70 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
January 16, 
Hope Farm Notes 
H ENS AND EGGS.—A friend in New 
York State sends me the following 
taken from a local paper: 
Verne Lewis, who ha? been purchasing 
fodder for 130 handsome hens during the 
past few months, with no substantial re¬ 
turn therefrom save the consciousness of 
doing good, was dee-lighted on Tuesday 
by securing one precious and beautifully 
formed white egg, valued at 40 mills. 
.To describe his rapture is beyond the 
power of the English language. Visions 
of $10,000 automobiles, brick blocks, 
bank presidencies, beefsteak dinners and 
other more or less unattainable blessings 
float constantly through his imagination 
and you can’t touch him with a 10-foot 
pole. 
I used to write such items for a coun¬ 
try paper. They were intended as a 
pleasant “jolly,” but after all there was 
truth in them. In a cold season like the 
present a hen may prove the most un¬ 
obliging and perverse creature that ever 
wore feathers—her own or borrowed 
plumage. In our neighborhood the hens 
are generally on a strike. Perhaps this 
is a neighborhood of unusually truthful 
people, but I cannot find one who will 
brag of what the hens are doing. Most 
of them say they have no eggs at all. 
A few report an occasional hen fruit, but 
on the whole eggs in our country seem 
to be as rare as lemons or oranges grown 
in the sitting-room. The Hope Farm 
man finds to his astonishment that his 
hens seem to lead the procession in per¬ 
formance, while in former years they 
have been near the other end. We are 
getting 14 or 15 eggs a day. One pen of 
20 Rose Comb Reds lay seven to nine 
each day. A pen of 25 mixed birds— 
mostly Leghorns—give two and three 
eggs, while my pen of 11 S. C. Reds from 
the egg contest lay four and five regu¬ 
larly. 
Now many of the “experts” say the 
Hope Farm man doesn’t know a thing 
about poultry. I cheerfully agree with 
this, but I think I have the advantage 
of these experts in the fact that T am 
willing and glad to learn. We certainly 
get the eggs, and right through the fear¬ 
fully cold weather and the holidays the 
hens kept cheerful and comfortable. As 
we have eaten up all the eggs we had in 
water glass these five-centers are very 
acceptable. We plan to keep our hens 
as nearly as possible after the plan fol¬ 
lowed at the egg-laying contest. The 
houses are old and not fully up to date, 
but reasonably warm and tight. Late in 
the Fall we put. about three inches of 
dry sand over the floor, and keep this 
covered with fine litter—chaff and broken 
straw from the barn loft. We feed a dry 
mash as nearly as possible like the mix¬ 
ture used at the egg contest. This is 
fed in hoppers—the hens helping them¬ 
selves at will. There are little boxes of 
charcoal and shells always open. Twice 
a day a quantity of mixed grain is scat¬ 
tered in the litter. On cold nights I 
think this grain may well be shelled corn 
warmed in the oven. There is water be¬ 
fore them constantly and usually a mangel 
split in two and nailed to the side of the 
house. The houses are kept clean, and 
now and then the perches are wiped off 
with a rag or dipped in grease or kero¬ 
sene. That is all the attention the hens 
get, and they lay. 
For breeding stock we have built a 
house exactly like those used at the egg- 
laying contest. It will be divided into 
two pens. On one side will be the 11 
birds from the contest and on the other 
12 of our best Rose Comb Reds. With 
each will be the best pedigreed male I 
can find. They will be fed just like the 
others and probably trap-nested, so that 
we may be reasonably sure of our breed¬ 
ing. The 11 hens at the contest gave the 
following yields during the year: 
No. 
1.. 
179 
No. 5. 
. 178 
No. 
9.. 
148 
No. 
•> 
164 
No. 6. 
. 163 
No. 
10. 
169 
No. 
3.’.’ 
98 
No. 7. 
. 386 
No. 
11. 
170 
No. 
4.. 
155 
No. S. 
. 128 
There were 49 eggs laid outside the 
nests. Many of these may have been 
laid by No. 3. In any event we want to 
identify the chicks from Nos. 1, 5, 7, 10 
and 11 if we can. I would like to get 
10 good pullets from these hens for next 
year’s contest. The way the Rose Comb 
Reds are laying is a surprise to us. I 
bought these hens in northern Vermont 
last Spring at one dollar each. They 
are not particularly well marked, but are 
shapely hens and evidently good lay¬ 
ers. I expect to breed them to a Rose 
Comb cockerel of good color and type, 
and at the same time son of a certified 
high record hen. While I doubt if our 
section is well adapted to the produc¬ 
tion of Winter eggs I think we can pro¬ 
duce good breeding stock by keeping ac¬ 
curate egg records and rejecting every 
hen that falls below 150 eggs in her pul¬ 
let year. Now let it be clearly under¬ 
stood that I have no stock or eggs for 
sale. It would be both a round and 
crooked deal for me to take trade which 
belongs to legitimate breeders who prob¬ 
ably have better stock than I have. I 
am just trying to find out what can be 
done by starting with good stock and 
breeding to birds that have performance 
in their pedigree. 
Can you tell me about how many 
pounds of ashes I would secure from 
burning one ton of corncobs, and liow 
can I burn a few tons without having 
the wind blow a great portion of them 
away? N. P. P. 
By analysis the corncobs contain 
about 1.5 per cent, of pure ash, which 
means 30 pounds to the ton. It seems 
incredible that if you burn a ton of corn 
cobs you will have only 30 pounds left. 
Under ordinary farm condition it would 
hardly be possible to obtain pure ash. 
There will be sand and charcoal mixed 
with it. You may have 60 pounds left. 
Why can you not use the cobs for fuel 
in the kitchen stove or heater? They 
make a quick, hot fire. Unless you are 
well supplied with wood or coal it seems 
like a waste to burn the cobs for these 
ashes. If you must do it I would build 
up stones like a limekiln and burn the 
cobs in it. The cobs make fine charcoal 
for hogs or other animals. 
In figuring up accounts at the end of 
the year I find it hard to tell where all 
the money has gone to, and what came 
in return for it. I have no doubt the 
great majority of people find the same 
thing. So I have begun this year with 
a little more elaborate system of book¬ 
keeping. I intend to keep an accurate 
day book and a farm diary. In the day 
book will be entered all cash items and 
all sales or contracts. In the diary we 
expect to tell what was done each 
day, who did it and what horses or tools 
he used. Then, from time to time, I can 
carry the day-book items to a ledger ac¬ 
count and thus know at a glance what 
each department is costing. Three of 
the children a re at school. I can charge 
to each account what it costs in cash to 
educate them. Probably any credits from 
them are far off in the future. I shall 
keep an account with the household, 
charging up all milk, fuel, fruit and veg¬ 
etables used and what they were all for. 
The farm will be charged with labor ex¬ 
pense, lime, seeds, feed or whatever we 
buy, and credited with what we take 
from it. The poultry will be figured in 
the same way. I do not expect yet to get 
down to figuring accurately the cost of 
each crop, but we may get that later on. 
The most important things to start with 
are the day-book and diary. Get all the 
daily items in these books and you can 
take care of the separate accounts. At 
any rate some fair system of bookkeep¬ 
ing is a necessity on a farm. 
This is a dull season for the horses on 
a fruit farm, for there is little for them 
to do at regular work. The problem is 
to carry them cheaply through the Win¬ 
ter and keep them in good condition. Our 
big horses are kept in box stalls where 
they can move about at will. For rough- 
age they have stalks of flint corn. These 
are fed entire, and the stalks are so ten¬ 
der that the horses eat them like hay. A 
small feed of carrots or small potatoes 
helps keep them in good order. The nub¬ 
bins are left on the cornstalks and the 
horses get in addition a little ground feed 
and oil meal. This keeps them in good 
shape and saves the hay. I think more 
of our slender flint corn the longer we 
grow it. I would not advise it for rich 
bottom land, but for the hills, to grow 
among the fruit I find nothing better. 
People ask us all sorts of questions, 
and we answer them when we can. One 
good housekeeper says she notices that in 
referring to our family food we seldom 
mention pies and puddings. Do we ever 
have them? Very seldom. Our folks 
plan for food as plain and easily prepared 
as possible. We stock up with preserved 
fruit each Fall, and there is always a 
plate of baked apples on hand. This fruit 
takes the place of pie and pudding, is 
easier to prepare and just as good. The 
girls are good cake-makers, but now that 
they are away Mother does not pretend 
to be an expert, and she has quite enough 
to do with her school and other duties. 
So she makes her household work and 
cooking as simple as possible. We have 
meat on the average once a day. There 
is an abundant supply of pot cheese, 
which we think replaces meat, and vege¬ 
tables, fruit, eggs and good bread. The 
children practically live on cereals, vege¬ 
tables and fruit. Except for occasional 
colds or bruises they are never sick, and 
they run out into the cold without dam¬ 
age. I think this matter of “efficiency” 
should extend to the household work not 
alone in providing working tools and fix¬ 
tures, but in planning for plain and sim¬ 
ple food. H. w. C. 
The Rush Walnut. 
J 8EE an advertised picture of the Rush 
Persian or English walnut which is 
said to bear at three years old. Is 
this nut the same as the English walnut 
that grows in California? If so do you 
have information as to whether it “makes 
good” in the sandy soils of Delaware and 
Maryland Peninsula? G. W. B. 
Laurel, Del. 
Yes, this nut is the “English” or Per¬ 
sian walnut that grows in California. At 
the same time it is not a variety that 
ever grew before or ever will again, un¬ 
less it does so as a result of budding or 
grafting on another tree, because it is a 
seedling, the product of two different par¬ 
ents, and varies from every other seed¬ 
ling, just as do all things from one an¬ 
other that are the product of two differ¬ 
ent parents. 
If by “making good,” here in the East, 
G. W. B. means “Is it a commercial suc¬ 
cess,” the answer is “No.” If he means 
“Do individual trees flourish and bear 
fruit abundantly,” the answer is “Yes.” 
The English walnut does well in Dela¬ 
ware, Maryland and Virginia. I have 
notes of trees at Wilmington, Smyrna, 
Magnolia and Millsboro, Delaware; and 
at Sandy Spring, Colton’s Point, Balti¬ 
more, Princess Anne, and a remarkable 
group of at least seven trees in the vil¬ 
lage about Forest Hill, Maryland. At 
Washington I know of a group of about 
35 trees, and there are many others. No 
doubt these form only a very small part 
of the existing trees. But we do not yet 
know which of these are the best adapted 
to our requirements. So that at the pres¬ 
ent time, while we may encourage ex¬ 
perimental planting, the man who goes 
into it on a commercial scale must do 
so on his own faith. One caution must 
be given. The man who puts faith in 
seedling trees is likely to be disappointed 
W. C. DEMING. 
“Bobby,” said his mother, “did you 
wash your face before your music teacher 
came, as I told you?” “Yes,” said Bobby. 
“And your hands?” “Yes.” “And your 
ears?” ‘Well, mamma,” said Bobby, 
truthfully, “I washed the one that would 
be next to her.”—Chicago Tribune. 
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