PRACTICAL EGG FARMS. 
and breeding stock, he usually has a thousand 
head, or even more, at the beginning of winter; 
but six hundred is his capacity. These he 
houses in families of about fifty, the pens being 
12x20 feet in size, each having a yard two rods 
wide by eight rods long. The houses are built 
forty feet long by twelve feet wide, and divided 
into two pens by a solid board partition, having 
a door to pass through. The houses have double 
pitch roofs; roofs are shingled, and walls double 
boarded, with building paper between the board¬ 
ings. The windows are noticeably small, two to 
a pen, of six lights of ten by fourteen glass. These 
are ample for light, and not large enough to 
lower the temperature so much as the big win¬ 
dows do, and Mr. Wyckoff, unlike many New 
York poultrymen, does not have stoves in his 
houses. He has sometimes had a male bird’s 
oomb nipped by frost, but never one of his hens. 
The houses have board floors, which he litters 
with straw, and there is an open space of ten or 
twelve feet between the ends of the houses. With 
a door in each end and one in the center partition 
he passes through each house, and from one 
house to the other, in feeding, collecting eggs, 
etc. It was a great pleasure to go through the 
pens at feeding time and look over the flocks of 
large sized fine White Leghorns. Mr. Wyckoff 
breeds for business, and calls his stock, “ busi¬ 
ness White Leghorns. ” He has made a record 
of one hundred and ninety-four eggs apiece a 
year from six hundred birds, and has built up 
his stock by carefully selecting his breeders for 
large size and great laying qualities; a more 
vigorous and thrifty looking lot of fowls one 
couldn’t find in a day’s journey. 
Mr. Wyckoff is a firm believer in green food, 
and feeds it regularly winter and summer, 
whether or not the fowls have grass runs. He 
says he has found, by actual test, that the egg 
yield increased substantially when he fed green 
food, and decreased when it was omitted. The 
chief reliance in summer is kale, but he begins 
with clover, feeding that until the kale gets a 
good start, then the latter is gathered and fed 
daily. Kale (or borecole) is one of the family 
of plants similar to cabbage, (but which do not 
boll), which are used for the boiled vegetable 
called “ greens, ” the leaves and stalks having a 
slightly aromatic taste. When the plants have 
got a good start the lower (oldest) leaves on the 
stalks are plucked and fed, the plant continuing 
to grow and produce more leaves, so that with 
a bed a rod wide by four or five rods long, a con¬ 
tinuous crop of green food may be hai vested till 
the ground is frozen. In Mr. Wyckoff’s garden 
the kale was planted in rows about two feet 
apart, and the plants stood about a foot apart 
in the rows. 
The eggs are shipped to a retail dealer in New 
York city, and bring a premium of from six to 
fourteen cents a dozen above the highest market 
quotation of the day of their arrival in New 
York. The highest price they have ever netted 
is fifty-one cents a dozen. He guarantees that 
the eggs are “ strictly fresh ” and, shipping them 
twice a week, (Mondays and Thursdays), the 
oldest eggs in the cases are but three or four days 
old when shipped. He has no difficulty in sell¬ 
ing all he can ship, and during the hatching 
months (practically April and May) he sells 
great numbers of eggs for hatching from selected 
breeders. 
This last branch of the business he has re¬ 
cently taken up, but its growth has been quite 
rapid. As he never sends birds to shows he has 
no show record to boast of—only the egg record 
and the high quality of his stock as “ business 
fowls. ” This is all that is necessary, as nine out 
of ten buyers want business fowls rather than 
prize winners; and Mr. Wyckoff can dispose of 
all he can spare—indeed, could dispose of a great 
many more, if he had them. 
It is curious to note how the growth of stock 
selling has interfered with his keeping accurate 
accounts of egg yield, etc. When he had little 
call for stock, he filled his pens with layers and 
recorded their egg yield. Now he puts many 
more birds in the pens, and is selling them off 
through the late fall and early winter. This not 
only interferes somewhat with the egg yield, but 
the numbers in the pens are frequently changing, 
and a reliable account of egg production per bird 
is impossible. In the spring, too, he wants one 
house for room for brooders and chickens, so the 
birds in that house are put into the others,crowd¬ 
ing them somewhat. Not only does this crowd¬ 
ing lower the egg yield, but moving the birds 
checks the laying. At the time of our visit, a 
brooder house 60x16 feet was being built in the 
pear orchard, east of the poultry buildings, and 
that brooder house will not only take the brood¬ 
ers and chicks in the spring, but will house in the 
fall two or three hundred head of sale stock also; 
such a house will repay for itself in one year. Mr. 
Wyckoff told us his sales of eggs for hatching and 
breeding stock together aggregated Si,800 last 
year. That is a “ business ” of itself. 
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