1024 
Jht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
The Henyard 
Henhouse on Hillside 
I wish to build a chicken coop this 
Summer, using field stones. Will you sug¬ 
gest a plan with roosting place and 
scratching room for 40 to 50 birds? How 
large and high shall it be. and how ven¬ 
tilate it? How many windows in the 
scratch room, and on what side? I wish 
to build near large hill. The hill is on 
the west side. Would it be good to 
build, the roosting place entirely in the 
hill? G. K. 
M iehigau. 
A poultry house for from 40 to 50 fowls 
need not be very large. One 15 ft. square 
would house this number and it might be 
built with the rear 0 ft. in height and in 
the bank, if drainage about the base of 
the wall were provided to prevent seepage 
through it. The front should be about 
8 ft. in height and there should be two 
large windows in the south or southeast 
side for light and ventilation. These 
windows should be hinged at the bottom 
to drop back a few inches at the top for 
ventilation in the Winter and should be 
entirely removed in the Summer. No 
separate roosting place need be provided 
if perches are placed in the rear over a 
droppings platform. The floor would be 
best of concrete and, if the rear of the 
building is in or against the bank, a ditch 
filled with large field stones should be 
made to encircle the three sides of the 
building at the outside base of the wall 
and carried to an outlet at a lower level 
so that water from the bank may escape 
freely without entering the building. 
Field stones may be used for such a build¬ 
ing. but very free ventilation is required 
in cold weather to prevent condensation 
of moisture upon the inside walls. A 
wood building is likely to be more satis¬ 
factory. at least for the three exposed 
sides. M. n. D. 
Feeding Potatoes; Fattening Laying 
Fowls 
1. I raise Barred Plymouth Bocks and 
Light Brahmas. Last Fall I bought a 
few exceptionally good, strong Barred 
Rock pullets. They were raised on free 
range, and not fed a mash. Every year 
I pick out the small potatoes and pulp 
them for the chickens. The Barred Rocks 
will not eat this, as they were not brought 
up on any sort of mash. The Brahmas 
eat it and thrive on it; they lay excep¬ 
tionally. How can I get the Barred 
Rocks to eat it? 2. Will you advise a 
ration to make the Brahmas take on flesh 
while they are laying? is T . J. n. 
Boontou. N. Y. 
1. You may be able to get the pallets 
not accustomed to the pulped potatoes to 
eat them by mixing for a time with wheat 
bran or other palatable food. The latter 
can then be gradually withdrawn. 
2. Cornmeal, ground oats, ground bar 
ley and milk are fattening foods that are 
commonly used to produce flesh upon 
fowls. If an effort is made to fatten 
laying fowls by using an excess of such 
foods in the ration, however, egg produc¬ 
tion would suffer. It may be that you 
can use more corn in your ration for the 
laying Brahmas than you are now feed¬ 
ing. but the effort' to fatten may result 
in loss of eggs. 
Undesirable Henyard 
My neighbor is erecting a chicken yard 
fence on his property which comes within 
8 ft. by actual measurement of my sit¬ 
ting room window, and it cuts out the 
only view we have down the road from 
our porch. No amount of persuasion has 
any effect upon him. This chicken wire 
fence is positively a nuisance to us, not 
only as to unsightliness, but there are 
bound to be some unpleasant odors from 
the chickens during the hot weather, and 
our small children sleep in the room im¬ 
mediately above this yard. Is there any 
law in Pennsylvania which prevents hav¬ 
ing a chicken yard in *ueh close proxim¬ 
ity to a dwelling? We live out of town, 
and there is plenty of room elsewhere ui 
this man's property should lie choose to 
use it. In our small towns, where the 
size of the lots are restricted. I never saw 
chicken yards in such close proximity to a 
dwelling. H. g. 
Pennsylvania. 
We doubt if you can complain because 
your neighbor’s chicken yard obstructs 
your view, unless there was a restriction 
in his deed. A chicken yard does not ob¬ 
struct your view any more than a build¬ 
ing would, and surely he has a right to 
build unless he is restricted in his deed. 
If. after the fence is constructed and the 
yard is used, it becomes a menace to 
health and deprives you of the use of your 
property, you may apply to the court for 
relief. N. T. 
Loss of Chicks 
Would you tell me something about the 
comparative advantages of such prepara¬ 
tions as semi-solid buttermilk as substi¬ 
tutes for real buttermilk in feeding young 
chicks? Last year I bought a lot of baby 
chicks. These 700 chicks were put in a 
new brooder house on fresh ground, but 
began dying the first day and kept it up 
until about 450 were disposed of. I dis¬ 
infected and cleaned for this year, but 
have had a 50 per cent loss in spite of 
feeding all the semi-solid buttermilk they 
would eat. I would like to know what I 
can do between now and next hatching 
season to eliminate this white diarrhoea as 
far as possible. My usual loss has been, 
for 10 years, from 6 to 8 per cent in a 
hatch, 3.000 to 1,200. My chicks have 
always been handled and fed according to 
the advice of the best poultry writers in 
The R. N.-Y., and never more than 
about 400 in a flock in room 14x16 ft., 
with coal-burning hover. I think we must 
have received a lot of stock with weak 
constitutions, as they continued to die off 
slowly all Winter, while of an equal num¬ 
ber of our own stock we lost none. 
Virginia. . G. w. B. 
If you have true (bacillary) white di¬ 
arrhoea in your flock of purchased chicks, 
I know of no other course open to you 
than to dispose of all the stock and start 
again with healthy birds. This disease 
is transmitted through the eggs from in¬ 
fected hens and may also be communicat¬ 
ed by means of infected droppings. There 
is no satisfactory treatment, and the best 
plan is to rid the premises of infected 
stock, old and young, and protect the rest 
by cleanliness and disinfection of char¬ 
ters used by them. Not all white diarr¬ 
hoeas are of the infective type, however. 
Any diarrhoea in a young chick may be of 
a white, pasty nature, and may be due to 
digestive disturbances brought about by 
improper feeding, brooding, chilling, and 
other causes. If the heavy losses that 
you describe were in your purchased 
flocks and your own. reared in like man¬ 
ner, remained healthy and vigorous, it 
certainly looks as though you had pur¬ 
chased some very inferior stock. 
There should be little difference in 
standard milk products made from skim- 
milk and buttermilk, so far as food value 
is concerned. Skim-milk and buttermilk 
have practically the same food value, and 
drying to a powder or condensing to a 
paste simply removes surplus water. 
M. B. D. 
Cockerel with Corns 
Will you give me a remedy for corns 
in fowls? I have a fine R. I. Red cock¬ 
erel, which, after I cleaned out the litter 
from the pen, began to get lame. I found 
big corns on feet. I cut some of it out 
and put on corn salve without result. 
New York. E. K. 
It is difficult to prescribe definite treat¬ 
ment for this case without seeing it, as 
the word “corns” may not at all accu¬ 
rately describe the condition present. A 
corn is a thickening of the skin over a 
part subject to pressure, or. more accu¬ 
rately, a callus. This seldom needs 
treatment. Sometimes, however, in addi¬ 
tion to the callus, there is deep-seated 
inflammation, with or without pus forma¬ 
tion. When pus forms, the affection be¬ 
comes an abscess and should be treated 
as one.’ This treatment consists in open¬ 
ing the abscess with a clean, sharp blade 
and applying absorbent pads of surgeons’ 
cotton under suitable dressings. Syring¬ 
ing the abscess out with a mild disinfec¬ 
tant solution may precede the dressing. 
For this purpose, dilute peroxide of hy¬ 
drogen may be used, or a 1 to 5,000 solu¬ 
tion of bichloride of mercury. If the pus 
formation has involved the joints of the 
leg, treatment is too complicated and too 
uncertain to make it worth while. Such 
a case should be treated under the direc¬ 
tion of a physician, if treated at all. In 
the case of a specially valuable bird, it 
would be best to ask a physician to look 
at it and at least direct suitable treat¬ 
ment. Only by personal observation can 
one determine just the conditions pres¬ 
ent. M. B. D. 
Sour Crop 
What can be done for little chickens 
that have wind crop? Their crop swells 
up and they die. F. A. w. 
Connecticut, 
I know of no remedy for the condition 
known as sour crop, which I take to be 
that which you describe, except to give 
only sweet, unspoiled food aqd always 
fresh, clean water. Indigestible food, un¬ 
suited to the age of the chicks, may also 
cause the trouble. Crushed charcoal may 
be added to the ration, and chick grit 
should be supplied. Milk, either sour or 
sweet, is invaluable, and no musty or 
spoiled grain should be fed. The feeding 
of dry mash and dry cracked grains will 
remove much of the risk that wet mix¬ 
tures involve. m. b. n. 
A Horseback Ride in New England 
I have just returned from a horseback 
trip in West Central Massachusetts. 
When I get run down from overwork 
there is nothing that will restore me so 
effectively as a horseback trip; it com¬ 
bines so many restorative qualities. The 
action invigorates the circulation, the con¬ 
stant change of scene is refreshing, and 
you get away from the daily reminder of 
your own problems by becoming interest¬ 
ed in' those you encounter along the way. 
It is incomprehensible to me how horse¬ 
back riding should have so completely 
died out in the country; to me it is the 
most delightful of all sports. And it has 
a practical side, too. In making a quick 
trip to town for some small purchase, or 
to the postoffice for the mail, how much 
easier it is to throw a saddle on the 
horse than to bother with buggy or auto¬ 
mobile. Then, too. the horse can go 
where vehicles cannot. The planters of 
the old South used the saddle horse for 
getting about their farms. It was the 
quick and practical way of superintending 
operations that were distant from each 
other. The man who rides keeps in good 
physical condition, and prolongs his 
youth, while the driver who sits cramped 
in an automobile is doing his body an 
injury. 
Today of course the automobile has 
driven out the horse almost entirely, the 
livery stables have been turned into ga¬ 
rages. and the principal difficulty on a 
horseback trip is to find a place to put 
up the horse‘overnight. During the day. 
of course, at this season of plentiful 
grass, you can stop and graze the horse 
along the road. These occasional stops 
are restful both to horse and rider. 
I usually allow about 30 miles a day 
as an easy-going average and, being accus¬ 
tomed to the saddle, I can keep it up in¬ 
definitely. In the West I have spent 
months all day in the saddle. Only by 
such a method of traveling do you enjoy 
the real beauty of the country. The mo¬ 
torist rushes along at a gait that pro¬ 
hibits his getting a true vision of the 
things lie passes, and his route is confined 
to the main traveled highways, which 
are almost invariably through the most 
uninteresting parts of the country. It is 
along the back roads that you find the 
natural beauty, and the horseman has the 
best of it there. Occasionally a motorist 
will take a chance on one of those back 
roads, but if he runs into bad going and 
has a breakdown he is in a serious fix, 
possibly miles from a telephone, and if he 
does finally get in touch with a garage 
man the independent cuss will be hard to 
persuade to leave his easy roadside har¬ 
vest and go away off to a disagreeable 
job. 
But you cannot always be sure of the 
character of the road in advance. You 
start out on what seems a main-traveled 
highway that looks as if it would con¬ 
tinue of the same character clear across 
the State, but nowadays practically every 
farmer owns a car, and after you have 
passed three or four of the farms where 
those ears have turned in you will find 
your road shrunk to a grass-grown track 
that looks as if it might come to an end 
at any minute. I was following one such 
road that had reached the grass stage 
when a party of motorists passed and 
asked directions. A little farther on I 
overtook them at a fork in the road and 
they were uncertain which to take. The 
one we were on kept straight ahead, and 
another forked off to the right. The 
driver got out to investigate the right- 
hand turn and I think they must have 
taken that, for I saw nothing more of 
them. I kept straight ahead. I hope 
they got through without mishap, for they 
would have been in difficulties if they had 
continued in my direction. About a quar¬ 
ter of a mile further on the road was 
completely overgrown with brush, tall 
bushes that I had to part with my arms 
to ride through. An automobile top 
would have been torn to rags. On the 
horse, however. I was able to proceed, 
and in a short time came out on a beauti¬ 
ful wood road that followed the course of 
a mountain stream and took me by the 
most attractive route to the point for 
which I was headed. 
If you are out simply for a pleasure 
trip, and time is no object, it is of no 
consequence that you go astray occasion¬ 
ally. Those variations from the route 
often develop into the most interesting 
features of a -trip. I never tie myself 
down to an arbitrary schedule, but keep 
open to new developments along the route. 
It is the element of adventure that gives 
most interest to.the trip. 
As I remarked earlier, one gets away 
from his own problems by interesting him¬ 
self in those he encounters along the way, 
and in- that section one comes constantly 
in touch with subjects that are always 
under discussion in The R. N.-Y. I had 
seen an advertisement of an abandoned 
farm for sale in the neighborhood through 
which I was going, and I arranged my 
route to investigate it. I stopped at the 
town where the owner lived and got direc¬ 
tions from him. Being on horseback, I 
was enabled to take a short cut through 
an old woods road which made it all the 
more interesting. If I had not been in¬ 
formed that it was an old road there 
would have been a doubt in my mind of 
being on the right track, but the owner 
had drawn a very simple and accurate 
map, and I went as direct to the place as 
if I had been there many times before. 
The road, a rough one. ran for several 
miles through woods that seemed un¬ 
touched by civilization. The few open 
spaces were covered with high-bush huck¬ 
leberries that would have yielded bushels 
of fruit. In that stretch of several miles 
a small abandoned farm was the only hu¬ 
man touch except the road itself. I 
emerged from the woods at a farm that 
adjoined the one for which I was looking. 
The advertised property had evidently 
been long abandoned as there were no 
buildings, nor, as far as 1 explored, re¬ 
mains of any. It comprised approxi¬ 
mately 250 acres, and a great part of it 
was covered with a fine growth of timber 
of great variety. The remainder was 
largely overgrown with brush. Roads 
had become obliterated and, going too far 
in my explorations, I really got lost. The 
growth was so thick that it was impos¬ 
sible to penetrate except at a few points, 
■ August 1”, 1021 
and I had considerable difficulty in work¬ 
ing back to the outlet. 
As a commercial proposition the place 
seemed to have possibilities, and it brings 
up the point that is often made in these 
columns—that sheep are the solution of 
the abandoned farm problem in New 
England. Especially is that true in this 
case. The character of the land is too 
rough and the growth of brush too exten¬ 
sive to be favorable to cattle. But it 
seems to me that a flock of sheep could 
be turned in there to advantage and effect 
a partial clearing of the land ; then the 
timber farmed judiciously—the best mar¬ 
ketable stuff cut out and that which was 
not ripe for cutting allowed to stand and 
develop. The partial clearing effected by 
the sheep, instead of an expense, would 
yield a profit in wool and mutton, and the 
land be left in better shape for develop¬ 
ment. Not that the land could be brought 
to a highly productive state for farming. I 
judge, for the locality is too rocky and 
rough to repay the effort necessary to de¬ 
velop it. Cleared parts might be suitable, 
only for pasturage. But it seems to me 
that the initial sheep operation and the 
thinning out of the timber ought to return 
a_ good profit on the price asked, aud the 
timber be left as a permanent c-rop. 
This was one of many abandoned farms 
I saw on the journey. There seems to be 
a larger percentage of them in that part 
of Massachusetts than any section of the 
country I have traveled. On one stretch 
of road for several miles there were only 
abandoned farms. In practically all cases 
sheep seem the only possibility until the 
land could be brought back into a state 
of fertility, for the soil seems to have 
been completely exhausted. I wonder if 
any philanthropic capitalist could ever be 
brought to understand what an intensely 
interesting game it would be to take up a 
lot of that worn-out land and. with the 
use of lime. Sweet clover, etc., bring it 
back to a fine state of productivity. It 
should pay a profit, too. in the end. but 
the poor man could not attempt it. Cap¬ 
ital and time are required. 
When I finally emerged from the tangle 
of undergrowth and forest in which I had 
been lost I stopped at the adjoining farm 
for a drink of water. You know how it 
is in fiction when the traveler stops at one 
of those remote habitations; a lovely 
young woman appears. But in real life 
it is usually a shabby old man in dirty 
overalls. In this case, however, the fic¬ 
tion writer could have asked for no better 
object for the use of his descriptive ad¬ 
jectives. It was an undeniably lovely 
young woman who came out. She won- 
one of those simple apron dresses, and 
was as crisp and fresh and good to look 
at as a ripe peach. Middle-aged and mar¬ 
ried as I am. I took more than the strictly 
necessary time to ask information about 
the road I wanted to take. The direc¬ 
tions she gave me were correct, but later 
on three people in succession sent me 
wrong, so that I circled completely about 
and reached in the evening a place I had 
passed through in the morning. It did 
not matter in this case, for I did not 
travel over the same road, and I was not 
traveling against time, but imagine how 
exasperating that sort of thing is when 
you want to get some place directly. 
There were no stable accommodations 
at the inn where I stopped overnight, and 
I had to get a farmer on the outskirts of 
the village to put up my horse. Tie asked 
only 50 cents, but I told him the livery 
stables all chargd a dollar for the some 
service,_ so we compromised on 75 cents. 
At the inn, though, they charged me some¬ 
what more than customary for rather 
poorer service. 
The next morning my road followed tin- 
course ot a mountain stream which was 
lined with abandoned factories—a con¬ 
dition that is noticeable all through tin- 
Berkshire country. These smaller fac¬ 
tories have evidently been crowded out of 
existence by larger organizations in tin- 
cities, and this natural water power 
is going to waste, while the fast vanish¬ 
ing coal supply is being unnecessarily de¬ 
pleted for power in the city plants. Tin- 
former houses of the operatives stand un¬ 
occupied. the occupants having been 
forced from this healthy atmosphere to 
the congested life of the town. It seems 
to me that industry has become too highly 
centralized and specialized. This has be¬ 
come too completely a mechanical age 
Machines now dominate mankind, instead 
of being his servants. It is an absolute 
conviction with me that most of the labor 
unrest of today is traceable to that. Most 
labor has become so purely mechanical 
that men have lost all joy in the work, 
and find it mere drudgery. And if a 
man is engaged in factory work are not 
his chances of happiness much greater if 
he has hi.s own home and garden there in 
the mountains, than if he went from his 
work at the factory to that mockery of a 
home, the city tenement? 
All of this Berkshire country is beauti¬ 
ful. especially if you keep away from the 
main automobile roads, and as an artist I 
never tire of it. If I could have spared 
the time I would have liked to spend a 
month or more on this last trip, but even 
the week I allowed myself was cut short. 
The heat became so intense that I had to 
return home at the end of the fifth day. 
And this extraordinarily prolonged period 
of hot humidity continues after more than 
three weeks of it already. It is the at¬ 
mosphere of a swamp rather than of the 
mountains. I can recall nothing like it. 
Even with the unfavorable weather the 
trip was most enjoyable, but imagine 
what a delight it is in fine weather. 
II. W. T. 
