308 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. {1 Nov., 1902. 
give them bran and pollard mixed, moistened, but not sloppy. They will not 
require much water. In a fortnight they will be taken out for long rambles by 
the parents, and remain away nearly all day, but they are sure to turn up again 
allright before dark. Geese, of course, are bred for the market; therefore 
give them plenty of fattening food before selling them for the table. Give 
bran and pollard in the morning, wheat and maize at noon and at night. Give 
them as much as they can eat. With a good run and healthy birds you will 
have very little trouble with them, and they fetch good prices at Michaelmas 
and Christmas. 
I had intended to say something about incubators, but, should you wish to 
try your hand at artificial rearing, the sellers of the incubators will furnish you 
with printed directions how to succeed with them. So as this chapter has run 
to a great length, I will close it with the usual questions. 
Questions on Lesson 15. 
1. Show, by figures, the value of the poultry industry to a country as 
compared with that of the mining, pastoral, and agricultural industries. 
2. Name some of the best breeds of poultry for egg-production—for table 
purposes. : 
3. What ill effects result from in-and-in breeding ? 
4. How should a poultry-house be built? Of what materials? Why? 
5. Name some of the diseases of poultry and the remedies for them. 
6. How may eggs be preserved fresh for a long time? Which is the best 
preservative ? 
7. Describe the treatment of young chickens, ducklings, turkey poults, and 
geese, in respect of rearing, feeding, and housing. : 
16raH Lesson. 
THIRD STAGE. 
Now for a few words on the care of your farm implements. The want of 
care for all sorts of farm machinery is one of the greatest blots on too many 
farms in Queensland. You may be making a good thing out of your farm, but 
of what advantage is that to you if you lose your profits owing to mere care- 
lessness f It is not always what aman makes on a farm that enables him to 
show a profit at the year’s end, but it is what he wastes which will tell against 
that profit. Take machines such as reapers and binders, mowers, hayrakes, 
seed-drills, &c. ‘These all cost you a large sum of money, yet they may he seen 
either lying in the fields on the spot where they were last used, covered with 
mud and rust, exposed to all weathers, and remaining unpainted from year to 
year; or else they are put under cover in an open shed, where they serve as 
hen-roosts. ‘The best friend the agricultural implement maker has is the care- 
less farmer, If such a man were to reckon up the losses or, rather, the money 
he has paid to put his uncared-for machines in order and for the purchase of 
new machinery, he would scarcely credit the amount he has parted with, nearly 
all of which might have been saved by merely erecting a rough weather-tight, 
fowl-proof shed, in which his implements could be safely housed every 
evening, and where they would be secure from bad weather. A few shillings 
also expended in paint and oil would save pounds in the long run. You may, 
in some cases, actually see plough harness slipped off the horses’ backs and 
hung on to the plough, to remain there all night, or perhaps for days if the 
ground is too wet to plough. Imagine how delightful it must be when you 
hitch in your horses to the binder and find that the machine is all out of order 
—bolts loose, ironwork plugged up with rust, woodwork dried up and splitting. 
Then what a pleasure it is, with a 20-acre field of barley to cut, to find your- 
self careering round, or,as Mr. Lamb, a well-known farmer and machine-owner 
in the Warwick district says, wrestling with a neglected binder with a bottle 
of kerosene in one hand and a screw wrench in the other, trying to get the 
