‘The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
81 
One Seed-Piece and 
Only One in Every Hill 
' Ptofit! Cut out Save Time and Labor! The perfect planting 
the “profit.” The of the Iron Age means a tremendous saving of 
e cost of production; labor, time, fertilizer and insecticides, which would be 
>n that extra part of pasted on missing hills. Unplanted spaces in your rows 
gives you. Perfect , v< ? to “ e worked over with plow, harrow, planter, 
>rices due to the new cultivator weeder, sprayer and digger, and require fer- 
ur and starch mills, “ d “secUcides, just the same as if planted. 
r . , ’ 1 uis loss must be avoided, 
ronts with certainty. / r • /> a • 
Potato Planter is tt* « T m S P actn S Makes Uniform Sizes! 
.lamer because it Sn«erl W n eS^fo ° f * he Iron A S e c 
ineveyhm. This No IV 'BETSSt 
r in seed alone. Loss undersize potatoes while those too far apart produce 
entirely avoided. oversize potatoes. 
iat gives you this "personally-inspected” planting which 
zer » your insecticides, and the profit-part of your c 
Bateman M’f’g Co. 
, In business 83 years 
' Main Street Grenloch, N. J. 
Canadian Factory: 
an-Wilkinson Co., Ltd., 96 Symington Ave.,Toronto,Can, 
Co to the nearest dealer and ask him 
to shotc you the IRON ACE imple¬ 
ment or tool you need. If he can’t 
shotc you an IRON ACE, write to us 
at once. We tcill send you interesting 
booklets free. 
THE HENYARD 
Sanitary Droppings Board 
My sympathy goes out to B. W. C'., 
who asks for a ‘‘satisfactory droppings 
hoard.” Why have mites? Why have a 
droppings board that must be taken out 
to be cleaned? Since reading a couple of 
years ago in The It. N.-Y. of Mr. Mapes’s 
hot tallow remedy for mite.s “my soul re¬ 
joices within me.” There aint no such 
thing as mites any more. 
Long ago I learned that if mites could 
he kept off the perches and all the fowls 
made to roost on the perches (and there 
only) without being in contact with the 
walls or roof, then there would be no 
mites at all. Hut every week during the 
mite season the perches had to be “doped” 
with kerosene or carbolic acid or some 
Other abomination. Then Mapes said 
“hot tallow,” and a new era was ushered 
in. Now I dope my perches with hot 
tallow in April or thereabouts, and that 
ends it for a whole year, and I neglected 
to dope with the hot tallow last year, 
and still I have no mites. 
Now as to droppings boards. I have 
mine built in, and I have not cleaned 
them since last February, nor has there 
been any need of cleaning them. They 
are perfectly dry and sanitary and there 
is no accumulation of droppings. But 
from now on until February or March 
they will have to be cleaned occasionally 
on account of the damper atmosphere. I 
have the perches made in sections con¬ 
nected with the rear wall by screw hooks 
hooked into screw eyes, and the frames 
in the front are suspended from above by 
hooks made from heavy wire. The frames 
are raised about 10 or 11 inches above 
the droppings boards. After each clean¬ 
ing of tlie droppings boards a layer of 
fine dry stuff from under the litter is 
spread over them to a depth of about one 
inch. The droppings falling on this bed 
quickly lose their moisture (except dur¬ 
ing the Winter) and the hens traveling 
back and forth under the perches keep 
the droppings and bedding well mixed, 
and scratch out as much as falls, so that 
after more than nine months there is no 
accumulation. In the Winter the bed will 
absorb the moisture or prevent it from 
going down, so that if cleaning is done 
once a week there will be no muss. 
A garden hoe or a hoe of wider pattern 
may be used to pull the droppings for¬ 
ward, but it is well to heat the shank of 
the hoe and bend the blade back until it 
stands out perpendicularly to or at right 
angles to the handle; then you can reach 
clear back against the rear wall and you 
will have a clear sweep sideways because 
of the perches being suspended from 
above. j. w. gates. 
New Jersey. 
Infertile Goose Eggs 
Could you tell me why my goose eggs 
fail to hatch? I have a fine pair of geese 
Last Spring I set 17 eggs from them and 
not one hatched. I broke them and they 
had not changed after being sat on the 
required time. They evidently were not 
fertile. I want to know what to do to 
remedy the trouble. The geese are both 
young, were a year old last Spring. The 
goose did not begin laying until late. 1 
have been told that eggs from young geese 
were not fertile. Also that when the 
goose and gander come from the same 
hatching of eggs their eggs would not 
hatch. MRS c. R. 
It is impossible to say just what is the 
trouble without more data. It is probable 
that the lack of age is the cause of the in¬ 
fertility of the eggs. Feeding wholly or 
largely of corn during the Winter will 
result in infertile eggs. It is not stated 
whether the geese in question are pure¬ 
bred or a cross. That might not make a 
difference. The Toulouse and Embden 
geese are domesticated descendants of tin* 
wild Gray Lag goose of Europe. The 
African and Chinese geese are descend¬ 
ants of the wild Chinese goose of Eastern 
Asia, an entirely distinct species. The¬ 
oretically their offspring should be sterile, 
but I think that it is seldom so. I have 
never kept cross-bred geese, but have seen 
flocks that were evidently crosses of the 
two groups mentioned, and that evidently 
bred every year. I have heard of a few 
casos of infertility that 1 thought must 
have been the result of the cross-breeding! 
mentioned. If the pair of geese in ques-i 
tion are purebred, another year and proper 
feed should make matters better the com¬ 
ing Spring. If they are crosses of tin- 
breeds mentioned and were mine I would 
try to work into one of the distinct 
breeds. w. ir. h. 
A Poultry Problem 
I have a poultry problem that I should 
like to have the opinion of your poultry J 
experts on. A delivers to B 10 Wyan¬ 
dotte pullets on October 31, warranted t. 
he good layers, from heavy-laying stock 
Part of the pullets were hatched April 15 
and part April 25. These pullets were on 
the road less than three hours, and on 
November 1 they laid six eggs, which 
shows that they were in good condition 
when 1? received them. Since that date 
they have practically stopped laying, and 
seven of them are going through a partial 
molt. B claims that pullets that wore too 
far advanced were shipped him. A thinks 
that the feed they got was not sufficient to j] 
Keep them in laying condition, as none of 
the pullets at his place shows any indi¬ 
cation of molting, and from his entire 
dock of pullets, good, bad and indifferent, 
he has got during the five weeks since 
November 1 the following lay: 36 per 
cent. 47 per cent, 57 per cent, 59 per cent, 
62 per cent. B replies that the 10 pul¬ 
lets received during the month of Novem¬ 
ber 83 lbs. of mash and 33.5 lbs. of grain. 
A claims that the mash was all right, but 
that they should have received at least 45 
lbs. of grain. What do your poultrymen, 
the ones that are feeding for and getting 
Winter eggs, think about it? e. a. p. 
Southampton, Mass. 
These pullets did nothing other than 
should have been expected of them ; they 
had evidently got well started at laying 
before being sent to their new quarters 
and registered their protest at having 
been moved by stopping egg production 
and going into a molt. Poultrymen of 
experience endeavor to get their pullets 
into their permanent Winter quarters be¬ 
fore laying has well begun; they then 
make as few changes in their care and 
surroundings as possible. Laying fowls 
do not take kindly to removal to strange 
quarters or to radical changes in food or 
care. Those using Winter lights to stim¬ 
ulate egg production through the cold 
months have found that a sudden discon¬ 
tinuance of the lights in the Spring is apt 
to check laying and induce molting. To 
have insured good Winter work on the 
part of these pullets, which seem to have 
been all that they were said to be, they 
should have been transferred to their new 
home before they began to lay, and given 
time to accustom themselves to the new 
environment. • m. b. d. 
Suspected Cholera 
T killed a chicken at night and did not 
dress until morning, and found the back 
part of it green. About two weeks ago 
I lost three chickens with cholera. Do 
you think the bird mentioned was dis¬ 
eased? The liver was blqck in spots. Do 
you think it safe to market any of the 
flock ? j. l. h. 
New York. 
If you have true fowl cholera in 
your flock, none of the birds should be 
marketed before all traces of the disease 
are wiped out, and then they should be 
marketed only for food. Deaths from 
diarrhoea, however, do not necessarily in¬ 
dicate cholera, which is a virulent and 
rapidly spreading disease and one requir¬ 
ing lauirai measures in cue way ot de¬ 
struction of the diseased fowls and dis¬ 
infection of their quarters to eradicate. 
If only three of your fowls have had the 
trouble from which the fatalities occurred 
and the rest of the flock appears to be 
healthy, it is very doubtful if you have 
real cholera to deal with ; however, you 
should not dispose of any of them until 
time enough has elapsed to determine 
whether this very serious trouble can be 
present. _ The liver, in eases of fowl 
cholera, is much enlarged and softened, 
while the blood vessels are very apparent 
and the color is often a dark green. The 
droppings of the affected birds, too, are 
characterized by an exceptionally vivid 
yellow and green coloration. The gall 
bladder will also be found much distended 
with thick, green bile. m. b. d. 
“Charley, dear.” said young Mrs. Tor- 
kins, “are we going to have freedom of 
the seas?” “Why are you so interested?” 
“I haven’t forgotten the way we were 
treated at the beach last Summer. I 
don’t believe anybody has a right to rope 
off the ocean and then charge you fifty 
cents for the privilege of taking a bath in 
it.”—Washington Star. 
