it.” If 
you have the hens to win in this contest, 
and they actually do it, your fortune is 
made—in the present belief that the abil¬ 
ity to lay many eggs or to lay Winter 
eggs is carried on from the mother through 
her son. As for the blue ribbon gentle¬ 
men who are having such fun with my 
scrubs let them put up a pen of high 
scorers and I will match them with an¬ 
other pen of scrubs. 
We have one class of poultry-keepers 
who say there is little or nothing in pedi¬ 
gree when it comes to laying qualities. 
These men say that if a hen actually has 
eggs within her she will have to lay if 
you give her all she needs of the proper 
food. What have these men to say about 
my scrubs? So far as one can tell from 
exterior markings these birds certainly 
are shaped for business. They are having 
the best food available and are handled 
in a scientific way. Yet they have not 
laid an egg. I knew that breeders of the 
heavier breeds claim that the egg ration 
in this contest is made up to suit the Leg¬ 
horns rather than other breeds. Why, 
then, are Barron’s Wyandottes beating 
the lighter and more active breeds? Evi¬ 
dently it will take something more than 
scientific feeding to induce my scrubs to 
lay in Winter. I imagine that their an¬ 
cestors for many generations have acted 
like wild birds, laying a small clutch of 
eggs during warm weather. Must a hen 
have the breeding impulse within her to 
make her lay? 
That is one of the “fool things” the 
Hope Farm man wants to know. An¬ 
other year I want to take several of these 
scrubs as breeders. I am willing to take 
the finest male bird I can find, as judged 
by his mother’s pedigree, and cross him 
on these scrubs. When we get eggs 
enough from this cross to give us some 
good pullets my plan is to take out this 
fine male and substitute as true a “dung¬ 
hill” rooster as we can find. We will get 
some pullets from this cross and I will 
enter a pen of each at the laying contest. 
I will also, if possible, breed to a “blue 
ribboner”—one that scores highest at a 
poultry show, and enter another pen from 
him. That ought to show the value of 
“blood” in a farm flock—if there is any 
such value as is claimed for it. 
In the Fall I broadcast 10 loads of 
fresh manure on two-thirds of an acre of 
land. This I plowed under and sowed 
to rye and vetch for white potatoes in 
the Spring. If I plow this and scatter 
the fertilizer in every third row and 
drop the seed and cover them with the 
next furrow, will the green rye injure 
them in any way? Ir f can do this safe¬ 
ly it will'save considerable work at a 
very busy time. t. w. k. 
This can be done if you make very 
straight furrows and plow to an even 
depth. We shall try this next Spring. 
We have plowed in cabbage and potatoes 
this way with success. The green rye 
will offset the effect of the manure at 
starting scab. We find it best to follow 
with the Acme after plowing in the po¬ 
tatoes. This levels the field and packs 
down the soil. 
I have a piece of ground that has not 
been worked for 30 years, and moss is 
starting to grow on it. What can I do to 
kill this, to sow clover in the field? It 
is good pasture but it is almost too 
swampy to plow. e. g. 
Mount Holly, N. .1. 
It is very doubtful if you can get a 
stand of clover in such a field without 
drainage and thorough culture. You 
ought to plow such a field and give it a 
good coat of lime, and then grow a crop 
like corn, giving thorough culture to kill 
out the old sod. Then you can sow rye, 
and in the Spring seed with a mixture of 
Red and Alsike clover. If the land is 
too wet for plowing it is not likely that 
clover will endure there. 
What would be the feeding value of 
red kidney beans? I have 70 bushels that 
are about two-thirds musty, but cows 
seem to eat them after being ground rea¬ 
sonably fine. What other feeds would 
you advise using to balance the ration? 
Also, what would you think of using 
them as a fertilizer, having them thor¬ 
oughly ground and use in a grain drill 
the same as any commercial fertilizer? 
Could you tell me the fertilizing value of 
beans? I spread some on an old mea¬ 
dow last Spring, and found the grass 
was one-third better and of a much bet¬ 
ter color all through the season. 
New York. m. c. k. 
I think the beans would be better for 
sheep, but fed half bean meal and half 
cornmeal, they will make a fair cow ra¬ 
tion. As a fertilizer the bean meal will 
rank as follows: 
Pounds in 100. 
Nitrogen. 
Phos. Acid. 
Potash. 
Good 
beans ... 
4. 
1.20 
1.30 
Dried 
blood ... 
12 
Cottonseed meal 
7. 
3. 
1.75 
Bean 
pomace.. 
5. 
2 , 
1.25 
Thus you will 
see that 
nitrogen 
is the 
valuable element 
in the 
beans. 
Mixed 
with potash and phos. acid the bean meal 
would make a good fertilizer. H. w. e. 
Sfcc ' 
Do you raise early or late potatoes ? 
There’s a difference between early and late 
varieties that should be considered in fertilizing. 
For the early kind use i,ooo pounds per acre 
of a fertilizer containing io% 
POTASH 
5 % ammonia and 8 % phosphoric acid. Under average conditions, 8 oo pounds 
of 3 - 6-8 is the most profitable for late crops. 
Some growers double these amounts, for they 
are convinced that Potash Pays. 
Caution: Be sure your Potash for potatoes 
on heavy soil is in the form of Sulfate. 
Write for Potash prices and for Free books 
with formulas and directions. We sell any 
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