The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1888-01-04
of the best feeds. Use plenty of fresh
meat, say three times week, and warm
food and water twice day."
Poultry Notes.

count for the lack of eggs.
Fowls should never be allowed in
barns, stables or carriage-houses.
UNLIMITED range is not best, while
confinement in a small area is positively
hurtful.
THE runs must be dry. Wet feet
make Biddy sick. A southern slope is
desirable.
WYANDoTTE chicks make the best of
broilers. There is no day after they
are five weeks old that they are not the
best of eating. No fowls grow so evenly
in bone and muscle as they. They grow
slowly, but are always ready Their
pound of flesh is worth as much at one
time as another if they are in health
MosT diseases of poultry are directly
traceable to filth. 1t is tiresome thing
to continually talk on such a subject,
but if it was made perpetual there
would still be some persons found with
poultry-house reeking with filth.
Don't charge this neglect up to your
poultry. They can't help it and are not
accountable for your lack of attention.
Try to clean up once a week, and see if
the effect is not wholesome.
If you desire eggs, and eggs only
numbers, not size-select Hamburgs or
Leghorns. If you want non-sitters that
will lay good-sized eggs, choose Hou-
dams, Black Spanish or La Fleche. If
you want winter layers or fowls to sell
dressed for the fall or winter market,
take Brahmas, Cochins, Langshans or
Plymouth Rocks. If you want chicks
for early spring market, select Plymouth
Rocks. Dominiques or Wyandottes.
THE color of the shells is natural
and peculiar to the hens that lay the
eggs, and can not be changed by feed
ing. The hen that lays a white egg
will lay every egg alike in color, as a
rule, though there are at times slight
variations in ages. The color of the
yolk may be deepened by feeding clover
or yellow corn, as the coloring matter
affects the yolk slightly. The color,
however, is no indication of quality.
IN winter there must be a warm break
fast, say boiled vegetables mixed with
corn-meal and oatmeal, bran or shorts
sometimes one, again another; not
sloppy, but seasoned, as you would your
own food, with salt and pepper. For
dinner give few handfuls of sunfower
and buckwheat seeds scattered among
the litter in the shed where the fowls
exercise. For supper give all the grain
of some kind that the fowls will eat.
THE freshest eggs are the best for
Matching, and those from the second
laying are better than those from the
first. To insure fertility of eggs the
fowls must have exercise, green food,
and the cocks and hens be together for
at least week previous. One vigor-
Gus cock to every fifteen or twenty hens
is enough for the Plymouth Rocks,
Dominiques, Wyandottes and the non
sitting breeds, when they have free
range.
THE barn is no place for hen. She
has no more right there than the horse
in the hen-house. She will, of course,
pick up some extra grains and save
portion of her food, but she will foul
the troughs, hay and racks, as well as
cause lice to get on the stock. Hen
lice will remain on stock but short
time, but they are a great annoyance
and should never be allowed. Provide
proper nests for the hens and compel
them to keep in their own quarters.
If the Rural Ne,c Workers. poultry
investigations have determined one
thing more valuable than others, it is
the use of kerosene and spraying bellows
for DISCRIMINATING lice in the easiest and
cheapest way. A poultry-house ten
feet square can be thoroughly kero-
sened in minute, the fine spray pene-
trating every crack and crevice. There
is no need whatever of whitewash or the
use of any other material for this pur-
pose. The kerosene vaporis etectual.
FEATHER-EATING, with which some
breeders are troubled, is caused by idle
ness and lack of suitable food. Strew
the poultry-house floor with dry leaves
laid up in the fall for the purpose, or
use cut straw and scatter the grain food,
so the fowls will have to scratch for it.
Give variety of food in which wheat
or bran. or both, form considerable
part. A little cooked meat occasionally
bones. A little salt may do no harm;
some feeders consider it indispensable
to success. Much would be injurious.
Few have any idea that the poultry
interest is as large as it is. American
statistics for 1882 estimate the value of
the different kinds of farm produce of
the United States as follows: Dairy
product, 1854 10000 cotton, $410,-
100000; hay, S4O6,O 100000; wheat,
S4SS, 900 900, and the poultry product,
$500, 000,0 900. a product twice as large
as the dairy product of the country and
worth over S70,000,000 more than the
wheat crop deserves much considera-
ton from the farmer as to the best
breeds for profit and the best and most
economical management.
THE MOselev e. StOddard Manufac-