1342 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
November 14, 
Hope Farm Notes 
A CLOSE RACE.—I went up to tie 
Connecticut Agricultural College at 
the end of October to see the old egg-laying 
contest end and the new one begin. The 
chief excitement was over the close race 
between Barron’s English Wyandottes 
and Lincoln’s American Leghorns. The 
Americans went far ahead in September, 
but then the Wyandottes began to gain. 
Egg by egg they gained until with only 
eight days to go they were but six eggs 
behind. It looked as if they would win, 
but somehow they faltered on the home 
stretch and the Leghorns won by three 
eggs. The final score for one year—10 
hens—was: 
Lincoln’s American Leghorns.... 2,088 
Barron’s English Wyandottes. ... 2,085 
Experiment Pen, Leghorns. 2,083 
Barron’s English Leghorns. 2,010 
Neal Bros.. Wyandottes. 1,918 
Merrythought Farm, Wyandottes. 1.901 
A. B. Brundage, R. I. Red. 1,885 
The other pens all fell below 1.800 
eggs. A little later we shall be able to 
tell how much feed these hens consumed, 
the weight of their eggs, the cost and the 
income—figured at prices received month 
by month. It surely was a great race. 
We have partly succeeded in our ambi¬ 
tion to make these contests as interesting 
to hen men as baseball or football are 
to the general public. Thousands of 
farmers are following these egg contests, 
and the interest has hardly begun. 
A New Contest.—S aturday, October 
31, was a lively day at Storrs. There 
were 820 birds to be taken from the 
houses and shipped to the owners, and 
1,000 birds to be sorted, identified and 
properly distributed in 100 houses. All 
these bouses were cleaned, sanded, 
sprayed and re-marked. It all meant the 
prompt and careful handling of 209 pack¬ 
ages, for our “Favorite Hens” came in 
30 different boxes. Most of these pack¬ 
ages were handled from Willimantic, 
some nine miles away. This will give 
an idea of the labor and the accuracy re¬ 
quired to organize and start such a con¬ 
test. Add to this the fact that each hen 
must be carefully examined for disease 
or insects and treated if need be. Briefly 
stated, there are 50 houses each 12 x 12 
feet, divided into two compartments, each 
holding 10 hens. There are five trap- 
nests in each compartment and an out¬ 
side run. Each hen wears a numbered 
legband, and individual records are kept. 
The hens remain in this house one full 
year—all being fed the same ration. The 
following dry mash mixture is kept be¬ 
fore them at all times. They help them- 
•Ives at will: 
Coarse wheat bran. 200 pounds 
Cornmeal . 100 
Oluten feed .. 100 “ 
Ground oats . 100 
Standard middlings ....... 75 
Fish scrap . 30 “ 
Beef scrap . 30 
Low grade flour . 25 “ 
There are little boxes holding grit, 
shells and charcoal which the hens take 
as they like. There is also provided a 
“scratch grain” made up as follows: 
Cracked corn . 60 pounds 
Wheat . 60 
Heavy white oats . 40 
Barley . 20 
Kafir corn . 10 “ 
Buckwheat . 10 “ 
Coarse beef scrap . 10 “ 
Formerly this was fed in an automatic 
feeder operated by the hens. An ex¬ 
perienced man is better than any hopper, 
and so the scratch feed is now thrown 
out by hand as needed. It is scattered 
in the litter, where the hens work for it. 
Green food is also given in the form of 
mangels or other vegetables. All the 
hens ai’e treated alike and this seems as 
fair a system as could be devised. We 
have heard Leghorn men say this system 
favors the Wyandottes, while Wyan¬ 
dotte men say it favors the Leghorns. 
As a matter of fact the Leghorns won 
the contest, while the highest individual 
scores were made by Wyandottes! 
New Features.—T hese are houses for 
100 pens. All are taken and half a 
dozen more could have been used. A 
number of new breeds appear this year. 
Black Leghorns come from England. 
There is a pen of good Buttercups— 
looking like quick, active game birds. 
Faverolles wear whiskers, and are cer¬ 
tainly much lauded by friends. The 
Connecticut Station has entered two pens 
of Light Brahmas. One will be fed meat 
in the dry mash—the other sour milk 
substituted for the meat. The old 
American Dominique is represented, and 
also the Black Langshan, while one of 
the “Favorite hens” is a good Black 
Minorca. 
The Favorite Hens. —I found these 
30 birds all sorted into their houses 
ready to begin the year. There are 10 
Leghorns, 10 R. I. Reds, four White 
Wyandottes, three Barred Rocks, two 
Buff Orpingtons and one Black Minorca. 
These birds come from 30 different farms 
and were selected by 30 different people 
—therefore we would naturally expect 
varying types of birds. Most of them 
are good specimens, and I expect several 
of them to make good records. I hope 
to have them all scored while they are 
here, so that we may see how they rank 
as show poultry as well as layers, 
should say that the Black Minorca, one 
of the Barred Rocks and two or three 
each of the Reds and Leghorns are more 
than good. We shall give the individual 
records of these birds month by month. 
A few of them look as if they would 
start laying at once—the others are 
not ready yet. One bird laid an egg the 
first day! 
The Hope Farm “Hens.” —Call them 
“scrubs” or culls as you like. They end¬ 
ed the year’s performance as follows: 
No. of Eoos 
No. 1. B. Rock . 91 
No. 2. W. Leghorn . 142 
No. 3. B. Rock . 107 
No. 4. Mongrel . 100 
No. 5. B. Rock . 127 
No. 6. Mongrel . 127 
No. 7. Barred Rock . 79 
No. 8. Mongrel . 141 
No. 9. White Leghorn . 190 
No. 10. White Leghorn . 114 
Including the eggs laid outside the 
nest these hens laid a total of 1,2S7 eggs 
—as we see, an average of 10 dozen and 
eight. There were 18 pens of pure bloods 
below them. I shall have the total 
amount of their grain and its cost later, 
but the average cost of feeding a hen in 
this contest is not far from $1.75. On 
that basis you will see that my No. 7 
was a pure drone, while No. 9 was a 
great worker. At least thi’ee of these 
birds barely paid for their feed, and un¬ 
der ordinary farm conditions I think it 
doubtful if they would average 60 eggs 
per year. Seven of them were evidently 
culls and discards fro. ordinary farm 
flocks. I doubt if we could get seven 
birds more typical of the hens which a 
farmer ought not to keep—if we accept 
the teachings of the wise men—I did not 
expect these seven birds would average 
75 each. They were in desperately poor 
condition to begin with—right out of the 
live poultry market. All with bad colds. 
When they came to the contest these 
birds were so poor that they averaged 
only 3.2 pounds in weight. In May they 
averaged five pounds. Most of them 
hardly began to lay before March. A lit¬ 
tle later I will try to bring out some of 
the lessons which I think this pen has 
taught. I hoped these birds would hold 
out and lay 1,300 eggs after their good 
performance in Summer, but they lacked 
the staying qualities, and I lose by 13 
eggs. The Hope Farm man is a good 
loser, and I have no word of fault to find 
with the hens. I think even No. 7 did 
her best, and it was the fault of her an¬ 
cestors that this best was no better. 
Another Trial. —Instead of finding 
fault I will back the 10 Hope Farm 
“hens” for another trial. They are to be 
tested another year at Storrs. As we 
shall breed them they will be kept out¬ 
side the regular contest plant, but other¬ 
wise their treatment will be the same. 
The plan is to breed them to as poor a 
dunghill rooster as we can find, and also 
to a finely-bred utility Leghorn. If pos¬ 
sible we shall raise 10 pullets from each 
cross, and enter them as two pens in the 
next contest, the object being to see how 
much difference will be shown by the two 
matings. Now these birds laid 1,287 
eggs in their pullet year. To show what 
I think of them I will now, at the open¬ 
ing of the contest, back them to lay 1,400 
eggs before Nov. 1, 1915. Here is a good 
chance for some of the wise men who lav 
The Light Sussex has the head and neck down the poultry laws to make good on 
of a Light Brahma with clean legs and their statements that pullets cannot “come 
something of Orpington shape. The hack,” and poor blood fails. h. w. c. 
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BOOKS WORTH READING 
fl How Crops Grow, Johnson. 1.50 fli 
11 Celery Culture, Beattie.50 §f 
II Greenhouse Construction, Taft.... 1.50 || 
The Rural New-Yorker, 333 W. 30th St., N. Y. 
