1498 
7bt  RURAL.  NEW-YORKER 
It  can  hardly  be  called  a  red  letter  day 
in  the  history  of  Hope  Farm  when  the  18 
veteran  Red  hens  came  back  from  the 
Bergen  County  egg-laying  contest.  Half 
a  dozen  of  them  deserved  gold  medals, 
perhaps,  but  most  of  the  others  had  not 
earned  the  right  to  live  and  wear  even  a 
leather  medal.  They  came  back  in  their 
crate — laying  two  eggs  on  the  way.  Nine 
of  them  were  selected  for  next  year’s 
breeding ;  the  others  were  quickly  entered 
for  the  final  race  toward  the  oven  or  the 
frying  pan — the  proper  goal  for  all  lazy 
hens.  Three  years  ago  we  entered  20 
Red  birds — each  one  sent  by  a  farm  wom¬ 
an  as  the  pick  of  her  flock.  They  came 
from  all  over,  and  of  course  this  meant 
20  different  types  of  hens,  and  they  sure¬ 
ly  were  a  mixed  lot  as  to  color,  shape  and 
appearance.  A  few  of  them  did  quite 
well  in  their  pullet  year,  but  as  a  whole 
the  pen  ranked  low.  The  second  year 
this  pen  was  used  for  a  breeding  test.  I 
supplied  a  cockerel,  and  an  effort  was 
made  to  obtain  one  pullet  from  each  hen, 
to  be  used  in  a  third  year  test.  This  was 
found  impossible ;  some  of  the  hens  pro¬ 
duced  no  pullets  at  all.  The  best  they 
could  do  was  to  enter  17  pullets  from 
three  or  four  of  the  hens.  In  order  to  fill 
out  the  10  required  to  make  up  the  pen 
I  added  three  pullets  from  our  own  stock, 
and  they  started  on  the  long  race. 
***** 
I  confess  that  I  had  little  confidence  in 
their  ability  to  make  even  a  fair  show¬ 
ing.  Their  mothers  had  acted  more  like 
flappers  during  their  college  course.  They 
looked  to  me  like  a  group  of  girls  who 
employed  their  opportunity  at  college  just 
to  have  a  good  time  and  to  get  through 
with  as  little  exertion  as  possible.  The 
father  was  just  a  plain  Red  bird  from  our 
own  stock.  II is  pedigree  was  good,  and 
he  showed  his  bringing  up  in  good  size 
and  willingness  to  fight  any  roosters  in 
the  neighborhood.  That  seemed  a  good 
quality  if  you  want  spirit  and  determina¬ 
tion  in  your  pullets.  For  I  think  the 
mind  and'  the  spirit  have  much  to  do  with 
egg  laying.  Whoever  saw  a  fat,  com¬ 
placent  lunkhead  of  a  hen  that  made  a 
large  egg  record,  even  with  lights,  bal¬ 
anced  rations  and  all  the  other  stage  ac¬ 
cessories?  Such  birds  may  eat  a  bushel 
of  grain  or  sing  half  the  day,  but  if  their 
father  was  a  bird  that  ran  when  he  saw  a 
larger  rooster  coming,  his  daughter  will 
show  much  the  same  fear  when  it  comes 
to  entering  a  nest !  Honestly,  if  I  could 
have  taken  my  birds  out  at  the  beginning 
of  the  third  year  I  should  have  felt  in¬ 
clined  to  do  so,  for  on  the  record  of  their 
mothers  I  had  little  faith  in  them.  Be¬ 
fore  now  many  a  man  has  been  forced 
into  battle  against  his  great  desire  to 
dodge  and  run,  only  to  find  that  the  other 
man  was  worse  scared  than  he  was — yet 
few  of  them,  as  they  stand  victors  after 
the  battle,  are  willing  to  be  honest  and 
confess  their  fear. 
***** 
At  any  rate  our  pullets  started,  and  to 
my  astonishment  they  dashed  to  the  front 
at  once.  While  most  of  the  pens  seemed 
to  waste  their  time  in  preliminaries,  Pen 
15  started  off  like  a  whirlwind,  and  all 
through  the  earlier  months  they  shelled 
out  the  eggs  like  a  snowstorm.  They  kept 
this  lead  up  all  through  the  Summer,  and 
my  folks  began  to  think  that  perhaps  I 
had  a  strain  of  Red  hens  after  all.  As 
for  me,  I  have  seen  many  curious  years 
go  under  the  bridge,  and  I  have  seen 
many  a  race  go  by.  I  never  bet  on  a 
horse  but  once  in  my  life.  That  was  at 
a  cattle  show  nearly  50  years  ago.  The 
race  was  between  a  black  and  a  gray.  As 
they  came  into  the  last  quarter  the  black 
was  five  rods  ahead.  It  looked  like  a 
sure  thing,  and  I’ll  confess  that  I 
bet  all  I  had  on  him.  Then  something 
happened.  The  black  suddenly  quit.  The 
driver  whipped  him,  but  the  poor  beast 
was  done.  He  had  shot  his  bolt.  The 
gray  just  passed  him  as  though  he  were 
standing  still  and  went  over  the  line  far 
ahead.  There  the  poor  black  stood,  with 
hanging  head,  breathing  like  a  black¬ 
smith’s  bellows,  while  the  gray  pranced 
back  as  if  to  say  “If  there  is  any  other 
game  you  can  play  I’m  ready  for  you  !” 
And  an  old  nfan  patted  me  on  the 
shoulder  and  gave  me  this  consoling  ad¬ 
vice;  ,  ... 
“Sonny,  don’t  bet  on  no  horse  till  you 
know  what  liis  mother  and  grandmother 
done.  The  black’s  mother  always  was  a 
quitter,  while  the  gray’s  mother  would 
die  before  she  quit.” 
I  remembered  that  all  last  Summer 
when  my  folks  were  inclined  to  brag  a 
little.  1  felt  in  my  heart  that  half  of 
my  birds  were  quitters,  like  the  black 
horse,  and  I  knew  that  several  other  pens 
of  Reds  had  several  generations  of  layers 
back  of  them. 
***** 
Well,  it  turned  out  somewhat  like  the 
black  and  the  gray.  About  the  middle  of 
August  half  of  my  birds  just  threw  up 
the  race  and  quit  cold.  I  hate  to  admit 
it.  but  somehow  they  felt  that  their  duty 
was  done,  and  when  a  hen  feels  that 
way  it’s  all  over.  About  half  a  dozen  of 
my  birds  worked  a  little  harder  to  help 
me  out,  but  there  were  not  enough  of 
them,  and  slowly,  but  surely  as  fate.  Pen 
17  crawled  up  and  finally  passed  into  the 
lead.  The  birds  in  this  Pen  17  have  been 
scientifically  bred  and  selected  for  several 
generations'.  My  pen  was  No.  2  in  the 
list  of  all  the  Reds  at  the  contest,  but  I 
am  satisfied  that  the  best  pen  won.  But 
here  are  the  individual  figures.  You  can 
see  how  we  were  beaten.  These  are  of¬ 
ficial  figures  from  the  college  at  New 
Brunswick ; 
Birds 
Produc¬ 
tion 
Mother 
Pullet 
Production 
Scarlet  Runner.  . 
...  195 
140 
Anna  May  . 
.  .  225 
181 
Flapper  . 
9 
140 
Lonesome  . 
.  .  127 
157 
Gay  Girl  . 
. . .  221 
194 
Rosie  . 
.  .  230 
194 
Bonnie  . 
.  .  124 
140 
Columbine  . 
.  .  211 
194 
Red  Daughter  .  .  . 
..  217 
140 
Glory  . 
Tip  . 
. .  134* 
•  •  • 
.  .  218 
194 
Top  . 
. .  139* 
•  •  • 
Marigold  . 
...  138 
174 
V  erbena  . 
.  .  163 
174 
Girlie  . 
.  .  130 
194 
Primrose  . 
40 
139 
Robbob  . 
.  .  201 
139 
Henrietta  . 
.  .  147 
Betty  Red  . 
.  .  156 
... 
Camellia  . 
..  102 
•  •  • 
*  Dead. 
The  total  production  was  3,302  eggs. 
There  were  175  eggs  laid  outside  the 
trap-nests. 
*•  *  *  *  * 
No  doubt  I  could  make  out  a  good 
alibi  by  pointing  to  the  records  of  Flap¬ 
per,  Primrose,  Camellia  and  Lonesome. 
These  birds  surely  did  not  take  after 
father.  But  that  is  the  world-old  excuse. 
Years  ago  a  farmer  invited  a  certain 
young  man  to  come  and  hear  his  boy 
recite  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  I  con¬ 
fess  that  this  young  man  was  not  inter¬ 
ested  in  the  sermon,  but  as  he  was  inter¬ 
ested  in  the  farmer’s  daughter  he  pre¬ 
pared  to  listen.  But  something  went 
wi'ong  with  the  boy.  He  got  as  far  as 
“And  seeing  the  multitude,”  and  then  he 
broke  down.  The  father  was  disappoint¬ 
ed,  but  he  got  out  of  it  in  the  usual  way. 
“Too  bad — he  takes  after  his  mother — 
what  can  you  expect  from  the  Parsons 
family?”  Perhaps  some  of  the  eggs  laid 
outside  the  nest  came  from  these  drones, 
but  even  if  these  outside  eggs  were  di¬ 
vided  equally  between  them  they  could 
not  be  saved  fi'om  the  drone  class.  And 
to  think  that  Flapper  and  Anna  May  are 
own  sisters.  They  may  have  talked  it 
over  during  the  contest. 
Anna  Mai/ — You  ought  to  be  ashamed 
of  yourself,  Flapper.  Have  you  no  pride! 
Pen  15  would  lead  the  nation  if  you  and 
Lonesome  and  Primrose  would  only  work. 
Flapper — What  good  would  it  do  us  to 
work  so  hard?  We  shall  end  up  as  food 
for  this  man,  anyway  !  Why  worry  and 
work,  when  they  keep  good  food  before 
us  all  the  time?  What  do  we  get  out 
of  it? 
Anna  May — But  our  children  and 
grandchildren  will  be  famous.  Have  you 
no  pride  in  sending  your  name  down  to 
posterity  as  a  great  layer? 
Flapper — What  has  posterity  ever  done 
for  me,  I’d  like  to  know !  I’m  not  anx¬ 
ious  for  children.  What  will  your  chil¬ 
dren  do  for  you  when  you  finally  pass 
into  a  chicken  pie?  Will  this  man  even 
thank  you  for  half  killing  yourself  to 
make  a  big  record?  No,  sister,  you  can 
lay  yourself  dead  if  you  like.  I’ll  sing 
when  you  come  off  the  nest,  but  the  gay 
and  easy  life  for  me. 
***** 
So  much,  for  the  drones,  but  there  is 
another  side  to  it.  See  what  the  eight 
workers  did : 
Eggs 
Scarlet  Runner  .  195 
Anna  May  .  225 
Gay  Girl  .  221 
Rosie  .  230 
Columbine  .  211 
Red  Daughter  .  217 
Tip  .  218 
Robbob  .  201 
1,718 
That  means  an  average  of  215  eggs, 
and  I  think  it  is  the  record  for  eight  Red 
hens  at  the  contest.  On  the  other  hand, 
I  am  aware  that  151  for  Flapper,  Prim¬ 
rose  and  Camellia  is  about  the  limit  for 
drones.  You  may  draw  your  own  con¬ 
clusions  from  all  this.  I  have  reserved 
the  eight  hens  named  above,  and  Ver¬ 
bena  (163)  for  next  year’s  breeding  pen, 
and  they  will  be  mated  with  a  cockerel  of 
nearly  the  full  breeding  of  the  father  of 
these  pullets.  I  have  a  number  of  these 
cockerels,  all  from  the  best  hens,  selected 
year  after  year  from  the  egg-laying  con¬ 
tests.  It  is  rather  hard  to  select  the  best 
of  them.  I  do  not  pay  great  attention  to 
markings  or  showroom  qualities,  but  we 
depend  on  pedigree  and  egg-laying  quali¬ 
ties  of  mother  and  grandmother — just  as 
the  old  man  said  about  the  black  and  the 
gray.  I  think  my  pen  did  well,  consider¬ 
ing  the  quality  of  the  mothers.  My  cock¬ 
erels  now  have  several  generations  of  se¬ 
lected  egg-laying  records  back  of  them, 
and  next  year  I  expect  to  come  back  with 
a  pen  of  pullets  from  the  nine  selected 
birds  of  this  year’s  pen  that  I  hope  will 
not  falter  on  the  homestretch.  It’s  an 
interesting  game.  The  Red  hens  suit  us, 
and  we  will  enter  the  ring  next  year  for 
a  new  race.  Last  year’s  experience  con¬ 
vinces  me  that  we  can  improve  the  egg- 
laying  quality  of  any  flock  of  Reds  with 
one  of  our  cockerels,  if  the  mothers  have 
anything  to  build  on.  I  think  these  con¬ 
tests  are  developing  new  types  of  birds  in 
most  of  the  established  breeds.  The  egg- 
laying  type  is  quite  different  from  the 
bird  which  scores  highest  at  the  poultry 
show.  H.  w.  C. 
Plymouth  County  (Mass.)  Notes 
“Go  West,  young  man,  and  grow  up 
with  the  country.” 
Probably  when  Horace  Greeley  said 
that  it  was  good  advice.  Don’t  you  be¬ 
lieve  for  an  instant,  however,  that  if  he 
were  here  today  he  would  be  selling  that 
line.  Much  more  likely  would  he  say, 
“Stay  East  and  build  up  the  country.” 
The  Plymouth  County  Poultry  Associa¬ 
tion  held  the  regular  Fall  meeting  No¬ 
vember  10  at  the  town  hall,  Halifax, 
Mass.,  and  when  it  was  over  everyone 
felt  that  we  have  the  best  place  for  our 
work  in  the  world. 
Prof.  Win.  C.  Monahan  of  Massachu¬ 
setts  Agricultural  College  gave  a  very 
good  talk  on  “Breeding,”  in  the  morning. 
He  told  us  that  the  college  had  produced 
a  Red  hen  that  laid  301  eggs  in  a  year, 
the  first  Red  hen  known  to  lay  300  eggs 
in  one  year.  He  showed  some  of  the 
things  that  must  be  guarded  against  in 
our  breeding  for  higher  laying,  and  some 
of  the  things  that  we  do  not  know  much 
about,  but  on  the  whole  he  left  us  feeling 
that  old  Massachusetts  had  made  a  pret¬ 
ty  good  start  towards  a  place  in  the  sun 
as  a  poultry  producer  of  the  better  kind. 
The  foundation  for  a  circle  of  breeders 
within  the  association  that  would  work 
with  the  college  and  under  their  guidance, 
for  better  fowl,  was  laid  and  several 
joined  there.  Work  will  start  with  the 
coming  hatching  season. 
In  the  afternoon  Prof.  Roy  Jones  of 
Storrs,  Conn.,  gave  his  talk  on  the  Pa¬ 
cific  Coast  breeders.  Prof.  Jones  has  a 
good  line  of  slides  to  illustrate  his  talk 
that  he  made  from  views  taken  there. 
He  told  us  of  their  work  in  breeding  and 
the  conditions  under  which  they  have  to 
work.  When  he  finished  he  left  us  all 
feeling  that  we  wouldn’t  trade  our  worst 
scrub  pasture  for  the  whole  west  coast. 
He  said  in  part'  that  Petaluma  claimed 
6,000,000  hens  that  laid  600,000.000  eggs. 
That  is  only  100  eggs  per  bird.  We 
wouldn’t  think  much  of  a  bird  that  didn’t 
lay  more  than  that.  He  showed  clearly 
that  it  is  only  the  fact  that  they  do  busi¬ 
ness  in  such  a  large  volume  that  makes 
it  possible  for  them  to  live.  When  fig¬ 
ured  down  to  brass  tacks  it  is  mostly  real 
estate  increased  valuation  that  is  making 
the  showing  now.  In  comparing  the  hen 
population  of  Petaluma  with  us,  he  said 
that  the  best  he  could  do  was  to  state 
that  they  had  6,000.000  hens  in  that 
town.  The  town  is  about  the  size  of  the 
average  town  in  New  England.  In  all 
New  England  there  are  at  present  about 
6,000,000  hens.  Imagine  putting  all  of 
December  8,  1923 
the  hens  in  New  England  in  one  of  our 
towns,  and  you  have  the  idea  of  Petaluma 
brought  home.  Another  point  that  was 
made  was  that  if  any  of  our  poultrymen 
should  go  out  there  and  carry  on  the  bus¬ 
iness  on  the  scale  that  we  do  here  he 
would  soon  starve.  If  the  Western  man 
should  come  on  here  and  do  as  they  are 
doing  out  there  he  would  soon  be  rich. 
Lying  on  my  desk  is  a  small  advertis¬ 
ing  booklet  from  Easthampton.  I  take 
tiie  following  from  that:  “The  thoughts 
of  Coolidge,  when  real  occasions  pry  them 
loose,  are,  in  their  direct,  clear,  common 
sense,  not  unlike  the  expressions  of  Lin¬ 
coln,  or  the  charm  of  the  Bible.  Briefly 
beautiful  and  beautifully  brief.  Coolidge 
drives  home  the  fact — it  is  up  to  you,” 
Prof.  Jones  left  us  with  that  same  idea. 
Ihe  conditions  here  are  in  no  way  worse 
than  on  the  Pacific  Coast,  and  in  many 
ways  we  are  vastly  better  located  to  do  a 
Paymg  business  in  farming  of  all  kinds 
that  depend  on  values  rather  than  boost- 
ln&-  E.  T.  WOOD. 
Notes  from  the  Ox-team  Express 
A  Reclamation  Project. — We  are 
now  passing  through  the  southern  part  of 
Idaho,  the  town  of  American  Falls.  Here 
the  U.  S.  Reclamation  Service  is  now 
constructing  one  of  the  world’s  greatest 
dams,  which  will  create  the  largest  arti¬ 
ficial  body  of  water  in  the  world.  The 
government  will  or  has  already  bought 
the  town  properties,  and  the  natives 
must  move  back  on  the  hills,  or  leave,  for 
when  the  dam  is  finished  the  level  of  the 
water  will  be  about  40  ft.  above  what  is 
now  the  main  street.  This  is  to  make 
use  of  the  water  of  Snake  River  for  irri¬ 
gation.  This  is  supposed  to  irrigate 
thousands  of  acres  of  now  dry  lands. 
The  excavation  and  grading  have  not  yet 
started  that  we  could  see,  but  the  surveys 
havebeen  made  along  the  highway  for  30 
to  40  miles.  Ditches  no  doubt  will  bring 
the  land  again  into  cultivation. 
Deserted  Farms.  —  There  are  evi- 
dences  in  plenty  here  that  these  lands 
were  farmed,  but,  alas,  what  tales  of  woe 
the  people  could  tell  who  tried  it ! 
Every  place  is  abandoned.  Some  places 
had  nice  homes,  barns,  windmills,  and 
were  fenced  and  cross-fenced,  but  now 
the  buildings  are  going  to  waste.  Even  a 
large  grain  elevator  is  going  the  way  of 
the  individual  farms.  The  land  that  was 
tilled  is  now  growing  Russian  thistle,  and 
even  that  is  sparse.  Nothing  left  of 
fences  except  here  and  there  a  post  and 
barbed  wire  lying  about  the  fields  and 
along  the  highway.  People  tell  me  they 
used  to  grow  50  bushels  of  wheat  to  the 
acre  on  the  virgin  soil,  but  now  it  will 
not  grow  enough  to  feed  a  jackrabbit.  I 
believe  that  is  true,  because  we  never 
saw  one,  or  birds  either. 
Why  Reclaim  This  Land? — But 
why,  I  am  wondering,  why  is  the  gov¬ 
ernment  spending  these  vast  millions  to 
reclaim  these  lands  to  grow  wheat,  when 
we  now  grow  more  wheat  than  the  world 
can  absorb?  Aren’t  the  wheat  farmers 
now  howling  for  markets,  while  their  own 
children  are  crying  for  bread?  This,  as 
I  see  it,  will  be  a  fine  piece  of  engineer¬ 
ing  work,  and  make  some  work  for  two 
or  three  years,  but  if  I  can  see  beyond 
the  tip  of  my  nose  it’s  going  to  be  fine 
pickings  for  some  few  people,  and  when 
finished  the  loan  companies  who  now  own 
the  lands  they  took  away  from  those  who 
tried  to  farm  it  once  before,  will  again 
do  some  fine  plucking.  I  understand  in 
most  cases  when  those  people  abandoned 
the.  farms  they  simply  hiked  away;  left 
their  cattle,  horses,  and  sometimes  fam¬ 
ilies,  and  this  must  be  so,  as  we  see  evi¬ 
dences  of  it.  We  have  camped  at  these 
places  several  nights,  and  we  see  it. 
Sugar  Beets. — We  are  now  passing 
through  an  irrigated  section.  Here  the 
farmers  grow  mostly  hay,  Alfalfa  and 
sugar  beets.  The  beets  are  now  going  to 
the  beet  dumps,  as  they  call  it.  Every 
few  miles  along  the  railroad  the  sugar 
factories  have  a  loading  station.  Here 
the  farmers  haul  the  beets  and  dump 
them  into  a  large  hopper,  get  their  tickets 
of  the  weight,  and  run  away  for  some 
more,  and  on  Nov.  15  they  get  their  first 
payment.  $5.50  per  ton.  After  the  beets 
are  off  the  sheep  come  and  eat  the  tops. 
The  Sheep  Country. — Now  we  are  in 
the  midst  of  the  sheep.  All  along  the 
route  we  see  hei'd  after  herd.  It  looks 
rather  nice  to  the  eye  to  see  two  or  three 
thousand  sheep  promenading  through  the 
fields,  but  how  it  looks  as  a  money¬ 
maker  is  different.  I  have  been  making 
some  observations  of  my  own  about  this 
sheep  business,  and  come  to  the  conclu¬ 
sion  that  our  American  banker  is  some 
institution.  Surely  the  mills  of  the  gods 
grind  fine,  and  the  banker  is  a  wonderful 
mill.  He  fixes  the  price  for  the  farmer, 
who  grows  the  feed  for  the  sheep ;  he 
fixes  the  price  for  the  man  who  feeds  the 
sheep,  and  he  fixes  the  price  for  the  one 
who  buys  the  sheep,  and  from  each  he 
takes  a  toll.  J.  c.  berrang. 
Mr.  Robert  Kettle,  who  was  a  tem¬ 
perance  missionary  in  Glasgow,  one 
morning  left  a  few  tracts  with  a  young 
lady,  and  calling  at  the  same  house  a  few 
days  later  was  rather  disconcerted  at  ob¬ 
serving  his  tracts  doing  duty  as  curl¬ 
papers  on  the  damsel’s  head.  “Weel.  my 
lassie,”  he  remarked,  “I  see  you  have 
used  the  tracts  I  left  wi’  ye ;  but,”  he  add¬ 
ed,  in  time  to  turn  confusion  into  merri¬ 
ment,  “ye  have  putten  them  on  the  wrang 
side  o’  your  heid,  my  woman !” — Glasgow 
News. 
This  is  Vallera  June  Connors.  The  reader  who  sent  the  photograph  labeled  it  “A 
Ray  of  Sunshine  from  Dutchess  County,  N.  Y.” 
