Published Weekly by The Rural Publishing Co., 
333 W. 30th St., New York. Price One Dollar a Year. 
NEW YORK, OCTOBER 25, 1919. 
Entered as Second-Class Matter, June 28, 1879. at the Post 
Office at New York. N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879. 
No. 4557. 
Vol. LXXVIII. 
Poultry men Taking, To Artificial Lighting, 
Like Ducks To Water 
I am desirous of knowing the best practice in using 
electric lights to increase egg production; the size of 
lights, the length of time used and at what periods. I 
have 500 March and April hatched pullets that are now 
laying about 20 eggs per day. n. H. 
Brooklands, D. C. 
RADICAL CHANGE.—Nothing in recent years 
in poultry management has been more enthu¬ 
siastically taken hold of or has appealed to the poul- 
tryrnen more than the practice of artificial illumina¬ 
tion of henhouses during the Fall and Winter to 
increase egg production. At the same time, prob¬ 
ably nothing is being misunderstood more by those 
who are looking into the matter, or who have de¬ 
cided to practice it, than this same thing of lighting 
poultry houses. It is comparatively, especially here 
in the East, a new practice, and it has only been in 
the last two years that commercial poultrymen liaVe 
taken it seriously at all. It is so effective in its 
scope for the increase of Winter eggs that it will un¬ 
doubtedly iu a great many cases quite radically 
change the method of management of poultry farms. 
Without doubt a great many who are going to prac¬ 
tice it are going to realize bad effects if some dis¬ 
cretion or thought does not accompany this change. 
MUCH TO BE LEARNED—We are only at the 
point now where we are beginning to understand its 
value and its effects. There are a great many things 
which I believe are to be learned on this subject. 
For instance, the best seasons to practice this method 
in different sections and different States, and on va¬ 
rious ages of pullets; the amount of light best to 
use; the best time of the day to use these lights; 
what effect it will have on birds as breeders the fol¬ 
lowing Spring; if used at all on breeders, what 
months of the Fall and Winter it is best to use them 
on this part of the flock; whether the late hatches 
will be more affected from the use of these lights 
than the early hatches; whether we can practice 
with good results the use of lights on culls (by culls 
here I mean birds that stopped laying during the 
middle of the Summer and birds which it is not the 
purpose to breed from, but being the purpose of put : 
ting lights on them for Winter and Spring egg pro¬ 
duction) ; how much value artificial lighting has on 
baby chicks, especially early hatches; how the use 
of artificial lights will affect our methods of feeding, 
perhaps not so much the ration itself as the method 
of feeding. There are a hundred and one more 
The Driver Looks Over the Latest Rural New-Yorker While Waiting for the Rest of the Family. 
