Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1916-05-19

| barn stole nest in the hay and had been
sitting long enough to spoil twenty
eggs that she and some of her friends
| had put there did not pay much at
| tention to her after l had dated every
egg and made nest near her for the
other hens. She Matched eleven chick
! ems. In the meantime | set two others
| down there on Rhode Island Red eggs
and got twenty-nine chicks from thirty
eggs. The scrub eggs were not given
a fair showing, for | put those chicks
with a hen whose brood of Reds had been
shipped to a customer and gave her an
other lot of eggs and she Matched al
but an intertile one. Now about the
floating; about four days before they
are expected to hatch | get a pan and
fill it about four inches deep with warm
water-not hot but just comfortably hot
for your hand. Have the hen on the
nest and put every egg in the pan and
take out the first put in, that gives the
shell a chance to absorb enough moisture
to soften that inner lining. If you
have one cracked, but the lining not
broken, paste a bit of paper over the
place and watch it hatch With a few
exceptions the eggs have Matched on the
nineteenth and twentieth days, but 2
hen is Matching now that 1 set the
night of the 26th of last month The
morning of the 14th she had five eggs
pipped and on the fifteenth FIVE more.
took The Farmer and Harvey to see the
dates on the eggs for that's my earliest
yet. l put fifty-siX eggs under three
hens, and got a chick for every egg set
Remember in floating eggs that the live
ones float if there is water enough
Don't wipe off the moisture, the hens
feathers will then get damp and steam
them thoroughly. See that she haf
every egg under her feathers. Ny hens
are so gentle that 1 take the feathers
and soft skin of the breast and pull it
over them. Talk TO them as you
handle them and they will soon learn
you. Somebody said, ."Oh you have
good range for your chicks" Not a bit
of range, Just plain back yard that
had plowed up last fall and sowed In
wheat to try to get rid of the earth
worms that had furnished The Farmer
cape worms enough to kill more chicks
than ! felt able to spare. OF course the
wheat barely got out of the ground, but
it kept the hens scratching and helped
purify the soil.
They have had shelled corn, a few
oats, some wheat bran about once q
week, all the rape they could eat and
plenty of buttermilk. Do not expect
fertile eggs unless the flock has an
abundance of green stuff and some bran
l hope that a great many of you
have ordered the seed combination when
renewing your subscription to the Semi
Weekly; it is not yet too late. The
Farmer has plenty OF sudan grass, the
rape is here in abundance for chickens
and hogs. but I am going to have half
an acre in feterita. l had been plan
ming to have kaffir corn but the feterlta
Is even better. If no accident spoils
my plans and the season Is favorable
it will be ready for me to use the same
hale acre for rye in September. Further
south 1t would mature in seventy-five
days. but the soil here is different, and
crops are later. Cotton is barely up,
and plenty of people are just planting
corn. The farmer makes a pretty fair
average per acre and he things May
corn does best-he is in his corn field
right now
Strawberries are ripe and I want to
tell YOU that the secret of having the
eVer-bearing sort lies in keeping them
worked. Every ten days take a hoe
and pay them a visit. See that you
leave the bed in good condition and see
how they will respond to your attention.
And right in this issue of the paper I
am going to tell you how I make a
short cake that The Farmer eats three
the table until he said plenty thank
you," but he says that its a fine ap-
petizer. A piece of ham. or streak O.
lean and streak O. fat" as large as your
three fingers is all the meat he cares
for in a day, but he takes a generous
helping of shortcake three times a day,
and when one raises the berries and
buys absolutely nothing but the sugar
it certainly is worth while.
But back to the chicken questions.
There are several inquiries about how
to dip CHICKENS 1t depends on the
strength of your insecticide. Creolin is
what | can get here so shall use %
or 80 parts water and one or two
parts creolin. Put On your old clothes,
for If you've never dipped a hen you
are going to let the first two or three
tIutter. Roll up your sleeves, catch
the head in such a way that your finger
and thumb protect the poor things eyes,
grasp the feet and have the water deep
enough to entirely cover her, draw her
to you feet foremost as she is under
the medicine and that takes it through
the feathers.
The skin will then be wet and all in
sects will be killed Select a warm, sun
ny day and do the job before dinner so
that the flock will not have to sleep in
damp clothes, that might give you sew
eral cases of tonsilitis or catarrhal few
err p
Spray for mites, or if you haven't that
useful article, take a whisk broom and
dip it In kerosene oil that has a pint OF
crude carbolic acid to a gallon of the OIL
Remember that mites hide in cracks and
under every thing they infest. I once
got sorry for a neighbours flock and
went over to show her how to really get
rid of the creatures. We took an or
ange box that was gray with them and
she made a few dabs with the brush
and never touched the middle partition
nor the under side. My" she said,
''the scent of this will run them out"
l said well. if you think So. we will
wait until Saturday and see how Il
works" l made my plans to give her
all the time she wanted on Saturday for
! knew she had just wasted good mate
rial and our time with the halfway
work. Sure enough. when Saturday
came she was there to tell me that not
only those nests, but the whole corner
of the house was in work with mites
took corn cob. run a sharp stick IN
one end, dipped il i'm kerosine and set
1t afre ] run that flame over every
inch of the inside of that house. 1t takes
a steady hand and quick work. but it
killed an abundance of insects Then
we used waite wash made of the
kcrosine. lime and carbolic acid If
YOU haven't the acid and can get naptha-
line flakes. or moth balls put in plenty
Of either. And don't lose sight of the