Rocky Mountain husbandman. [volume] (Diamond City, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1881-08-25

sweetest of flesh, and the producer of the
highest Favored egg tor pastry or for eat
ing, he would fix upon the game fowl-the
red and brown kind But this
good stuff is done up in too small packages
to suit the poultry keeper who seeks profit
first OF all, and larger fowl must be selec-
ted Now, when one kind excels in one
point and another in different one, it is the
part OF wisdom to choose the two. The |
White Leghorn certainly stands first as
producer Of large, handsome, pure white
eggs and the light Brahma is first as table
Plymouth Rock should not be the first,
counting quality before size, and consump-
ton OF food as an important element. But,
so far as eggs are concerned, either of these
three will fill the bill when they are man
aged just right; and this brings us to the
second point, which is how to get plenty Of
eggs. Ii is With US matter of secondary
concern when the rush of eggs comes ln
We are not hankcring after an egg business
when the thermometer is down to zero, and
the new-laid egg freezes solid in ten min
utes, unless the owner il waiting IN an ante
room for its safe delivery, and Immediately
pounces upon it and carries 1t off before il
becomes cold. This does not pay, even at
80 cents a dozen, nor does it pay to keep a
fire in the poultry house and serve hot meals
three times a day to tie hens, and grind
bones for them, and keep their house swept
and garnished with great care, and disn-
tected and sW eetly scented with carboIic
acid. No farmer can fuss in that way with
his hens, and yet it is all nc ossary if one
wants eggs in winter. He may perhaps
keep few fowls in a warm corner of
basement cellar, and give them the run of
the barn and the granary, and SO procure
the good wife counts all profit, except for
the little corn which she throws to them
now and then in a perfunctery, but need
less manner. But if he will have many eggs
in the winter, he must have warm house
with glass front, dry sandy floor, warm
and, what is the most important, the winter
layers should have been permitted to brood
late in the summer, and SO have a resting
spell in precisely the same right time to be-
gin laying early in tue winter. And once
they have begun, every device known to
poultrymen must be used. to keep them
laying. Cold spells must be guarded against
by providing storm-proof house, and the
run of sunny shed, dry, clean, and we'll
litterep with chaf1, will be required, not
forgetting plenty of warm food. ..-
But the man in any business who makes
the most profit is the one who lessons most
the cost OF his product. And the poultry
man who will get rich next winter and
make the least boast of it, is he whose hens
are now laying each four or five eggs a
week, and these are carefully packed away
while perfectly fresh, SO as to come out next
winter equal in all respects to the new laid,
and sell at near the prices of the fresh. Per-
haps some persons may consider ,this as
questionable business. But is it? Eggs
sell on their merits, and if by preserving
them so that in six months they are in every
respect equal to new-laid eggs, in what re-
spect does this differ from preserving
summer pears or grapes in ice-cold store
rooms, for sale six months afterward, or
canning honey for future sale, Or other SIM
liar methods of holding over surplus pro-
ducts for future periods of scarcity? AL
ways excepting. however, any attempt to
deceive the purchaser by untruthful repre-
sentations, and always dsposing of the eggs
as preserved ones and not as fresh. There
are several methods by which eggs may be
perfectly we'll preserved for six months,
and this is the season Tor putting these in
practice. To relieve the market OF its sur
plus now, and also relieve it of its scarcity
in the winter, would tend to equalize prices,
to raise them now and to moderate them
then. But, as the preserving requires both
care and regular attention in the SUNNI r
time, and little neatness and skill, and the
majority of persons are averse to taking the
necessary trouble, there will probably never
be IL sufficient quantity OF eggs kept over to
have an effect upon prices in the directions