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1 Dec., 1897.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 485 
WEIGHT OF A STACK. 
A ton of dry hay contains 400 cubic feet. To ascertain the weight of hay in 
a settled stack, multiply the length, breadth, and height of the stack together, 
and divide the result by 4.00. 
SETTING EGGS. . 
Mr. Tromas Jones, of the Government Savings Bank, gives it as his opinion, 
as an expert in poultry-breeding, that one should never give up a setting of 
eggs as a failure, and gives the following remarkable experience :—Ie set a hen 
on thirteen prize eggs on the ground. On the third morning he found that the 
hen had Benen one of the eggs, and had so covered the other twelve with 
dirt that they could not be seen, and, furthermore, she refused to sit again. 
He then placed the eggs under an old Brahma hen. She sat for a week, and 
then behaved like the first hen, covering the eggs with dirt, dying a day after 
the performance. Mr. Jones now divided the eggs, placing half under a hen 
belonging to a neighbour, and half under a little black Hamburg which only 
sat six days on them. The eggs were then placed under another strange hen. 
They had been twice washed with lukewarm water, had been under five different 
hens, had been moved to four different nests, and yet the whole twelve chicks 
came out, and are now doing well. They are Minoreas and Brown Leghorns. 
LECTURE ON POULTRY-KEEPING. 
Mr. A. EF. Hunter, of Boston, Massachusetts, addressing a meeting on 
poultry-keeping at the University Extension College, Reading, said that when 
he started in business, some fifteen years ago, he decided to engage himself in 
poultry-farming alone. At the present time he had about 500 hens, forming 
the laying stock, and some 2,000 chickens. He found during his travels that 
the methods introduced in his farm were somewhat new and unknown to many 
gentlemen whom he had consulted while in this country. It was possible by 
the method he had adopted to put 400 fowls on an acre of ground—an 
accomplishment which had been a great surprise to Britishers. Moreover, 
what proved a still greater astonishment to such gentlemen as Mr. Lewis 
Wright, was the fact that they were able to keep the grass growing in the runs 
which were prepared for the fowls. The houses used in poultry-farming were 
very large. In his own case the pens were 12 feet square, and able to com- 
fortably accommodate fifteen birds. In the front of each house he had 
erected a yard, commonly called a park, which was 18 feet wide and 125 feet 
long. Finding that the houses were too much closed up in certain times of 
the year, two years ago he had a door cut in each one of these pens about 4 feet 
square, and this he opened in the middle of the day for a few hours to 
thoroughly refresh the place. This had proved a great improvement. The 
scratching shed was built in sections, 18 feet by 10 feet, with doors arranged in 
front of each of the partitions. For convenience he had the front of the 
scratching shed covered with wire netting. Connected with the shed was a 
yard, 18 feet by 125 feet, and in the yard, with pen and shed attached, he put 
twenty-five birds with even better results in regard to production than in the 
other case already referred to. Last year a neighbour of his succeeded in 
raising 186 eggs per bird from about 300 pens, and they expected ere long to 
get 200 eggs per bird every year. During the past few weeks he had been 
going amongst English poultry farmers, and he found a rapidly growing 
interest being taken in this industry. What he came over for specially was 
to get some idea of the mode of fattening now in yogue in this country, and 
also the procedure followed in trussing. He hoped they would take it up in 
America on lines similar to those in. England. They considered they were 
doing well, but they hoped to do better.—AMark Lane Express. 
POULTRY-FARMING. , 
A FARMER in the current number of the Zand Magazine gives the results of 
poultry-keeping on a somewhat considerable scale. He has found that hens 
shut up in ample pens give the minimum of trouble, and Jay the maximum of 
