252 
JOURNAL  OR  BORTIGULTURR  AND  COTTAOR  GARUmDR. 
March  17,  1898. 
I  had  no  difficulty  whatever  with  the  lamp.  The  great  point  is 
careful  trimming  and  cleaning,  and  freedom  from  dust  in  the  perforated 
parts.  It  is  a  wise  plan  to  have  a  stated  time  to  attend  to  these  little 
matters,  and  I  do  not  suppose  I  vary  in  my  visit  to  the  incubator 
room  ten  minutes  a  week.  The  machine  is  in  a  great  bedroom 
(unused,  of  course)  facing  south.  Every  morning  the  eggs  must  be 
turned  and  cooled.  The  time  varies  from  ten  to  twenty  minutes, 
according  to  the  weather  and  the  stage  of  incubation. 
There  is  a  water  tray  below  the  egg  drawer,  containing  perforated 
zinc  covered  with  a  coarse  piece  of  canvas ;  this  must  be  kept  well 
wetted  to  supply  the  necessary  moisture  to  the  eggs.  Now  1  read  in 
my  book  that  once  a  week  it  would  be  well  to  thoroughly  scald  tray 
and  cloth,  to  kill  any  bacteria  there  might  be,  so  with  my  kettle  of 
water  I  proceeded  to  business ;  returning  the  tray  immediately  to  its 
position  below  the  eggs,  I  closed  the  drawer  and  left. 
In  about  two  hours’  time  I  was  in  the  room  for  some  purpose,  and 
to  my  horror  saw  the  drawer  tube  stocd  at  The  eggs  were  in 
a  bath  of  perspiration,  and  I  perspired  too.  For  days  the  thought 
haunted  me,  “  had  I  steamed  the  innocent  embryos  to  death  ?  ”  The 
sequel  proved  I  had  done  no  harm.  About  the  testing  on  the  seventh 
day.  Book  in  hand  I  set  to  work,  but  so  afraid  was  I  of  erring  on 
the  wrong  side  that  many  of  the  eggs  were  marked  X  to  denote 
doubtful.  At  the  fourteenth  day  I  was  better  up  to  my  work,  or 
rather,  perhajs,  the  eggs,  being  more  advanced,  showed  themselves 
more  clearly.  Now  I  do  not  think  I  should  make  a  mistake  of  more 
than  2  or  3  per  cent.  Those  that  we  removed  were  perfectly  clear 
and  apparently  fresh,  but  I  feel  sure  that  some  had  been  subjected  to 
several  degrees  of  frost  before  being  placed  in  the  incubator.  This  did 
not  strike  me  at  the  time,  but  remembering  that  all  eggs  are  placed 
close  to  a  dairy  window,  which  is  never  shut  day  or  night,  I  think 
this  fact  might  account  for  some  failures. 
On  the  evening  of  the  twentieth  day  there  were  voices  to  be 
hearl,  and  on  the  twenty-first  the  drawer  presented  a  lively  spectacle* 
A  100-egg  machine  is  fitted  with  a  drying  box,  into  which  the 
little  chirpers  were  at  once  placed.  A  bit  of  sand  makes  a  clean 
wholesome  flooring.  No  food  should  be  given  for  at  least  twenty- 
four  hours,  when  the  birds  will  be  ready  for  removal  to  another 
sphere.  A  ]iroper  foster  mother  is  costly,  so  my  wits  were  set  to 
work,  and  a  nice  little  loose  box  was  rigged  up  over  the  hot-water 
pipes  in  a  greenhouse  ;  the  floor  was  for  the  most  part  dry  earth,  and 
the  plants  those  homely  ones  that  do  not  need  much  water  in  winter. 
Here  the  chickens  lived  and  thrived,  sitting  at  nights  and  during 
dull  parts  of  the  day  between  the  hot  pipes.  A  small  hole  was  made 
out  of  the  greenhouse  on  to  the  lawn  facing  south,  and  a  wire  feeder 
put  in  front  to  prevent  wanderers  straying  too  far.  In  this  way  the 
birds  were  hardened  till  ready  to  go  out  to  grass  (literally),  and  their 
refuge  then  from  the  night  air  was  a  rough  box,  with  a  guarded  stable 
lamp  in  the  middle — plenty  of  ventilation.  A  friend  had  lost  many 
chickens  by  too  much  coddling;  they  had  what  I  fancy  might 
correspond  to  black -leg  in  calves.  They  did  too  well,  and  were 
kept  too  hot. 
Now  as  to  fo’d.  The  first  was  the  rejected  egg  of  the  incubator 
boiled  hard,  chopped  up  shell  and  all,  and  mixed  with  fine  meal ; 
then  all  sorts  of  kitchen  bits,  and  all  the  milk  I  could  come  at ;  green 
meat  in  the  shape  of  parsley,  and  the  trimmings  of  broccoli  boiled; 
and  once  or  twice  a  day  a  handful  of  small  dry  rice.  Some  people 
advocate  little  or  no  drink,  but  I  find  chickens  will  greedily  take  to 
milk,  and  surely  Nature  is  a  fairly  good  guide.  There  is  one  little 
hint  to  the  amateur — do  not  be  in  too  great  a  hurry  to  help  the  chick 
o  it  of  the  shell.  Too  much  inter'erence  is  fatal.  It  the  skin  appears 
hard  and  like  parchment,  I  had  found  it  a  good  plan  to  hold  the  egg 
in  warm  water ;  but  as  a  rule  those  chickens  that  cannot  get  out  of 
themselves  are  never  worth  much.  They  are  weak  in  vitality,  and 
the  first  bit  of  adversity  is  too  much  for  them. 
These  are  the  chickens  that  in  old  days  I  should  have  said  the 
careless  hen  had  killed.  She  is  wiser  than  we,  and  believes  only  in 
the  survival  of  the  fittest.  I  may  say,  in  conclusion,  that  my  common 
mixed  barndoor  fowls  gave  me  much  better  results  in  the  form  of 
chickens  than  the  well  bred  fancy  eggs  I  bought.  My  failures  worked 
out  to  about  16  per  cent.,  the  others  to  about  60  per  cent.  Need  I 
say  any  more  ? 
I  mention  the  failures  of  the  pure  strain  eggs,  because  as  lately  as 
Saturday  last  I  read  some  remarks  by  an  eminent  Shire  horse  breeder 
on  the  desirability  of  good  sires.  He  alluded  to  the  supineness  of 
farmers  (English)  in  the  poultry  yard,  and  advised  the  purchase  of 
pedigree  cockerels.  Now,  after  much  anxious  consideration,  I  have 
several  times  been  led  to  the  purchase  of  a  first-class  bird,  only  to 
mourn  his  premature  decease,  and  in  the  matter  of  eggs  I  think  my 
late  experience  has  been  anything  but  gratifying,  the  most  unsatis¬ 
factory  being  purchased  of  a  man  who  is  a  prizewinner,  and  who 
fancies  himself  not  a  little  as  a  poultry  raiser,  and  the  head  attendant 
in  the  above  mentioned  gentleman’s  stub 
WORK  ON  THE  HOME  FARM. 
Seed  timfi  and  harvest,  summer  and  winter.  So  go  the  seasons,  year 
after  year,  and  Barley  seed  time  is  at  our  door.  Barley  is  a  ticklish  crop, 
bad  to  deal  with,  and  needing  attention  all  the  way  throughout  its  career. 
You  are  never  assured  of  your  success  till  the  maltster’s  cheque  has  been 
acknowledged  by  your  banker.  Like  other  grain,  or  perhaps  more  so, 
the  seed  has  been  much  improved,  and  we  speak  advisedly  when  we 
recommend  a  liberal  policy  in  buying  the  seed.  If  Pedigree  straight  from 
the  raiser  cannot  be  afforded,  there  are  always  some  farmers  more  enter¬ 
prising  than  their  neighbours,  and  from  them  good  seed  may  be  obtained, 
second-hand  as  it  were. 
Still  it  is  curious,  with  all  the  named  varieties,  to  find  what  a  strong 
hold  Chevalier  has  on  our  affections.  Perhaps  it  is  because  it  is  so  well 
suited  to  medium  and  poor  soils  (we  do  not  all  have  tip-top  Barley  land), 
and  also  because  it  may  be  sown  any  time. 
“  Stand  well  ”  for  real  early  sowing,  and  on  the  land  that  produces 
the  heaviest  crop,  is  what  we  should  recommend  ;  but  the  custom  of  the 
country  is  an  excellent  guide,  both  as  to  varieties  and  time  of  sowing. 
March,  with  its  pecks  of  dust,  seems  in  the  course  of  things  the  legitimate 
Barley  month.  Of  course,  we  have  seen  March  when  there  was  absolutely 
no  suitable  seed  bed,  but  as  a  rule  we  may  depend  on  the  drying  winds 
doing  their  share  of  the  work.  We  are  always  in  favour  of  an  early  seed 
time,  for  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  the  early  sown  crop  proves  the  best. 
It  is  of  the  greatest  importance  that  the  sheep  should  have  been 
folded  evenly  on  the  previous  root  crop.  A  good  Turnip  shepherd  under¬ 
stands  his  duty,  but  the  master’s  eye  is  very  necessary.  We  have  so  often 
been  able  in  our  experience  to  trace  in  Barley  fields  any  neglect  of  this 
sort. 
It  is  possible,  too,  that  the  land  may  be  made  too  good  -  i.e.,  by  the 
lavish  use  of  cake.  If  a  heavy  rain  or  wind  storm  comes  about  the  end 
of  .June  or  early  July  down  goes  every  head,  the  straw  being  too  long, 
weak,  and  sappy.  Then,  again,  it  is  possible  to  overdo  the  seed.  Plants 
must  have  room  for  development,  and  with  a  good  seed  bed  underneath 
the  Barley  will  always  do  its  share.  We  have  talked  of  an  early  spring 
and  “  forrad  ”  season.  The  migratory  birds  do  not  say  so.  They  have 
come  to  us  at  least  a  fortnight  after  their  usual  date,  and  birds  are  better 
weather  prophets  than  most  of  our  savants. 
We  have  been  surprised  to  learn  that  we  are  recommended  to  use  the 
light  tw’o-horse  drill  in  place  of  the  cumbersome  machine  that  required 
four  horses.  Now,  is  not  this  advice  a  bit  late  in  the  day  ?  We  have  not 
met  with  such  a  drill  for  many  a  long  day  ;  indeed,  we  expected  all  such 
had  long  ago  been  broken  up  for  the  sake  of  what  old  iron  they  contained 
and  the  rest  used  as  *•  kindling.” 
METEOROLOGICAL  OBSERVATIONS. 
Camden  Square  London. 
Lat.  .'ll®  32'  40"  N.;  Long.  0°  8'  0"  W.;  Altitude  111  feet. 
Date. 
9  A.M. 
In  the  Day. 
1898. 
Barometer 
at  32°,  and 
Sea  Level 
Hygrometer 
Direc¬ 
tion  of 
Wind. 
Temp 
of  soil 
at 
Shade  Tem¬ 
perature. 
Radiation 
Tempera¬ 
ture. 
Rain. 
March. 
Dry. 
Wet. 
1  foot 
Max. 
Min. 
In 
Sun 
On 
Grass 
Sunday  ....  6 
Monday  ....  7 
Tuesday  ....  8 
inchs 
29-762 
deg. 
37-2 
deg. 
33-8 
E. 
deg. 
37-7 
deg. 
42-1 
deg. 
27-8 
deg. 
61-1 
deg. 
22-6 
inchs. 
30-022 
37-0 
32-6 
N. 
37-0 
44-2 
28-9 
85-3 
23-1 
— 
30-030 
35-9 
32-8 
N.E. 
36-9 
40-1 
32-8 
47-2 
28-2 
— 
30-135 
39-1 
36-3 
N. 
36-9 
44-9 
36-1 
57-8 
33-0 
— 
Thursday  . .  10 
Friday .  11 
Saturday....  12 
30-250 
36-3 
34-1 
N. 
37  -7 
48-9 
31-1 
81-9 
26-6 
— 
30-241 
35-7 
34-9 
N. 
37-7 
47-1 
32-1 
77-6 
26-8 
— 
30-055 
38-0 
36-4 
N.E. 
37-9 
42-6 
35-9 
51-0 
28-0 
— 
30-071 
37-0 
34-4 
37-4 
44-3 
32-1 
66-0 
26*9 
— 
REMARKS. 
6th.— Fine  and  pleasant,  but  no  very  bright  sunshine  ;  clear  night. 
7tli.— A  little  sleet  early  ;  brilliant  from  sunrise  to  noon  ;  cloudy  after,  and  slight 
snow  after  3  p.m.  ;  overcast  evening. 
8th.— Bleak,  windy,  and  overcast  day  ;  bright  sunset. 
9th.  —Overcast  day  ;  gleam  of  sun  towards  sunset, 
loth.— Brilliant  morning  ;  fair  afternoon,  with  a  little  .sun  after  4  P.M. 
11th.— Overcast  morning  ;  fair  afternoon,  with  occasional  sunshine. 
12th.— Overcast  morning  ;  fair  afternoon  ;  fine  night. 
Another  cold  week,  temperature  very  uniform,  and  no  rain.— G.  J.  Symons. 
