1140 
RURAL NEW-YORKER 
In these days, when each egg looks 
very much like a nickel, and the hen 
calmly busies herself only in creating an 
appetite, without regard for the cost of 
her board and keep, we are inclined to 
greet her as a great institution—for the 
grain merchant. She never seems to real¬ 
ize that the price of wheat, buckwheat 
and kindred other grains of which she 
is fond, is soaring to unheard-of levels, 
while the price of her product remains 
normal. 
My hens get no wheat, and buckwheat 
only in small quantities. I raise my 
own corn, shell it and mix it with oats, 
barley. Kafir corn and a little buckwheat, 
liens like whole corn better than when 
it is cracked, and I have read advice 
to feed it whole; however I like cracked 
corn better, as they have to work four 
times as hard to get it from the litter. 
There is one thing we can feed, how¬ 
ever, that is good and cheap, and that is 
mange] beets. I have tried about all of 
the green feeds; turnips, cabbage, 
sprouted oats, mangels, red beets and 
sugar beet pulp. Cabbage is fine, and 
hens like it, but it is hard to keep 
through the Winter. Turnips are not 
relished as well, nor have they so much 
fibre. Beet pulp is cheap, easily kept 
and easily prepared with hot water, and 
is a fair relish, holding a tremendous 
jtercentage of water when saturated, but 
my hens don’t like it. 
Mangels are easily grown, jiroduce 
great yields per acre, keep nicely and 
are, next to red garden beets, the, most 
palatable to fussy hens. Of cabbage, 
turnips and mangel beets, all spiked on 
the posts side by side, my hens choose the 
mangels, so for these several reasons I 
ral.se enough mangels to keep my hens 
on green feed till Spring. 
After the early radish bed is done 
and the little square they occupy is 
cleared up, I sow mangel beet seed, rake 
it over and water it every day till the 
seeds germinate and then keep the bed 
damp till plants are up an inch or so, 
and then forget them. They need only a 
little care after this and with manure 
water applied once in two or three days 
they come along without trouble, and 
in eight weeks or about the last of June 
plants are .six to eight inches high, and 
when your garden spots are ready for 
second crop go to your beet bed with a 
spading fork and after wetting down 
the plants heavily, lift and loosen the 
soil by shoving the fork under the roots 
horizontally, and your plants can be tak¬ 
en out with all their few roots and trans¬ 
planted in rows 18 inches apart and 
about 12 inches apart in the row. Set 
them after a rain about tw'o inches deep 
ju-essing clo,sely. If, as is often the case, 
you get no rain, set them o)it just the 
same, being very careful in pressing in 
the plant to leave the wide impression of 
the back of your doubled fingers in the 
ground .so that w’hen you water them 
with a C!in the water stays where you 
want it. They need watering but once. 
If planted in the afternoon and it is 
not extremely hot the next day, every 
good plant will live. Those whose roots 
were too small and do not show life the 
.second morning can be reset, and your 
work is done except for two cultivations 
to kill Aveed.s. 
This bed of young plants I have to 
draw upon, so that I may fill in every 
available space in the garden, which is 
vacated by other early crops, such as 
beet or head lettuce rows, early peas, 
early beans, etc. When these crops are 
done or nearly so, I pull up the vines, 
.sow on a good dose of fertilizer and 
with the plow set on the wheel hoe 
stir it up, rake it over and I am ready 
for a row or two of mangels. You can 
generally squeeze in two rows when you 
think there is only room for one, but don’t 
squeeze too hard. What I call a good dose 
of a mixed fertilizer is two quarts to 
25 feet of row. Besides several rows in 
the garden I luid a space containing 
about 400 plants last Summer, and got a 
good big wagon load of beets, enough for 
tuy flock of 100 hens to last me till May. 
I do not pull the beets until the 
ground has begun to freeze, then throw 
them in piles and cut off the leaves an 
inch from the beet so that no sap is 
lost. The old-fashioned trench method 
of keeping root crops through the Win¬ 
ter is a poor and unhandy sub.stitute for 
the root cellar of concrete, but lacking 
as yet the latter I dig the trench in a 
well-drained place near the henhouse, the 
width of a wheelbarrow and two feet 
deep, pile the beets up a little above the 
ground level, and high in the center, 
and cover with plenty of newspapers and 
a foot of soil. 
The roof caves in and the dirt and 
snow falls down as one digs under the 
ends for the beets, and the whole scheme 
of getting out tLe beets is disagreeable 
and unhandy, but the beets keep finely 
and the layer of paper helps some to 
keep the dirt roof from covering things 
up, and is very effective in keeping out 
the cold. I take out about two bushels 
at a time and place in the cellar to feed 
every day or two. If. one’s cellar is not 
above 35 or 40 degrees all the beets may 
be stored there in deep bins, and will 
keep till warmer weather without 
shriveling up much. 
It seems to me the beets keep better 
if they are well chilled through by leav¬ 
ing in piles a few fi-osty nights before 
piling in the trench for Winter. They 
keep well in any case, do not rot like 
cabbage nor shrivel up like turnips, and 
taken all together appear to me to be the 
best of the succulent feeds for hens. 
Connecticut. oeo. n. baktuctt, jk. 
afraid to travel far in the open to work 
their will. 
Now go a bit further with this A coop 
as seen in the picture. Mother places the 
coop as I have suggested, out 20 feet 
from the stone wall; but she does not 
change its shape nor make any additions 
to it. For a while the chicks fiourish and 
wax fat; another morning when she arises 
at peace with the world and goes out 
to feed the chicks, her sun sets early in 
the morning as she views what is left of 
her fine brood after the visitation of .a 
weasel, which could have been prevented 
if she had made the wire yard before 
mentioned; or the early rising chicks 
would not have been captured by haw’ks if 
kept in the yard and coop until the care¬ 
taker is around. 
Nine-tenths of the chicken losses can 
be prevented if people would obey 6irni>le 
laws of prevention and use common-stui.se 
judgment in their care. After many years 
as a lecturer and w'riter on chicken topics 
I have come to the conclusion that it 
takes one ton of food conversation to 
make one pound of food conservation, yet 
if one can produce that one pound all 
effort is not lost. This is a most accep¬ 
table opportunity. w. h. cabd. 
Connecticut. 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK 
Give Little Chicks a Chance 
The picture on the front page of the 
8ept. 1 issue entitled “The Late Hatch; 
They Will Have Good Mothering,” sug¬ 
gests much to an old-timer. Of what 
avail is good mothering in such a place 
and in such a coop? I am glad of the 
opportunity brought about by this picture 
to tell the farmer’s wife or the wife of any 
poultry man where not to place a coop 
with hen and chickens, and in what coop 
not to place the same. 
In the first place, this old-fashioned, 
A-shaped coop is productive of many 
deformed chicks, brought about by the 
shape of the roof running to ground. We 
all know about the Flathead Indians 
whose sloping forehead is so formed by a 
board placed and fastened to forehead at 
birth. Just so with this chick in an A- 
shaped coop; it is natural for a chick 
to roost in the same spot every night, 
and as it crowds in its accustomed place 
each night right close up to this sloping 
roof, its soft bones become shaped in its 
growth to the shape of the roof, and lop¬ 
sided deformed backs and hips are the 
result. To prevent this, take the same 
A coop and set it up on boards set edge¬ 
ways just the length and width of the 
coop; then chicks cannot crowd up under 
slant of roof and become deformed. I 
might suggest a covered run with wire 
bottom which can be fastened against 
coop to prevent chicks getting out until 
allowed to, which also prevents prowling 
cats and early hawks getting the chicks 
befoi-e the care-taker arises, and as well 
stops weasels, rats, etc., from getting at 
the chicks during the night; at the same 
time allows plenty of ventilation. There 
should always be a board floor in such a 
coop, yet one that can be taken out at any 
time to clean. 
As to the place where not to place this 
coop, what better haunt for the maraud¬ 
ing rat than right in that stone wall? In 
this coop in the picture we place an old 
hen with 12 chicks for instance; there 
is no floor nor front to coop. It is next 
to an open stone wall. Mother feeds the 
best ever, and for days they thrive like 
the green bay tree, when some morning 
she goes out to feed her babies and finds 
several dead or missing, easily traced to 
rats which have made this old stone wall 
their abiding place, close to a storehouse 
of plenty. Rats are a plague unequalled, 
and the best that can be done is to 
circumvent and prevent their doing 
damage. Take this coop and place it out 
in the field or yard. 20 feet at least from 
any stone wall, old lumber pile or any 
spot wdiich might harbor rats, as rhts'are 
DOMKSTIC.—New York’s supply of 
flour temporarily ran so low that Sept. 
14 the Federal grain monopoly t^k 70,- 
000 barrels of standard bakers’ flour from 
a shipment of 180,000 barrels consigned 
to Norway and turned it over to a com¬ 
mittee of the Produce Exchange, which 
will distribute it to jobbers without profit 
or commission. The Norwegian consign¬ 
ment was held up by the Presidential 
embargo. The Federal authorities took 
from it about three days supply for the 
city. When the three days is up the Food 
Administration must do the same thing 
.‘(gain, bakers say, unless by that time 
shipments begin to increase from the 
Northwest. 
Albert von Lilidenhal’s farm, which ad¬ 
joins the municipal w'ater works at 
Delair, near Camden, N. J., was raided 
by detectives September 14 and a 
small sized arsenal was confiscated. 
Robert Dwyei*, who rents the farm and on 
whose complaint Lilidenhal was arrested, 
.said that a great quantity of secret docu¬ 
ments and letters was burned by the 
German just before the raid. Lilidenhal 
feigned insanity, but a physician who ex¬ 
amined him said he was sane. Among 
the munitions confiscated were a three- 
inch cannon, 13 daggers, 14 German TJfclan 
lances, three bayonets, 13 swords, nine 
automatic pistols, three large flasks of 
powder and a powerful telescope. Lili¬ 
denhal posed as a man of means and said 
he was an expert mechanic. 
A troop train on the Pennsylvania Rail¬ 
road was fired upon Sept. 14 near Mingo 
.Tunction, Ohio. Four soldiers are said to 
have been wounded, one seriously. In¬ 
formation as to the identity of the troops 
or the destination of the train was with¬ 
held by railroad oflicials because of mili¬ 
tary regulations. 
Dr. Wilhelm T. von Knappe pleaded 
not guilty Sept. 14 at Vincennes, Ind., to 
the charge of libelling Abraham Lincoln 
find was set at liberty under bond of $250. 
Von Knappe was arrested on a Grand 
.Tury indictment as a result of an inves¬ 
tigation of a book entitled “History of the 
Wabash Valley,” which the doctor wrote 
and sent to St. Louis, Mo., to have print¬ 
ed. In the book he charged Lincoln, it 
is set forth in the indjctment, with bs?- 
ing a traitor to his country daring the 
Mexican war, with being an infidel and 
a blasphemer. Von Knappe asserts his 
defence will be that he has evidence to 
sustain his statements. 
Property damage reaching several hun¬ 
dred thousand dollars, heavy damage to 
crops and drowning of three negroep re¬ 
sulted from the heavy rains Sept. 15-17 
in Eastern North Carolina. At Wallace 
a dam burst, driving approximatdy 300 
people from their homes. 
Approximately 25,000 iron workers and 
metal trades mechanics engaged in war 
emergency construction in San Francis<'<> 
and adjacent cities went on a strike Sept. 
17, following rejection of their demands 
for a 50 per cent, increa.se in wages. Along 
the Pacific coast 50.000 shipyard work¬ 
ers were out, tying up 12 per cent, of 
the ship construction being carried on 
by the Government, and the str&e was 
spreading to other lines of industry in 
the metal trades. Efforts to avert the 
strike by employers and representatives 
of the United States Shipping Board 
failed. Proposals to arbitrate on a basis 
of 10 per cent, increase offered had been 
rejected by the conference committee of 
the Iron Trades Coum 1, composed of 25 
unions, on whose authority the strike was 
declared. 
September 29, to 17 
of Western New York. The crop i.s the 
largest in years. Farmers .say that witli- 
out additional help the bulk of it will 
rot on the trees. The New York St.ate 
Food Supply Commission and the Niag.nra 
County Farm Bureau have opened offices 
i^^ckport and .are co-operating with 
the Federal office there to relieve the sit¬ 
uation. 
tine of the rea.sons of the high co.st of 
pork IS seen in estimates of the number 
of stock hogs in the United States Sep¬ 
tember 1, announced Sept. 13 by the De¬ 
partment of Agriculture. They show a 
decrease of 8.2 per cent., compared with 
the supply of a year ago. The number 
was 50.21.8.(XX) September 1 and a year 
ago 05.025.000. 
The “Official Bulletin” of Sept. 13 an- 
nounce.s the following cable from the 
American Con.sul General at Ivondon re¬ 
garding milk prices in Great Britain: 
“rood controller increases maximum 
prices to producers of milk for imperial 
gallon as follows: October, Is. 5d.; No¬ 
vember, Is. : December to March, 
Is. Od., plu.s actual cost of railroad car¬ 
nage. I'his indicates retail price in Lon¬ 
don 7tl. per quart October Sd. there¬ 
after.” 
Information has betui received b.v the 
Department of Agriculture that specimens 
of pink boll worm have been found near 
Hearne, Tex. H'he information is conveyed 
by department experts engaged in the 
work of observation and quarantine. 
1 he department is advising the Texas 
Department of Agriculture and the Agri¬ 
cultural and Mechanical College to join a 
repre.sentative of the department, who is 
ordered .at once to He.arne. in an effort 
to establish, by voluntary action, a quar¬ 
antine around the particular field or 
fields where the pest has been discovered, 
in the hope that it may be eradicated at 
once. 
Winter course.s in agriculture are of¬ 
fered in the State College of Agriculture, 
.it Ithaca, N. Y., beginning November 7 
and running to February 15, a full twelve 
weeks’ course, the last week of which 
includes the annual farmers’ week at the 
college. The college points out that the 
Winter courses should especially appeal 
to young men who realize the importance 
of improved methods but who cannot 
take time for a full course. There is no 
tuition charged to residents of New York 
.State. 
The Indiana State Florists’ Association 
is jdanning for a new system of wind anti 
hail insurance, as a result of their heavy 
property losses from tornadoes. 
W .\SHINGTON.—Shipments of wheat, 
wheat^ Hour, butter, and sugar to Canada 
and Newfoundland hereafter will be per¬ 
mitted on^v under the form of license 
nece.ssary for their export to other coun¬ 
tries, according to a new ruling of the 
Exports Administrative Board. The 
new requirements, it is understood, is not 
intended as a step to restrict exports to 
Canada. Shipments in small lots, under 
certain conditions, are excepted from the 
order. 
Sites have been chosen in New York 
and 18 other large cities for “reconstruc¬ 
tion hospitals” in Avhich United States 
soldiers, maimed in the European war. 
will be “made over” by the devices known 
to modern surgery and will be reeducatisl 
in some valuable trade and otherwise 
equipped for their return to civil life 
l-laidi hospital will be built for 500 beds, 
but with provision for enlargement so 
as to accommodate 1,000 beds. The 19 
hospitals thus will be able to care for 
19,0<X> wounded .soldiers if they are ex¬ 
panded to the maximum. The other 
cities to have the hospitals are Boston, 
I hiladolphia, Kaltimon^, Washiii^rton, 
Buffalo, Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Paul, 
Seattle, San Francisco, I.os Angele.s, 
Denver, Kansas City, St. Louis, Memphis, 
Richmond, Atlanta and New Orleans. 
I hose in Boston, New Y^ork, AVashington 
and Chicago will probably be constructed 
first 
By insisting upon its private formula 
for ammunition primers containing free 
sulphur the Ordnance Department went 
contrary to the expert technical opinion 
of the world. This was one of the- fea¬ 
tures of the testimony of Col. George 
Montgomery, U. S. A., commandant of 
the Irankford Ar.senal, before the Dent 
investigating committee- Sept. 17. Col. 
Montgomery indicateil clearly that he 
himself was convinced that * the <-hem- 
ical composition insisted upon by the Ord¬ 
nance Department was inferior to for¬ 
mula! used b.v jirivate maniifai-turing 
concerns, but that the pres.sure in the 
I>epartnient behind their formula was 
t.H> pronounced to permit a draslie 
chan ge. 
Com for Hens 
FARM AND GARDEN.--A call was 
issued by the United States em¬ 
ployment oflSce at Buffalo, N. Y., Sept. 
1.3 for 2,000 workers for ten days, begin¬ 
ning September 20, to save the peach crop 
How much corn should I feed to ItKl 
<-hiekens? j 
I shouldn’t try to fei-d my fowls ui>on 
r*orn ajone; give it morning and night, if 
you wish, but balance it up with a mash 
made from ground grains and meat scra|>. 
or skim milk. You will find formulas for 
making u[» these ground grain mashes 
freiiuentl.v published. .At pre.simt jtrices, 
corn alone i.s too expensive ami it is al- 
wa.vs a too fattening and one-sided diet 
when fed alone. With a dry mash coii- 
staiitl.v before the fowLs through the da.v, 
or fed moisteiHKl in the middle of the day. 
give the fowhs what corn or mixed grain 
the.v will ijuickl.v iilean up morning and 
night. P,e guided b.v their apjietities ratli- 
er than by measure. -- ' .m". li. 'n. 
