118 
aS/»c RURAL NEW-YORKER 
January 26, 101S 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
Tiik Red IIexs. —A few weeks ago I 
gave the public record of our 10 Red pul¬ 
lets at the Vineland egg-laying contest. 
It was nothing to roar about, for no one 
nf sound mind will do much roaring at the 
truth. Since then these pullets have gone 
along into their hen year, and at the end 
of 10 weeks we have another story. Betty 
M., our best pullet, with 100 eggs for the 
year, has laid .3.3 more, which gives- her 
220 since she started. Then Polly, the 
great disappointment last year, has laid 
.38 more this year. In all, six of these 
bii'ds have started on their second year’s 
record and. as a pen, they now stand No. 
10 out of 100. Coming back? I cannot 
say. I have lived long enough to know 
that the race is not always to the swift, 
the shnv or the medium. Blood ought to 
tell, but it does not always tell the proper 
story. Take that “Rufa”—the pullet 
which hung the booby i)rize of 80 eggs in 
a year on us. Her breeding is good, and 
she is what you would call a good handler, 
yet she will not lay. 
ItREEiHXG Test. —As we have explained, 
there will now be a breeding test at Vine- 
land. For instance, I have sent a Red 
cockerel to be used with our i)en. The 
managers will endeavor to hatch eggs 
|■|■om each bird, and select 10 pullets for 
1010. The i)lan is to have one daughter 
from each of the 10 hens, and thus coin- 
j)are their records to see if the introduc¬ 
tion of improv<‘<l blood through the male 
will bring up the egg yield. Take Rufa 
and Queen, the worst' two drones in our 
pen. Will their daughters take “after 
father’s folks,” or will they just eat and 
talk as mother has done? Of course, no 
single case of this sort will i)rove any¬ 
thing, but with the 1.000 birds in this con¬ 
test we ought to get some soi-t of a line 
on it. We have a very fine bird to head 
our i)en—his family is of the best, and he 
has had a good bringing up, and I shall 
r('gard the outcome as a good test of the 
value of pure blood. 
1)0 They Repeat? — 3'he ('gg-layiug 
contests have now been carried on for a 
number of years—long enough to enable 
the owners of prize winners to enter 
daughters and granddaughters of the 
heavy layers and follow out all their theo¬ 
ries of breeding. What have they to show 
for it? One of our readers puts it this 
way : 
"I have been wondering why those 
wondeiful layers of Barron’s, Lady Eg¬ 
lantine and others, did not produce any 
winning successors, and why those win¬ 
ning pens that made such wonderful r(>c- 
ords did not produce successors with r<'c- 
ords fit to print in an advertisement. As 
far as I have followed the work, scarcely 
one of those fiunous laying pens or birds 
has lu-oduced any record-making off- 
spring.” 
1 shall not try to answer the que.stion, 
which is a good one. We are, ])lanning to 
go over the records <’;ii'(*fully. and see how 
the daughters ()f superior hens have be¬ 
haved when put into a contest. This 
study should be confined to the authorized 
ollicial contests, and not private records. 
It may be said that the latter represent 
commercial poultry-keeping, but the pub¬ 
lic will accept the official figures and feel 
surer'of them. In nearly every case peo- 
l)le whose birds make a low record at the 
contest will claim that the birds at home 
are doing much better. That is certainly 
true of our birds, for we have a pen of 
pullets here that ran far ahead of our 
contest pen. Still. I realize that a cham- 
l)ion must get out into the limelight and 
make a public record in order to endure. 
Mrcn TO Learx.^ —We have now had 
seven difl'erent jiens in these contests, and 
I have become convinced that most of the 
honors go to peoi)le icho kuott- how io se¬ 
lect the best layers out of well-hred stock. 
There are too many ])eople who think they 
can buy one male bij'd from a high-pro¬ 
ducing line and thus produce a bunch of 
))ullets which must “lay or bust” if they 
are fed a balanced ration. My own ex- 
))erience at these contests shows that this 
is not the case at all. In our present i)en 
of Reds are four pullets of the same par¬ 
entage. They were all late in starting, 
but one laid SO and another 140! Of 
another group of three sistei's one laid 
1.30—another 100. Of still another group 
of three—all bred from known ])erformers 
on both sides, one laid 100—another 1.38. 
We are forced to believe, from the records, 
that some men do know how to breed hens 
for eggs. Even those men apparently will 
often or usually tail to produce more than 
extra good layers out of 100 pullets, 
but they know how to select these sui)erior 
birds and train them for early and steady 
laying. 
The Laying Function. —My own idea 
is that most of the increase in egg pro¬ 
duction will come from the male bird by 
using sons of these heavy layers crossed 
with the most vigorous hens of laying type 
—not of necessity the heaviest layers. 
My friend, who has been quoted above, 
makes this point, which I would like to 
have blunted or sharitened by expeilence 
of others: 
“It .seems to me most i)ersons have lost 
sight of the fact that egg production is dif¬ 
ferent from breeding for milk, butterfat 
or trotting or pacing, in horses or cattle. 
factor enters into the case in attempt¬ 
ing to breed for increased egg yield that is 
not pi’esent in any other animal breeding. 
In egg production the reproductive pro¬ 
cesses are involved. Through the, egg the 
fowl attempts to reproduce lier.self. and 
certain vital elements are (o be consid- 
ei'ed. Egg production might in a way be 
more likened to increasing the number of 
offspring a cow could be made to produce 
than likening it to the jiroduction of milk, 
as has been commonly done.” 
It is time .some of us went at the results 
of these egg-laying contests in earnest, 
threw out the chaff and prejudiced opin¬ 
ion, and found just what the daughters 
of these big individual producers have 
done. 
Steady I.ayixg. —While our Reds have 
won no blue ribbons at Vineland, they 
have kept at their job. They seem to have 
laid at least a dozen eggs each week in the 
year, and I do not think a single day 
passed without at least one egg. It was 
much the same here. AVe have had at 
least a few eggs every day. and I hear of 
small back-lot flfxks of which the same 
thing may he said. I know that right at 
present a good many farm fiocks have not 
laid an egg since the cold weather started, 
and are now hanging about with frozen 
combs and frosted feet. AA’e have no rec¬ 
ords worth bragging about, but our Reds 
give us eggs every day. I .still believe that 
a small flock of hens in a back-yard will 
))rove a gi-eat economy in many a small 
place. Personall.v I would advise one' of 
the American breeds—like Reds. Rocks 
or AA’yandottes for this jiurpose. 
“A Tin Chicken." —At best this is a 
serious time for luuis and hen men. 'I’lie 
price of feed is bad enough, hut in many 
places it seems impos.sible to get it at any 
l)rice. No one is singing over the chicken 
busine.ss except the laying i)ullets, but the 
tide will turn yet, if we hang to it and get 
rid of the drones. That is easily said, but 
how are you sure to tell them? One of 
the boys is at a Southern army camp try¬ 
ing to train negro soldiers. They put one 
man out on guard and told him t<i salute 
every officer who came that way. 
“W'ho’s de oflicei’V” 
“Look at the mark on his shoulder”— 
and they explained the gold and silver 
bars. 
“When I sees a man with a jiair of bars 
on .his shoulder is I salute him?” 
They told him so and he went out. He 
finally came in nearly white with fear. 
“You-all ain't done me right about them 
officers.” 
“flow is that?” 
“Hidn’t yon-all tell me on(> officer had 
a ])air of bars on his shoulder?” 
“Yes. he has.” 
“W(41, a man came, along with a lin 
chicken on his hat an’ he bawled me out 
to beat all becau.se I ain’t salute him 1” 
It wjis the colonel—the leading officer— 
with a silver e.agle on his caj), but to the 
mind of our colored friend it was only a 
tin chicken. Oh ! must learn to know 
the birds. Alost of us h.ave been i)etting 
and feeding and bragging .about what we 
thought were white eagle.s, only to find 
them very poor tin chickens! li. M’. c. 
Sterilized Soil 
I understand that by the use .if for¬ 
malin or live steam the surface .soil and 
the soil on benches of greenhouses can 
be freed from bacteria and living weed 
.seeds. Will such a soil then be “dead,” 
i. e... devoid of bacterial life and unpro¬ 
ductive? M’ill the heating of manure to 
kill seeds of weeds injure it for fertiliz¬ 
ing purposes? F. G.- 
Rutherford, N. ,1. 
By sjiriukling seven-eighths of a gallon 
of a formalin solution on every square 
foot of .soil surface mo.st of the plant fun¬ 
gous and spoi'e di.sea.ses may be destroyed. ' 
3'he solution is made up of one p.art of 
formalin and from .30 to 100 parts of 
water. Seed should not be planted on 
soil so treated for .at least two weeks. 
3’he damping-off disease should be de¬ 
stroyed by this treatment. It is not thor¬ 
oughly effective against weed seed. Steam 
sterilization is more thorough and de¬ 
pendable, for it destroys all weed seed 
and diseas'es if the w.irk is properly done. 
Seed may be planted at once. Sterilized 
soil seems to be the most active so far as 
beneficial bacterial life is concerned. The 
manure should always be addf'd before 
the soil is .sterilized. Then the soil can¬ 
not be reinfected with plant diseases, and 
the manure will be more available, to the 
plants than ev’er because of its having 
been “cooked.” ' u. w. n. 
None Better Made 
would hesitate to make such a claim un- 
^ ^ supported. Local fertilizer agents are al¬ 
ways in close contact with their customers. If any 
fertilizer is not right or does not give entire satis¬ 
faction, they are the first to learn of it. After a 
thorough test of over two years both on their own 
farms and on the farms of their many customers, 
our local agents at Constableville, N. Y. write us on 
Jan. 7th, 1918 as follows: 
“The car of fertilizer came and we now have it un¬ 
loaded. We found it in good condition, no shortage or 
damage . . . The E. Frank Coe goods seem to please 
our customers and we are satisfied that there are none 
better made. 
“Thanking you for the prompt shipment and fine con¬ 
dition of the goods, we are. Yours very truly, 
HIGBY BROS.” 
E. Frank Coe’s Fertilizers are the result of over 60 
years of practical fertilizer experience coupled with the 
latest scientific knowledge. They are made of the best 
materials properly compounded and thoroughly cured. 
They reach the farmer in first class mechanical condition 
and help him secure ‘‘a greater yield from every field.” 
If you are interested in securing the right fertilizer, 
write us today for the name of our nearest agent or ask 
about our agency proposition. We will mail you one of 
our crop books without charge if you will tell us the num¬ 
ber of acres of each crop you expect to raise this season. 
Order your fertilizer now for early shipment. The railroad 
congestion is bad and may be worse. Don’t get left. 
Address Crop Book Department 
The Coe-Mortimer Company 
Subsidiary of the American Agricultural Chemical Company 
51 Chambers Street, New York City 
E. FRANK COE’S 
Reg. U. S. Pal. Off. 
FERTILIZERS 
1857 The Business Farmers' Standard for Over 60 Years 1918 
Have been on the market for more than .30 years and are used in every 
grain growing country in the world. Made in both grain and fertilizer 
styles and in every size. No seed is too large and none too small for the 
Farmers’ Favorite Force Feed to sow. The seed is put into the soil right 
at the bottom of the drill furrow. No .spilling on top or half way cover¬ 
ing. No clogging and leaving empty furrows. All the seed sprouts, 
grows and rijiens evenly. That’s the secret of the extra bushels. 
The Extra Bushels 
Are Clear Profit 
Correct seeding in 
any soil will add 
extra bushels to the 
yield and those extra 
husliels are all profit. Dis- 
trihiiting the seed evenly at a 
uniform depth, gives each grain 
an even ehanee at moisture and 
perfect germination. This assures 
an even stand and a full harvest. 
Farmers' Favorite 
Grain Drills 
Send for the Farmers’ Favorite Catalog 
and note the special features of this Grain Drill. Strongest angle steel 
frame; axle of cold rolled steel shafting; drag-bars of iiigh-carbon steel; 
double run force grain feeds; steel ribbon grain tubes. 
Constructed for Uso with Any Tractor 
Call on your dealer and have him show and explain these and other 
special features and the merits of The Farmers’ Favorite Grain Drill, 
which is sold under the strongest possible warranty. 
The American Seeding-Machine Co., 
Springfield, Ohio 
Inc. 
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