The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1898-10-29
NEWS FOR FARMERS.
SEVERAL NEW JERSEY SETTLERS
COMBINE ON A WONDERFUL IDEA.

~ SOnOliNG yin - TfONOE1EOl iDEA.
James L. Ford, William Curtis Gibson
and r.. X. Munkittrick stockholders In
a Company That VIII supply a Long
Felt Want to Our Egg Producers.
A company has just been formed in
New Jersey for the purpose of supply
ing instinct to hens. Such we'll known
farmers as James L.. Ford, William
Curtis Gibson and r. X. Munkittrick
are stockholders in it. and if filling "a
long felt want is all thatis needed the
success of the company is already as.
sured.
No II who has ever dabbled III hens
needs to he told that the ga~llinaceous
birds have no instinct whatever. Some
have blind luck, but a hen with in
stincts in good working order would be
an anomaly.
| visited Mr.. Ford at his extensive
farm in New Jersey in order to find out
what | could about the project. l found
him i'll a frock coat and ~ogeralls train
ing a squash vine up a maple tree. He
greeted me cordially and asked me to
come and see his tomato trenches. He
also showed me quite an extensive area
covered with birch poles for his radish-
es to climb on. He was very urbane
and willingly told me all about the
company.
"No man, " said he, sitting down on
one of his largest cucumbers and mo-
tioning mt to a seat on another, "who
has ever kept hens but has wondered
why they were not provided with q good
common sense brand of instinct. No
animal needs instinct moro than a hen.
1t was to supply this need that our COM
pany was formed. You know that if
you put a hen on cobblestones she will
brood over them with all the devotion
possible, and if at the end OF three weeks
you put a baby chicken under her, her
what you might term false instinct
will cause her to cluck and call to the
cobble to come forth and follow her"
admitted the force OF his emark
because when Il boy l had once set u
hen on some green apples and she had
covered them without q murmur for u
week, when | took pity OF her and re-
placed them with real eggs. The fol
lowing day, not liking the feeling of
the eggs, she left them and gathering
together the apples that l had left scat
tered upon the barn floor she sat on
them again.
l told this experience 10 Nh. Ford,
and he said eff she'd had a few of our
instinct powders before sitting, she
would have repudiated the fraud at
once. Is it instinct or the lack of it, "
he continued, THAT makes a heavy
Light Brahma plant a ponderous and
feathered foot upon her offspring and
listen calmly to- their expiring peeps?
It's lack of it. She needn one of our
powders"
| made a mental calculation of the
number of chickens that ] had seen sac.
rifced i'll that way by motherly and
good natured hens who would have felt
hurt if you had told them that they did
not know how to bring up their young.
We had risen and We're now walking
as we talked, and we soon came to Mr..
Ford's corn trellises. He rs a great be-
lever in climbing, and it was a pretty
sight to see his corn waving in the
breeze that blew through the trellis net
ting.
Poultry raising would be an un-
mixed joy, said he as he picked a fur
nip and offered it to me, "if a fellow
wasn't constantly running up against
this lack OF instinct o. the part of the
fowls. IT a hen had instinct, she'd
know enough TO keep her mouth shut
when she laid an egg, but as it is she
cackles away like a woman with q Sc
cret, and before she knows it her egg is
on the way to the table. But the aim OF
q company will be to furnish each
hen with a sufficient amount of instinct
to render her profitable to her master.
When she has that instinct, she will
not set on her nest long after her eggs
have been removed, she will not walk
on through the long grass, calling TO
her brood to follow her, when the
chicks have all been swallowed by the
treacherous domestic cat, and she will
not do the thousand and one things that
any hen, no matter what her breed or
breeding, will do as it is"
! told Mr.. Ford, as | shook hands
with him in parting, that there was not
q farmer, either amateur or profession
al, in the whole Union who would not
be glad to purchase "a package of his
instinct powders, and as i left the ge-
NAL granger he was putting cushions
under his water melons 80 that they
would not get bruised by contact with
the earth.-Bee.
Too Inquisitivs,