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PART FOUR. CHROMO EDITION.

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RAISING

FOWLS AND EGGS

IN QUANTITY

FOR MARKET.

HOW TO DO IT.

—<~>—
By GEO. P. BURNHAM.

—OO

WITH DRAWINGS OF ECONOMICAL

POWie TiOUSES, YARDS AND RUNS,

MELROSE, MASS.
1877.

PREFACE. 3B

The numerous letters I have received from all quarters of the coun-
try latterly, urging me to prepare a book upon the subject which forms
the topic of this present treatise — together with the fact that I have
been applied to so frequently for similar information by parties whom
I could not find time to reply to, individually, as I wished, are the rea-
sons why I publish this little volume on “ Rarsineé Fowis anp Eaes
IN QUANTITY, FOR MARKETING PURPOSES.”

The pages which follow wil! be found to embrace the paper I wrote a
few years since at the request of the U. S. Commissioner of Agricul-
ture, at Washington—and which appeared in the official Report of that
Department, subsequently.

My chief object in putting forth this treatise at the present time is to
conveniently and fully answer the scores of letters which constantly
reach me, enquiring, “Does fowl-raising in the ordinary manner
pay?” or “ Can a man keep 500 or 1000 fowls of the common kinds
to advantage, upon a single farm or estate? Andif so, will you in-
form me how it ts done?”

These queries I have now answered, in the accompanying book.
The main article to which I have made reference above, has been care-
fully revised, though in substance it is very little changed; since it was
the practical experience of the author ata time when he was experi-
menting largely, with a view to learning for himself what could be
accomplished in this direction.

Innumerable instances could be cited where fowl-keeping on a lesser
scale than this has proved profitable. The business may be made to
pay in any quantity, if properly and judiciously conducted. But not
otherwise. And I have endeavored in concise language and as briefly
as I could, in these pages, to show the interested reader how to do it.

For some of the illustrations of practical fowl-houses used in this
work, I am indebted to the courtesy of H. H. Stoddard, Esq., of the
Pouttry Wor.p, Ilartford, where they were originally published.
This excellent monthly magazine I commend to all poultrymen who are
not already among its patrons. It is universally ‘admitted to be the
ablest edited, the best illustrated, and the handsomest printed poultry
journal in this or any other country. #

My readers are now referred to the subject I have chosen for this
volume, with the confident assurance that if they will follow the sug-
gestions herein made, with due care and judgment, they may raise fowls
and eggs for market to any reasonable extent, successfully, and to
profit — as I have done.

Geo. P. Burnyam. -
Melrose, March, 1877.

PHA-COMB PARTRIDGE COCHINS.

(> My patrons will be supplied with this stock direct from the original
pbreeder’s yards—and I am able to assure all who fancy these fine fowls, that I
can furnish them with the very choicest of this variety —or with Ea@s for
incubation, in the hatching season, from superior selected birds.

The following editorial in Stoddard’s ‘‘Pouttry Wor.Lp” for March 1877,
describes this now established and popular variety, quite accurately.

“TH PEA-ComBED PARTRIDGE Cocuins, which were originated by C. H. Edmonds,
of Melrose, Mass., and which were two years ago admitted by the American Poultry As-
sociation to recognition in the new Standard as a distinct breed, have proved a valuable
acquisition to the American varieties, and are now coming to be much sought after by
amateurs and fanciers.

During our attendance at the last exhibition of the Massachusetts Society, at Music
Hall, Boston, we examined. the fine samples there shown by Mr. Edmonds, and feeling
desirous to see this breeder’s flocks at home also, we visited Melrose for this purpose. We
¢an vouch for the fact that no finer lot of Partridge Cochins than these birds, as a whole,
ever fell under our notice.

They are closely bred to color, even size, ample weight, and general good characteris-
tics; and we are happy to state that Mr. Edmonds’s efforts have proved a success. His
breeding of the pea-comb on this variety is now fairly and fully established, and quite as
many of his chickens, for the last two or three years have shown this feature, as are
ordinarily bred upon the Brahmas of to day.

During the coming season Mr. Edmonds expects still further to improve his stock ; and
he is entitled to a full measure of credit for having accomplished what he undertook to
carry out, some six years ago, through steady and systematic management, and, first and
last, at cost of no little time, labor and money.

There is a great advantage in the pea-eomb for our Northern states, as compared with
the single comb of the other varieties of Cochins. Single combs are very apt to freeze in
severe weather, as most of our readers well know.”’

PREFACE TO CHROMO EDITION.

The present edition of “ Rarsinc Fowis anp Eaas in quantity for
Market,” is enlarged upon the original editions, by the addition of several
pages of important illustrated matter at the end of this book.

The Chapter thus added upon “ Successful Artificial Incubation,” (see
pages 38 and forward) comprises a most interesting account of the colos-
sal poultry establishment of W. C. Baker, Esq., at Cresskill-on-the-Hud-
son; about the existencé of which the author had no idea, when he
first wrote this treatise.

There is also now presented in the 50 cent edition of this work a
beautiful Curomo of Standard Brahmas, from theplate originally exe-
cuted for THE Pouttry Wortp, Hartford, Conn., which we consider
an attractive and valuable addition to the book. The 25 cent edition
(without the Chromo, or the additional article above mentioned), will
be mailed, as heretofore, to all who prefer that little volume.

In its present shape, we consider this treatise on ‘‘raising fowls and
eggs for market” quite complete —and have no doubt that all who read
it will admit that this Part IV, of our series of hand-books for poultry-
men and farmers, at the popular price of 50 cents each, will be quite

as acceptable as have proved its predecessors.
Geo. P. BurRNHAM.
Melrose, Mass., June, 1877.

42

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RAISING FOWLS AND EGGS

IN QUANTITY, FOR MARKET.

HOW TO DO IT.

Some wiseacre has affirmed that “a bird in the hand is
worth two in the.bush.”’ He is correct in this decision. We
venture to paraphrase this ancient adage, and assume that a
healthy live chicken in the palm is worth more than two in
the shell!

We commence this treatise with some brief ideas upon the
best methods of hatching chickens, such as may prove valua-
ble to the farmer or poulterer — always contending, as we do,
and believing that incubation in the natural way is the preferable
mode. That this plan is the very best for our purposes which
can be adopted, (at least for the present in this country), we
were years ago satisfied.

The setting hen is surer, she hatches a greater percentage
of chicks, and will in this climate, give us better, healthier,
larger, and stronger young birds than can be produced through
any other known process; not excepting the Egyptian, the Chi-

5

6 RAISING FOWLS AND EGGS

nese, the Assyrian, the English, or the Yankee methods of
hatching by oven-heat, steam, alcohol, hot-beds, manure-tanks,
or otherwise.

Before we come to details in the process of hatching chickens
under the natural mother, however, I propose to devote a few
pages to artificial incubation, as it has been practiced for cen-
turies (and very successfully) in other countries ; about which
in the United States little is as yet known, and with which
very little has ever yet been accomplished among our people,
of a satisfactory character. .

Various -attempts have been made with modern “ incuba-
tors” — operated with fluids for heating. And several patents
have been taken out in this country for these inventions, the
originators of which have at times been more or less successful
with them, in a moderate way.

But the conclusion which one of the leading American pa-
tentees arrived at, some years after he had faithfully experi-
mented with and sold several of his Incubating machines, was
candid and truthful. He frankly declared that modern poul-
trymen had not educated themselves up to the details of this
thing ; and that they did not and could not succeed with this
process, because it required such nicety of manipulation and
so peculiar a knowledge of scientific points in management,
that only the person who contrived the machine was able to
do anything with it that would remunerate him for the time
spent over it, the original cost, the expense of experimenting,
and the first losses of good eggs that were inevitable in the be-
ginner’s experience.

So he voluntarily stopped the sale of his incubators, not-
withstanding the fact that he had himself been able to hatch
out (and raise) from sixty to seventy-five per cent. of the chicks
from eggs that he personally superintended the incubation of
and this on different occasions. Others, however, could not
accomplish this, and it was given up.

Such has been the fate generally of the inventions that have
thus far been attempted for this business, in England or Amer-

IN QUANTITY, FOR MARKET. T

ica. In the hands of the originator, who clearly comprehends
the intricacies of his machine, and who knows how to manage
it, many chickens have been hatched. But our own view of
this kind of invention is that they are too complicated, and too
‘* scientific’ in their construction, to be useful or profitable in
the hands of the average unskilled poultry-breeder.

And while due credit should always be accorded to such en-
terprising inventors, the fact must not be overlooked, that, how-
ever well they may themselves be able to manage their ma-
chines, the every-day fowl-breeder is not competent to the
performance of a work which (as they are aware) has cost
them years of toil, thought and study to master, and make
themselves familiar with, in detail.

We recently saw in the correspondence of a traveller who
was sojourning in China, an account of a professional ‘“ ege-
hatcher ” of that country, which was quite novel. This opera-
tor hatched ducks’ eggs in great quantities in baskets, heated
artificially from the bottom with hot stones or tiles suited to
the purpose ; and, in his way, he was very successful. It is
said there are numbers of these egg-hatchers to be met with
in the interior, near Chinese large cities or commercial ports,
and that they do a thriving trade in their vocation, in the early
season of the year.

In the instance referred to, the writer described this heathen
operator as one of the greatest ‘lions’ in Chusan where he
saw him. He is an’ old Chinaman who every Spring” hatches
thousands of ducks’ eggs by artificial heat. He received me
says this traveller, with Chinese politeness and offered me tea
and his pipe, two things always at hand in a Chinese house,
and perfectly indispensible. I asked permission to examine his
batching-house — to which he immediately led the way.

The Chinese cottages, generally, are wretched buildings of
mud and stone, with damp earthen floors, scarcely fit for cat-
tle to sleep on, and remind one of what Scottish cottages were
some years ago, but which now, happily, are among the things
that were. The Chinaman’s cottage was no exception to the

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IN QUANTITY, FOR MARKET. 9

general rule. Bad-fitting, loose, creaking doors; paper win-
dows, dirty and torn, ducks, geese, fowls, dogs and pigs, in the
house and at the doors, apparently having equal rights with
their masters.

The hatching-house was built at the end of the cottaye and
was a kind of long shed, with mud walls and thickly thatched
with straw. Along the ends and down one side of the build-
ings are a number of round straw baskets, well plastered with
mud, to prevent them from taking fire. In the bottom of each
basket there was a tile placed, or rather the tile forms the
bottom of the basket. Upon this the fire acts —a small fire-
place being below each basket. Upon the top of each basket
there is a straw cover, which fits closely, and which is kept
shut while the hatching process is going on. In the centre of
the shed are a number of large shelves placed one above the
other, upon which the eggs are laid at a certain stage of the
process. When the eggs are brought, they are put into the
baskets, the fire is lighted below them, and a uniform heat
kept up; ranging, as nearly as I could ascertain by some ob-
servations which I made with the thermometer, from 95 to 102
degrees. But the Chinamen regulate the heat by their own
feelings, and therefore it will, of course, vary considerably.

In four or five days after the eggs have been subject to this
temperature, they are taken carefully out, one by one, to a
door in which a number of holes have been bored, nearly the
size of the eggs; they are then held against these holes, and
the Chinamen look through them, and are able to tell whether
they are good or not. If good, they are taken back and re-
placed in their former quarters ; if bad, they are of course ex-
cluded. In nine or ten days after this—that is, about fourteen
days from the commencement, the eggs are taken from the
basket, and spread out on the shelves. Here no fire heat is
applied, but they are covered over with cotton, and a kind
of blanket, under which they remain about fourteen days
more — when the young ducks burst their shells, and the shed
teems with life. These shelves are large and capable of holding

10 RAISING FOWLS AND EGGS

many thousands of eggs; and when the hatching takes place,
the sight is not a little curious.

The natives who rear the young ducks in the surrounding
country know exactly the day when they will be ready for re-
moval; and in two days after the shell is burst, the whole of
the little creatures are sold and conveyed to their new quar-
ters, where —with the natural heat of that hot climate, and
proper attention to their needs, the ducks are subsequently
raised to advantage, and are sold usually when a third or half
erown, for the tables of the mandarins or the foreign resident
merchants.

This may answer in China. But such a method (even if
we any of us understood it, which we do not), is quite im-
practicable on this side of the water. The incubating processes
of English and American inventors, as we have observed,
proved failures — in the main — except by way of experiment,
in the hands of the originators, themselves. And in spite of
the utterly unwarrantable theory of such visionaries as Geo. C.
Geyelin and Lewis Wright, who assume that artificial hatching
and the rearing of chickens is an absolutely necessary accessory
to any large fowl-breeding establishment, we undertake to af-
firm that up to this time, in the year of our Lord eighteen
hundred and seventy-seven, there is not existing nor has there
ever yet been invented, an eccaleobeon, an incubator, a hatch-
ing-house, a hot-bed, or other contrivances of this character, in
France, England, or America, that was practically worth one
sixpence in the hands of a novice, for wholesale production of
chickens from fowls’ eggs.

Mr. Geyelin, is unquestionably a gentleman, and a well-
meaning man. But his proposition is utterly impracticable, at
least in the United States. And his prescribed mode of artifi-
cial hatching can never succeed, in either England or America,
profitably — since all experiments in this direction have proved
failures from their excessive prime cost, and the subsequent
disasters that attend the attempts to ratse the chickens pro-
duced in this manner, in a cold climate. It cannot be done,

IN QUANTITY, FOR MARKET. 11

with us. It never has been done— to any extent. And we
doubt if it will be done in either country, at present.*

But let us note how the artificial hatching of chickens is
manipulated in Egypt, where millions of hens’ eggs are every
year used, in their peculiar style of ‘*oven,” and incubated by
common fire heat —as all of us are aware, who have studied
chicken-history carefully.

A quaint old volume, written over a hundred and _ thirty
years ago by Monsieur de Reaumur, of the Royal Academy of
Sciences at Paris, and printed for C. Davis, over-against Gray’s
Inn Gate, London, in 1750, is devoted principally to the
hatching of domestic poultry by means of artificial heat —
‘‘either in hot-beds, or by that of common fire.” This is a
studied dissertation upon the mode for hundreds of years in
vogue among the Lermeans, in Egypt; where millions of chick-
ens are annually and successfully raised without mother-hens.

But this occurs in Egypt, and the modus operandi through
which this colossal result is there attained, has ever been —
as it still is— virtually a secret.

In the early numbers of the third volume of ‘* Wade’s Fanciers’
Journal,” there appear some interesting articles upon this
topic, which we quote from. In the work by Monsieur de R,
Father Sicard tells us that ‘*we ought not to wonder that
this peculiar method of hatching chickens should not be known
in Kurope; since it is unknown even in a great part of Egypt.
It is a secret, limited there to a single village, called Berme,
located in the Delta, sixty miles from Cairo—and a few ad-
joining places.” ‘The inhabitants of Berme teach this secret to
their children—but successfully keep it from all strangers.
In the proper season, the Bermeans disperse themselves around,

* The above was written before the long and interesting account of Mr. Wm. C. Baker’s
extraordinary success in hatching chickens by artificial heat at Cresskill, Bergen Co., New
Jersey, was made public, within my knowledge. Since the first editions of this book-were
published, that account appears in the Hartford Poutrry Wor.D, copiously illustrated ;
and by permission of H. H. Stoddard, Esq., (who loans us copies of the drawings) we in-
sert this important article in fifteen pages at the end of this edition of our book —to
which the special attention of the reader is here referred. GaP: Bb:

By? RAISING FOWLS AND EGGS

each man who understands the process takes charge of one
“oven,” for about six months, successively, and through their
skilful management from 45,000 to 70,000 eggs are set at a
time, in each oven—to be hatched out by means of properly
applied and carefully conducted artificial (fire) heat.

The Egyptian secret consists of two parts; namely, that of
building these hatching-ovens properly, and that of causing
the immense number of eggs set in them to be regularly and

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appropriately heated, night and day, as they would be if set on
by the hens. The results attained are similar to those reached
by the use of modern incubators, on a far lesser scale. The
knowledge which the Bermeans possess (and which they keep
so cautiously to themselves,) is that of so warming the eggs
continuously, for twenty-one days, as to gradually unfold the
chicks within, and finally to hatch them; the important point

IN QUANTITY, FOR MARKET. 13

towards success consisting simply (as in the cases of the Amer-
ican artificial incubators of Graves, or Halsted,) in keeping up
a constant and regular needful degree of heat, and knowing
exactly how to manage the ovens to effect this object.

A veritable account is given of the enormous number of
chickens thus hatched in Egypt, as well as the exact number
of ovens in use at that period, by the Bermeans. There were
then 886 licensed ovens. ‘This number,” says Father Sicard,
** can uever be increased, or diminished, without the fact being
known ; since the Aga of Berme —a governing official —is the
lawful recipient of a regular tax of eight or ten crowns each
for the privilege allowed to run an oven; and this being his
rent-roll, all operators are duly licensed and registered. Thus
it is known that there are (or were) 386 ovens annually oper-
ated in Egypt — say in 1740 to 45.

In each oven they contrive to turn out, in six month’s time,

an average of eight broods, or hatchings, one after another.
This gives three thousand and eighty-eight broods. The num-
ber of egos set in each oven, at one time, is from 45,000 to
60,000. If three-fourths of the eggs hatch, (and this is said to
be about the average product) we find that there are produced
in Egypt by this secret artificial process 5,088 broods of say
30,000 live chicks, each; or the amazing number in the aggre-
gate of ninety-two millions, six hundred and forty thousand, an-
nually! At all events, this was the official record, more than
one hundred and twenty-five years ago.
_ Americans naturally exclaim ‘‘ where do all these eggs come
from just at the right time for setting, thus?”’ And *“ what
do they go with these millions of chicks, as to raising, and dis-
posing of them, after hatching?”’ We will answer these nat-
ural questions and quote some farther information upon this
curious, but interesting work — which has wondrously increased
in proportions, as a business in Egypt, since the middle of the
last century.

It is doubtful if we in America could possibly follow the
Egyptian, or Bermean lead, in this business of raising poultry

14 RAISING FOWLS AND EGGS

in such enormous quantities, according to their concealed
method. The ‘*¢ovens” we allude to are called mamals, in
Egypt. Each mamal has its Bermean, and one man only is
entrusted with its management. He is educated from child-
hood to the work, but the French author from whom we quote,
advances the proposition (very cautiously) that this huge
quantity of chickens, which will be looked upon as really pro-
digious, might be annually produced in France, or other popu-
lous countries, through means approximating in character to
those employed by the Egyptians.

Then Mons. Reaumur goes on to tell how common bakers’
and pastry-cooks’ ovens may be utilized, to produce similar re-
sults. Indeed he details numerous experiments he tried, and
succeeded with excellently well, with such ovens — or rather
the waste heat of them —in the space over the hot bread and
pie ovens of Paris. At the convent of the Society of L’enfant

A MOVABLE CHICKEN-COOP.

Jesus, with the nuns at the Convent St. Sulpice, and also un-
der the superintendence of the Abbe Menon —in France, the.
experiments with their baking ovens were practiced upon de
Reaumur’s suggestion with a few hundreds of eggs at a hatch-
ing, with remarkable success and satisfaction.

Prior to the issuing of this book by de Reaumur — away
back a hundred and fore years ago— the Duke of Tuscany
(so Thevenot asserts) in order to indulge a laudable curiosity
“for which the ancient house of Medicis was eminent, had sent
to him from Egypt one of these educated Bermeans, skilled in
the art of hatching chickens,” who hatched some at Florence,
with as good success as they were got out in Egypt. This ex-

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16 RAISING FOWLS AND EGGS

periment was tried, with like success, in Poland. A French
prince attempted it at Chantilly, subsequently, without the
Bermean — but failed. And it was concluded that to do this
work as they did it — producing such vast quantities of chick-
ens at a time —the Egyptian operator must be imported, who
knew how to build the “oven” first, and how to manage it
and the eggs deposited therein, rightfully — afterwards.

We have only approached to this ‘‘art”’ in hatching chick-
ens through similar modes, by using the Incubator, which is
heated artificially, and from which only a few score, or hun-
dreds at most, can be hatched at a time. And even this sys-
tem is but indifferently understood in this country as yet.
«Where do the eggs come from, in Egypt, to supply these enor-
mous hatching-ovens at the right time, of such freshness as to be
rendered at once available?” is a question naturally proposed.

Through this method of successfully hatching such large
quantities of chickens every year by the Bermeans, under a
system that has been in vogue there for centuries, it is at once
apparent that ‘“ hens have been rendered infinitely more com-
mon in Egypt than in any other country known. This is of
course owing to the facility with which Egyptians are able to
multiply them,” says Reaumur. And Father Sicard adds that
a thousand eggs are sold there for not above thirty to forty
medins — which is equal to but 36 to 40 cents in silver. There
is therefore no difficulty in procuring any quantity of eggs,
when they are wanted — since every peasant or poultry owner
knows when they are needed for the hatcbing-ovens, and pro-
vides his share from day to day through the season on the spot,
at Berme, where they are used and promptly paid for on de-
livery.

The Egyptian mode of raising chickens is to this people a
very simple process, and it could perhaps be imitated in this
country, to some extent, in the hot season, at the extreme
south during seven or eight months in the year. “ The first
thing, however, to do towards cooking your trout,” says quaint
Izaak Walton, ‘is to catch him.” And intelligent Californians

IN QUANTITY, FOR MARKET. 1

have a proverb among them advising that “‘ you secure your
bear, before you offer to sell his skin.”

In this view, we add that the first thing to perform in the
raising of chickens, in any quantities, is to successfully hatch

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them. The Bermeans do this on an enormous scale. How
they do it, is a matter that must be studied attentively, and
experimented upon largely, before the American breeder will
be able do it as they succeed with it. But—given the chickens

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in hand — successfully hatched, the mode adopted in Berme
to raise them is by no means complicated, since they do this
by the millions, there.

But they have a vast advantage over us, in the temperature
of their warm climate, to begin with. In Europe or America,

RAISING FOWLS AND EGGS

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IN QUANTITY, FOR MARKET. 19

even if it were feasible at any one time to collect several -hun-
dred thousand eggs suitable for hatching, (which is hardly
possible,) and if we were then able to so manipulate them in
the incubators, or properly prepared “ovens,” or heating
houses, as to get out even five or ten thousand at a time, what
could we do—in many of our cold localities — with so many

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CHEAP SHED-ROOF HOUSE, WITH GLASS OR MESH-WIRE FRONT.

chickens, produced on the same day? What must become of
the poor little creatures, fresh from their shells, without moth-

A GOOD FOWL-HOUSE, WITH FENCED RUNS FRONT AND REAR.

20 RAISING FOWLS AND EGGS

ers to brood and shelter and keep them from perishing in in-
fancy, especially in frigid weather ?

‘s Artificial mothers are already invented,” replies the maker
of incubators. We are aware of this fact. But how far will
those machines go toward the desired end, when we speak of
what is to be done for tens of thousands of chicks, possible to
be produced? ‘ Multiply the number of machines?” Very
good. But this would not remedy the objection, in our wet,
cold days and nights; while in Egypt it scarcely ever rains,
and the climate is constantly sufficiently warm to permit of
dispensing with “mothers,” natural or artificial. They do not
use them there, at all, and thus they can raise chickens in quan-
tities, as we can not.

That chickens can be multiplied among us, artificially, and
that to.a certain extent they can be reared through means sim-
ilar to those long in vogue among Egyptians, there is little
question. That hundreds of batches of chickens are nowadays
hatched and raised, at least to goodly marketable size in Amer-
ica, we are assured is the fact by those who have in the last
three or four years used the Yankee * incubators,” invented
by our people in New York, and Boston.

We will now turn to the subject of hatching chickens in the
ordinary way—as we are compelled to do, for the most part —
under hen-mothers.

The early Spring-time with us is the appropriate season in
which to commence the work of chicken-raising. Adult fowls
become ‘* broody,”’ or, in other words, they then incline to sit
upon the second litter of eggs they have laid. And this
“hatching fever”? or motherly instinct in fowls, first exhibits
itself in the month of February, March, or April, annually.

We have stated heretofore, and we repeat it just here for
the information of those interested, that hens will ordinarily
lay about so many eggs ina year, with good fair keep and
treatment — but that the egg-product may be greatly increased,
within a given period, by the daily use of extra or stimulating
feeding.

IN QUANTITY, FOR MARKET. 21

Those who raise fowls and eggs for market purposes only,
and who do not give their attention strictly to breeding ‘ fan-
cy’ or show fowls, have no use for cocks and hens except to
breed and rear them in numbers as rapidly as possible, and to
obtain from their fowls the largest quantities of eggs, in the
shortest possible period of time. And when the hens have
‘‘Jaid themselves out,” it is time to turn their carcasses over to
the butcher, or they quite outlive their usefulness.

The “ Imperial Egg Food” made at Hartford, Conn., by
Allen and Sherwood, is by far the best stimulant for this in-
creased egg-production from common hens, that we are ac-
quainted with. We have personally tested this preparation,
and with marked results, in past years. Hundreds of the lead-
ing poulterers of this country have also tried it practically,
and all agree that this food — properly given to laying fowls,
(as the printed directions accompanying each package clearly
specifies) will greatly improve the laying quality of hens;
while there are certain constituents in the make-up of this
feed, that wonderfully aids at the same time in keeping domes-
tic poultry in fine condition and good health.

We commend the judicious use therefore of this Imperial
Egg Food, because we know something about it, through ex-
perience, and because this is the only sort of ** egg-producing
food” we have any knowledge of, individually.

If we are to make use of eggs for hatching that are laid by
our own stock, we know as a rule about what will be produced
from them. If we are just commencing the business, and are
in search of a clutch or two of eggs of some single chosen
variety that we fancy — we should apply to a reliable breeder
of the kind of fowls we prefer, and take care that we get what
we are in search of, fresh laid, and true to the breed we seek.

This is important, for several good reasons. There is much
of ignorance, a great deal of carelessness in breeding, and not
a little deceit practiced in certain quarters, by those who do
not know how to breed fowls, or who do not care to keep the
better class of stock of the nominal varieties they pretend to

22 RAISING FOWLS AND EGGS

cultivate, honestly and advisedly. The “ humbugs in the hen
trade” are not all dead, yet — even in this year of grace 1877.

Apply to a good man, and enjoin it upon him to ship you the
freshest eggs he has, from fowls that have been properly mated
for breeding. Pay him his price — get them at as reasonable a
figure as you ought to for the kind it may be—and do not
send your order for them until you have procured a hen, or
have one at hand ready, to set.

The safest way to seta hen, is to place her at first. fora
few days, say, upon glass or common eggs. When she is
firmly attached to the nest, then give her those you have pur-
chased, or set aside for breeding fyom. She will remain steady
after the third day, if she is in earnest. And all you néed to
do is to see that she comes off, daily, or is taken off the nest
for food, bathing in the sulphur-dust and ash box, and returns
to her duty before the eggs chill, if the weather is cold.

In the earliest weeks of spring, I have found nine Cochin or
Brahma eggs as many as a hen will then cover to advantage,
in the sitting-nest. Eleven or thirteen are used, frequently.
But there will rarely be hatched of these over seven or eight
chicks, in the coldest months of spring-time. Of the smaller
varieties, such as the Leghorns, Plymouth Rocks, Spanish,
Hamburgs, ete., the greater number of eggs may be used.*

Make it a point to place the sitting hen upon her nest tn the
evening, always. She will through this method be more stead-
fast in her brooding. Prepare the nest in a quiet portion of
the house, or furnish her with a covered box, or coop, by her-
self in an out-of-the-way corner, where she will remain undis-
turbed by other hens, and especially by the cocks in your runs.

The bottom of the sitting-nest is well made by placing a
grass-sod first in the box, with the roots upward. Upon this
fresh damp earth lay short straw or hay, mingled with tobacco
leaves, if you can procure them handily. Sprinkle over alla
little fine powder of sulphur — and, the last thing before you
put the hen upon the eggs, rub sulphur-dust, or carbolic pow-
der through her feathers, thoroughly. By this means you

* These and the Houdan, Dorking, or Game Cocks, make a good cross with common
fowls.

IN QUANTITY, FOR MARKET. 23

drive away, and keep ata distance, the vermin that so fre-
quently assails a setting hen.

She must have food and water handy, of course. And you
should remove her gently from the nest, daily, unless she vol-
untarily comes off to feed and roll in the dust-bath every day.
But do not fuss with her. She knows her duties best.

She will sit twenty-one days. At the expiration of this
term, the chicks will give you notice of their approach, by
their gentle “peep” at first, and then by thrusting their
downy polls out through or under the parent’s sheltering
wings. Still, let hen and brood alone for twenty-four hours.
They are all right, and they will do nicely yet, for a full day.

On the morning following the hatching, remove the mother
carefully from the old nest. Clean it all out, and take the
debris away. Give her a little more sulphur, or carbolic pow-
der, dusted through her plumage. And then commence to
feed the younglings — as we have directed.

And just here let us observe that the use of “a little sul-
phur powder” is recommended. You can kill every chick
that is hatched under your hens, by over-doing even this very
simple process. ‘There is no necessity for applying sulphur in
undue quantities—remember.

Give the hen-mother a dusting with it when she first com-
mences to sit, and when she hatches her brood, apply a little
of it upon her under-feathers. Not too much — for a surplus
will get into the eyes of the chicks and blind them, frequently.

They cannot see to eat after this, and die of starvation.
Whereas, if the sulphur be judiciously applied to the hen’s
body, only, (at first) vermin are kept at bay, and sufficient
of the dust reaches the down of the tender young chicks for
all useful purposes, until they get to be three or four weeks
old, and strong in muscle and limb, comparatively.

My recent volume upon the various ‘* Diseases of Domestic
Poultry,” treats this subject fully as a speciality, and I must
refer the reader of this present treatise to that work for in-
formation and advice touching the details of these troubles,

24 RAISING FOWLS AND EGGS

as I have space in this little book barely to allude to the com
mon ailments of fowls.

In my previous works, however, I have advised the use of
the German Ioup Pills as a palliative and general corrective
for use in the fowl-yard. This preparation is an old one, and
it has been thoroughly tested in Europe and America, until it
has come to be an established specific everywhere among
American poultry-raisers, appreciated through its intrinsic
merits. As a general medicine, for practical use at a mo-
ment’s notice upon the approach of diseases among the fowl
flocks, these German Pills have no rival in excellence.

It has now come to be very generally understood that that
troublesome affection known as roup, is one of the very worst
enemies we have to contend with, in poultry raising ; and its
presence in the houses or runs is-the greatest bar to success in
rearing good younglings, or in keeping grown fowls, usefully.
These pills are now manufactured very largely and are sold all
over the country, to the great satisfaction of those who use
them. H. H. Stoddard of Hartford, has recently become pro-
prietor of this curative for ailing fowls, and we refer to his
advertisement at the close of this book with pleasure — know-
ing, as most of our readers do,— that he would not reeommend
it, or have undertaken the sale of this pee unless he
well knew its value and efficacy.

The coop in which the mother hen is anne until her
brood is a month to six weeks’ old, may be very simple in its
construction (see pages17,19.) It should be without a floor,
and of convenient size to be portable. The roof, common pitch,
and overhanging the eaves sufficiently to shed the rain — in
that portion to which she resorts at night, or for shelter from
bad weather. The rest of this cage may be open, slatted with
laths (see page 17) set far enough apart on the framing to
allow the chicks to pass out and in, at their pleasure.

This coop can be taxen up and moved about the grass-plat
easily, (as see design on p. 14,) and placed upon a fresh spot of
the lawn, or run — thus benefitting hen and chickens, largely.

“PLYMOUTH ROCK” COCK AND HEN.

THE FARMER’S FOWL.

The above illustration accurately represents this now favorite
variety of poultry, which is not a large breed, comparatively,
but which has proved a very useful one to farmers and poul-
terers, who have given them a fair steady trial, for two or three
years. They are good layers, a very good table fowl, not un-
like the old style Dominique (from which they come, through a
cross with the Black Java) and have become quite desirable,
as a moderate priced and acceptable sort, for ordinary uses.

Mr. Felch, in speaking of the “ Plymouth Rocks”’ said pub-
licly, not long since, that ‘there has long been felt the need
of a breed of fowls which should fill the middle ground be-
tween the small breeds and Asiatics. This place is admirably
supplied by the Plymouth Rocks. And anxious that it may re-

main so, I would caution the breeder not to breed them to
25

26 RAISING FOWLS AND EGGS

Asiatic size: for so soon as they shall reach the size of the
Brahma they will be equally as long in maturing, and thus lose
that merit (poultry for summer and early fall) which they now
possess, and which gives them their present strong hold upon
poulterer and breeder. In our rural districts many a matron
is dependent upon the egg production to secure money to
replenish her wardrobe; and we can see, if we are ever to
secure a foothold in these districts for thorougbred stocks, they
must have merit. Zhe production of eggsis what keeps the
machine moving. In fact, itis the fuel that heats the steam
that starts the whole. The census of 1870 discloses the facts -
that the United States produced 356 million dollars worth of
hay, 761 million bushels of corn, 288 million dollars worth of
wheat, a cotton crop worth 155 million of dollars, a dairy crop
of 145 million of dollars, a meat crop, which took into account
all the animals slaughtered or sold to be slaughtered, (cattle,
sheep and swine) valued at $398,956,576. But greater than
either of these agricultural products stands the egg and poultry
product of this land. It finds no rival, save in the entire meat
and dairy crops combined. Prices based on the market in my
own town,” said Mr. F., “show that if each family consume
but two dozen eggs per week, and $20 worth of poultry per
year, the aggregate would be 495 million of dollars; to which
if added the consumption of our restaurants, confection es-
tablishments, our thousands of hotels, and the medicinal and
chemical demand, we cannot possibly compute the egg and
poultry produced in the United States to-day, at less than 500
millions of dollars per annum. This is the largest agricultural
interest in the land, be it observed, at this time.

. The common fowls of the country are now kept of course,
in great excess of numbers over any and all of the ‘fancy ”’
breeds of late introduction anyong us from abroad.

Within the writer’s experience, if common breeds of chickens
are hatched in the months of February and early March, the
male birds, properly cared for, will by July and August attain
to a generous size for the table. And if well fed during this
period, they will average a dressed weight of five or six pounds
each, or eleven pounds the pair, which, at the ordinary value
of poultry in market in the months last named, will afford a
very handsome profit upon their cost and keeping.

At about the period when the cocks are thus killed off, the
pullets of this cross and age will begin to lay almost uniformly,
and will continue t> furnish eggs during the entire winter,

IN QUANTITY, FOR MARKET. pay

coming in for sitters naturally in the months of February and
March, when their litters will have been exhausted.

As to stock for breeding purposes, a selection is best made
from the short-legged Asiatic male birds, to be introduced to
the common native female stock. From their chickens, selected
birds should be used for future breeding, and the cross thus
obtained are best bred back to the Cochin or Brahma male again,
reserving from season to season only the short-limbed and well-
shaped pullets from the crossing, for subsequent use. In this
way the better characteristics of the foreign blood are more
uniformly retained.

The first feed for chicks, say for a week, is largely the best
if given of hard-boiled eggs and bread crumbs. They eat but
little for a few days after the hatching, but should be fed four
or five times a day.

After this, give them cooked soft food, of wheat, fine corn
meal, and potatoes boiled, for two weeks. And if from the
outset, you scald this food in mi/k (as most farmers can) the
benefit will be farther increased.

From this time forward, crushed corn and boiled vegetables,
half and half, with occasional additions of bone-meal and fine
meat-scraps will help them, amazingly. Where hundreds of
young birds are raised, (instead of dozens, only), this system
cannot well be fully carried out. But in any case, the food
should at first be cooked for them. This renders it more easily
digestible; and for their drink, a tonic of Iron Tincture, or
Cayenne pepper in the water, twice a week, is beneficial.

Where fowls are kept for profit, and especially when large
numbers are present, attention should be directed to saving the
feathers taken from them, (if dressed for market,) and also the
manure from the houses— no inconsiderable items of value in
each year.

In raising poultry, whether the object be to produce chick-
ens for the market, or to obtain a supply of eggs, the first prin-
ciple to be observed is absolute cleanliness in and around the
houses they occupy. During the brief process of fattening
fowls, a range for the birds intended to be slaughtered is not
necessary. On the contrary, for two or three weeks devoted
to finally fitting fowls for the spit, the more quiet they re-
main in their confinement (always supposing them to be kept
cleanly and free from vermin) the better.

For both laying and breeding towls a range or walk is a ne-
cessity to their comfort, health, and profitableness. Without
this convenience, to a greater or less extent—and the more

28 RAISING FOWLS AND EGGS

liberal the range the better —it is futile to attempt to grow
fowls to profit, and to expect them to produce eggs regularly.

In the vicinity of all large cities and towns fresh eggs are
always in request, at the most remunerative prices. Every
tiller of the soil possesses, more or less, facilities for feeding
poultry economically, and has also the space upon his land to
make them comfortable and thrifty. But some time must be
given to looking after them daily, and a degree of care is requi-
site to keep them im ‘good heart,” and to render them of profit
in the end. Our Shorthorns and Alderneys, our Suffolks and
Chesters, our Southdowns and Cotswolds, all require care to
keep them in fine condition. Why not, proportionately, so
with our poultry; which, having reference to the comparative
cost and product, pays with certainty so much greater a per-
centage of profit, year by year? In France every farmer has
his chicken yard, and the amount of poultry and eggs consumed
by, and exported from that country, is enormous. Monsieur
de Lavergne, for example, estimates that the poultry of Great
Britian for the year (1861-’62) is valued, in round numbers,
at twenty millions francs, ($4,000,000,) while the total value
of the two products — poultry and eggs—in France at the
same period reaches rising two hundred millions of franes.

Where one or two hundred fowls can as well be profitably
kept in a thrifty condition, as a dozen or two can be neglected
and starved, it is well that every farmer should look at this
item of live stock, and bear in mind that, with ordinary care,
(considering the necessary investment of capital and the
trouble of its keeping) no live stock will return him anything like
so generous a percentage as will his too often neglected poultry.

As a rule, the poultry-house or houses are better placed, all
things considered, with the aspect facing east and south, in
our northern and eastern States. During the severe winters ex-
perienced in our northern latitude, domestic fowls will neither
lay, nor be free from various diseases, if exposed to rough
weather or the chilling winds. A cheap and good style of
house may be constructed with a partial glass front and end,
facing as indicated in Fig. 1., the sash running from two feet
above the sill towards the peak, and upon the side towards the
eaves, of any desired dimensions, upon the plan on next page.

Such a house has been in use for several years by the writer,
and has been found to answer admirably for sitters as for lay-
ers, with a slight change in the interior arrangements, from
dne season to another. The glazing may be such as serves for

IN QUANTITY, FOR MARKET. 29

the ordinary green-house roofing, that is lapped upon the edges.
This affords light and warmth from the sun’s rays, and has
been found most economical and comfortable. The wing may

Fig 1— A CHEAP AND GOOD POULTRY HOUSE.

be of any length. Earth floors beneath the roosting places ara
economical and easily cleaned. Half round roosts of large
sized spruce poles are the most comfortable, and these should
be movable, to set upon cross-stilts, not over two or three feet
from the ground floor. If these roosts are once a week, in
warm weather, wet with kerosene, the process will serve the
double purpose of keeping the roosts free from vermin, and
the bodies of the fowls from this same annoyance. Access to
a gravelled walk or yard at the rear, in fine weather, is indis-
pensable. A grass enclosure, if practicable, upon which fowls
can range daily, is a desideratum in summer. In the rear of
the above described house, was alloted half an acre for this
purpose. In the absence of these two last mentioned almost
necessities, fresh gravel and sand, broken shells, &c., and green
food of some kind, as cabbage leaves, ruta-baga tops, turnip
leaves, grass, or the like, should frequently be thrown within
their reach, which they will devour with avidity.

The house and ground-plan here described, (figures 1 and
2) may be used for laying hens during the fall and winter, and
for sitters in early spring time. From such a house the chick-
ens, when strong enough, may be transferred to the open or
‘‘summer’’ coops mentioned hereafter, and shown in figures
3,4, and 5. It must not be forgotten that pure air, and plenty
of it, when not freezing cold, is as desirable to fowls as to man.
A dust-bath formed of leached wood ashes, is a luxury for

30 RAISING FOWLS AND EGGS

fowls confined in limited accommodations. The premises de-
scribed should always be kept as cleanly as possible, and at
least annually whitewashed upon the inside.

es en

EXPLANATION.—W, windows; b, ash-boxes;
d, doors; n, nests; r, for roosts. (Ground plan.)

The remarks thus far submitted have reference, in a general
way, to the keeping of poultry upon an ordinary scale. With
slight daily care and attention, as above hinted, any farmer can
keep his hundred or two of fowls, which may readily be tended
and provided for by the boys upon his estate, or even by the
women of the household. From two hundred birds thus dis-
posed, he may obtain, annually, two thousand three hundred
dozen of eggs, and, if inclined, at least fifteen hundred pounds
of marketable chickens, before the close of August, in each
year. This product will pay him from four hundred and fifty
to five hundred dollars in money, and leave him his original
stock for the next year. His expenses will be not over two
hundred to two hundred and fifty dollars, thus furnishing him
with an equal sum of profit upon say two hundred fowls.

The calculation here made as to returns in eggs, is set down
at an annual yield of 140 eggs to each hen. This is fully up
to the average, under the best care and upon high feed. Some
fowls will lay more than this number, but these are exceptions.
From 130 to 140 eggs, yearly, is a generous supply, and I have
never known any fowls except the Chinese, or the cross already
described, that would accomplish more than this. The hen
spoken of by some writers that ‘lays every day in the year”
is a myth.

For fattening fowls, the best corn is the cheapest standard

IN QUANTITY, FOR, MARKET. jl

food in this country. Boiled rice and potatoes, and shorts or
‘“‘middlings”’ of wheat are excellent. Small potatoes and
broken or even “damaged” rice, which can usually be ob-
tained in any large city, serve an admirable purpose, and will
be found economical for every-day feeding. Occasional allow-
ances of barley or oats, or both, are highly advantageous to
laying fowls. Sunflower seeds, which can be easily grown pro-
fusely along the entire range on both sides of all fences, with-
out taking up room or causing any trouble save the original
planting, are one of the very best alteratives and changes in
diet that can be obtained, and fowls will devour these with a
gusto, always. In the writers judgment, fowls should never
be stinted in food. As much as they will eat without waste,
and of the best, is deemed the most economical in the end.
Male chickens intended for the market may be kept together
advantageously in considerable numbers in the same coops, if
brought up together from the outset. No pullets should ever
be placed in these cages or yards. Asdast as the birds reach
the proper size and weight for killing, they should be disposed
of. For this particular purpose, cock chickeus are the most
profitable, as they furnish more meat at a given age, and are
of no account (in numbers) otherwise, after they attain to a
size suitable for the table: ‘These male birds should be well
fed from the shell. They will generally pay a large profit upon
the investment, and may be killed at three to six months old.
The plan of a fowl house already given (see Figs. 1 and 2)
is such as the writer had in use for some years, 1p size, propor-
tions and appointments. Below is the design of houses
adopted by him also for many years, for summer use only, in
which large numbers of chickens were annually raised.

nie

wn

WH Hi Hil)
HANA TNA

FIG. 4.— SUMMER OPEN CHICKEN HOUSES — REAR.

82 RAISING FOWLS AND EGGS

4 C5 XS 1b OS
we eye KRAVE |i
es ee SS KF Reese hi
XO 0% SR] KES Hi
SOS SOS SEER |

Wea i : F ; *
SSS ee eee

FIG. 8. —RANGE OF SUMMER OPEN CHICKEN HOUSES —FRONT.

The arrangement on next page, colonizes the lots of chicks,
with the mothers, from March or April to June and forward,
and separates each from interference with the others. The
land might be subdivided into four lots, but the expense of
fencing would be considerable, of course, and has not been
found necessary upon the writer’s system of management. In
each of the six coops indicated have been kept, from early March
or April, twenty-five to thirty chickens, with two or three hens
each, the aggregate, upon the half acre in the four houses, aver-
aging, during the summer, 600 to 650 chickens,. raised for and
sold in market from June to August. A portion of the chick-
ens, say one-fourth, are allowed to run into the whole lot
(which is in grass) during three or four hours daily, when they
are driven in, and another fourth part are released for exer-
cise.

One house is usually devoted to male birds, exclusively. In
the fall, a few of the finest of both sexes are selected to add to
the next year’s breeding stock, and the balance, seven or eight
months old, are sold for consumption, at fifteen to eighteen

SSS SST SST TSS ee OLLI TOU LLL

FIG. 5.—GROUND PLAN OF OPEN SUMMER CHICKEN COOPS.

IN QUANTITY, FOR MARKET. 33

cents per pound, paying a profit of 40 per centum at least, on
cost, interest on investments, keep and care.

The open or summer coops described, are constructed of laths
or paling-stuff upon all sides, and are protected by a shed roof,
battened over the seams. The six divisions will make each
house about forty feet by twelve. This is cheaply built, but is
ample for all the purposes of raising the chickens to marketa-
ble condition, from the time they leave the hatching-house
with the hen-mothers, as described.

Six of the compartments (or coops) are under one roof, and
four different houses stand at the four angles of an oblong
square of land half an acre in extent, thus: *

OPEN COOPS, OPEN COOPS,

(Half an acre, or more.)

&
Pes Be
¥

Clump of Trees for shade.

OPEN COOPS. OPEN COOPS.

The winter laying and sitting house, described below, (fig-
ures 7 and 8,) may be also used for summer chicken-raising, if
desired. The sashes in front can be taken out and lattice-
work substituted ; or the frames of the windows can be covered
with two-inch mesh-wire screening, which is inexpensive and
very durable. By this change the poultry-house is rendered
cool and airy, which, for the ‘‘ heated term,’’ would be found
too close and warm, for summer use, with the glass windows.

The lattice-coops will have already been cleansed, of course,
for the reception of the young birds. The entire fixtures in
these chicken-houses consist of a water-vessel for each, a feed-
box, a low roost upon the brackets, and a dust-box, two feet
square for ashes. Into this latter, it has been found a good
plan to mix with ashes a handful of powdered sulphur, occasion-
ally, which helps to destroy vermin. In afew weeks from their

34 RAISING FOWLS AND EGGS

entrance to the coops, the chickens will follow the mothers to
the low roosts, and | have never found any difficulty in keeping
two or three hens with their broods in each of the compart-
ments. I had these in use for twenty years, and found them
all that is needed for summer houses for market poultry.

Now, if six hundred chickens can be produced thus succes-
fully upon a half-acre lot, no good reason naturally appears
that any given number may not be similarly raised — for mar-
ket purposes be it remembered —and kept, advantageously,
from the early hatching period suggested, through the summer
months, while the weather will commonly permit of their being
left comparatively in the open air.

To attempt to house large numbers of fowls in close quarters
during the severe winters at the north, is not recommended.
Thus, in order to raise chickens by hundreds or thousands, a
great deal of space is necessary, as 1 have aimed to show.

Thus, when winter approaches, and the weather gets too cold
for comfort, upon the plan suggested, all the previous spring
and early summer chickens will, from time to time, have ma-
tured and been disposed of; and only the fowls for winter lay-
ing and the next spring sittings remain on hand. The accom-
modations of the previous year are now used for the conve-
nience of these birds, say from October to February, and the
hatching of their broods, subsequently —their chickens, in turn,
being transferred, in due time, to the open cages described.

For the accommodation of the layers, and afterwards for
the sitters in early spring-time, the plan on the following page
is in use by the writer: (Figures 7 and 8.)

This house for sitters and layers, furnished with great sim-
plicity, has been found ample for the purposes indicated. The
building was erected of rough No 4 boards, set upright upon a
two by four-inch joint frame-work, with four-inch corner-posts
and centre-studs, and is battened upon the outside (over the
seams) with three-inch paling-stuff. The roof is finished in the
same manner, but shingling is better. The corner-posts of the
central portion of this building are sixteen feet high, the
pitch is *‘one-third,”’ and the dimensions of this part are sev-
enteen by fifteen feet. The two wings (as shown in the eleva-
tion) are shed-rooted, falling back from the front, are twelve
feet high, running down to seven and a half feet in rear,
fitteen feet wide, and extend right and left from the outside of
the central building, in each direction forty-five feet ; making
the whole house ninety-six feet long by fitteen feet in width,

IN QUANTITY, FOR MARKET. 35

GROUND PLAN AND ELEVATION,

FIGURES 7 AnD 8,

This house is surmounted by a cupola five feet square, with a
vane, which adds to the comeliness of the premises, but need
not be indulged in save to suit the taste of builder. The sashes

36 RAISING FOWLS AND EGGS

are upon a line in front, and are glazed in the manner already
indicated in plan, Fig. 1. In this house about fifty hens can
be conveniently set at one time — say in the ten apartments
five each — who will not interfere with each other if properly
cared for daily. During the late fall and winter months this
building will accommodate, in its ten divisions, over a hundred
laying hens comfortably. (Eight sections only are shown.)

During the early spring an average of a dozen eggs may be
placed under your fifty sitters, and, with good luck, five hun-
dred chickens may be produced, and this from the earliest
broods. These may be removed in due time to the ‘*open”
houses, and another fifty hens may be placed upon the nests
vacated by the first ones, who, with proper care, will bring out
another five hundred chickens, more or less, say in six weeks
after the earlier sittings.

It will be understood that upon the removal of the first
broods, the sitting boxes should be nicely cleansed, before the
second hens are placed upon the nests. By the time the second
broods come off, it will be the last of March or the first of
April. All the young stock may be safely transferred to the
open houses by the beginning of May, where they can thence-
forward be fed and cared for. as previously directed.

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IN QUANTITY, FOR MARKET. oT

From the new stock the best samples of pullets are selected
again, to add to the next year’s breeding stock, as before; the
old fowls (two years of age) are killed, the young cocks are
all put in separate houses, to be used for the earliest maturing
and largest chickens, and affairs go on during the fall as during
the season previous.

By adopting the plans thus laid down, with the buildings
and appointments herein suggested, a thousand chickens can
be readily and profitably raised for the summer market annu-
ally, while ample conveniences are thus afforded, also, for at
least one hundred laying hens during the winter months in the
glazed house, (Figs. 7 and 8.) If the desire be to raise more,
increased space must be accorded to your fowls, and more
buildings should be erected.

It will not answer to increase the huddling of the birds
‘under one roof. If the buildings are smaller even than those
described, and more numerous, being scattered over acres,
instead of confining the stock mentioned to half an acre, and
to a building of the size given, it will be all the better for the
general health of the birds, undoubtedly. Crowding fowls
into too narrow a space, is one great cause of the fatalities
attending the attempt to breed them.

Fresh air, light, cleanliness, varied fare, pure water, range,
grass or occasional green and animal food, shelter from wet
and raw winds, with plenty of gravel and ashes to roll them-
selves in, are all requisites to success.

With these advantages and fair attention, provision being
made for the warmth and comfort of the laying hens in winter,
chickens can be raised for the table and for market in any
quantities, and to highly satisfactory profit; and eggs in abund-
ance may also be had in any dry location within reasonable
distance of the larger cities and towns of America, as has

been proved through years of experience and of successful
experiments.

388 RAISING FOWLS AND EGGS

SUCCESSFUL ARTIFICIAL INCUBATION.

THE LARGEST POULTRY FARM IN THE WORLD.

Since the foregoing pages were published, (in the original
twenty-five cent pamphlet form,) our attention has been at-
tracted to the May issue of Stoddard’s “ Poultry World,”
which contains a very interesting and elaborate account of an
immense chicken-raising establishment on the banks of the Hud-
son River, at Cresskill, N. J., such as we had no thought ex-
isted on this continent.

The following detailed description of this great poultry-
raising farm, conducted by Wm. C. Baker, Esq., with the ac-
companying illustrations of his fowl-houses, incubating house,
brooding-house, &c., we transfer to this work, by permission
of Mr. Stoddard. And we can only say, that this chicken-’
rearing place is by far the most extensive, practical, and suc-’
cessful, that has ever been brought to our notice.

Our present work would be quite incomplete without some
details of this enormous establishment, surely. We therefore
give this article almost entire ; since upon Mr. Baker’s system,
(which has never been approached elsewhere), tens of thousands
of domestic fowls may be hatched and raised with the greatest
ease, by competently educated persons, who have the means to
carry out the details of this grand plan for artificial hatching
and rearing domestic poultry, on a large scale.

Upon this fine estate, at Cresskill, N. J., at some rods distant
from the family residence and ornamented grounds, stand the
great glass-covered chicken-houses, the incubating-house, the
enormous laying-houses (the latter in a range four hundred and
sixty feet long), the forcing-house, or patent feeding-rooms, the
slaughtering-house, store-rooms, etc., which constitute this im-
mense artificial fowl-raising establishment — beyond comparison
the grandest and most extensive thing of its kind in the world.

By courtesy of the Editor of the ‘* Poultry World,” we pre-
sent the original drawings of the buildings, &c., premising that,
up to the issuing of our first editions, we had no idea that
there existed anywhere so enormous a chicken-raising establish-
ment, or that it had yet been brought within the reach of science
and. art to compass the wondrous success in this direction that
Mr. Baker has finally accomplished.

After practically experimenting in various ways for several
years (during which period Mr. baker has expended in these
experiments, and in the erection and appointments of his nume-

i ET oe

aoe ae ee

IN QUANTITY FOR MARKET. 39

rous buildings, $75,000), his establishment for hatching chickens,
ducks or turkeys is to-day brought down to a very fine point,
assuredly! And the nicest feature of all is found in the fact
that, under his system, there is absolutely no limit to the quan-
tity of chickens that may be artificially produced and success-
fully raised, even in our uncertain American climate.

We have always hitherto contended —and our experiments
have proved this to be true—that large numbers of domestic
fowls or chicks could not, ordinarily, be successfully raised or
kept under a single roof. In hundreds of known instances
other than our owna similarly unsatisfactory result has followed
the attempt to multiply fowls in the common way, or to hatch
and rear them profitably in large numbers among us, except
through * colonization,” within prescribed limits. On page 10
of this work appears the statement that ‘+ Up to this time, in
the year of our Lord 1877,,there is not existing, nor has there
ever yet been invented, an incubator, an eccaleobion, a hatching-
house, a hot-bed, or other contrivance of this character, in
France, England or America, that was practically worth one
sixpence i the hands of a novice for the wholesale production of
chickens from fowls’ eggs.” But Mr. Baker is not a novice,
and his scheme has proved a magnificent success, verily, through
the facilities and appliances at his command at Cresskill, for the
invention of which he personally holds several patents of origi-
nal contrivances adapted to his purposes.

Upon Mr. Baker’s plan the thing is entirely feasible, perfectly
natural, eminently successful; and we see no reason why any
man possessing the peculiar talent and taste for this business
which he does, and who has the means to carry out the details
as he has done, cannot raise domestic fowls by thousands, as
readily and as surely as we have ever raised scores or hundreds,
for the market, as he has done and is now doing at Cresskill.

But this wonderful triumph in Mr. Baker’s case has been
achieved through brain-work, intelligent study, extensive knowl-
edge of mechanics, the skillful application of properly-created
and graduated heat or moisture, and by the liberal expenditure
of cash means. ‘Therefore, Mr. Baker need have no concern
that he will meet with serious rivalry in his laudable undertak-
ing in the present century. In our judgment, after a critical
examination of his system, his premises and the cost of this
huge enterprise, few other Americans will ever attempt to com-
pete with him in this business on the large scale he has done it.

The illustration upon page 42 represents the exterior of the

40 RAISING FOWLS AND EGGS

great brooding-house —a long, glazed building fashioned like a
pitch-roof green-house, with a broadside aspect to the east and
south. The two anda half story building on the right (to which
this is attached) is a commodious dwelling-house for the attend-
ants, etc., and contains Mr. Baker’s private office, the incubat-
ing-rooms, a dining-hall and other apartments above, while the
basement is devoted to store-rooms, boiler-rooms, electric bat-
tery apartment, heating apparatus, etc.

Passing through the battery-chamber, we enter the incubat-
ing-apartment. Here are quietly produced thousands of chicks
by artificial heat, every week. ‘This chamber is about twenty
feet square, protected by double sets of windows, and three
ranges of huge oblong incubators stand through the center ;
while a lesser range, similarly constructed (each with eight tiers
of shallow egg-drawers, one above the other), runs around the
four sides of the room.

The capacity of the hatching-drawers, or multiplied trays, in
these incubators is equal to the accommodation of about eight
thousand eggs at a time, or, say, for turning out one hundred
and forty thousand chickens per year in this one spacious,
artificially-heated apartment.

There is another room devoted to this same purpose, and Mr.
Baker is still further increasing his incubating works, with the
design of raising, during the coming year, a grand total of two .
hundred and fifty thousand chicks; for which, as they mature,
he has secured a cash market — when they shall have attained
from one and a half to three pounds weight each—for table
consumption in New York city, by the leading hotels there.

Mr. Baker’s thorough acquaintance with the manufacture of
steam-heating apparatus affords him*rare advantages in ‘‘ apply-
ing the principle’ to chicken-incubating purposes. For many
years he was one of the eminent New York firm of Baker,
Smith & Co., known the world over in this line of business.
His plan of hatching chickens is briefly as follows :

The gas for heating the incubators is manufactured upon the
premises. Beneath each machine is kept alight a single jet of
this gas to heat the water conveyed through pipes to the narrow
open chambers or vacuities over the surface of the eggs as they
rest in the trays while being hatched. ‘This process constantly
gives to the eggs the required artificial heat, in form quite simi-
lar to the action of the warmth that descends from the natural
hen-mother’s body when she is brooding over her eggs. An in-
genious, practical and most admirable arrangement this; for,

IN QUANTITY FOR MARKET. 41

in Mr. Baker’s verified experience, precisely as the hen performs
her duty in the natural way, so must the incubator perform its
duty to be successful in the hatching. (See cut on page 50).

The incubating-apartment is watched over by two or three
females, Mr. Baker believing that this delicate process can be
more aptly and appropriately managed by woman’s hands, than
by those of the rougher and sterner sex. The eggs in the trays
are turned regularly once in a day, by these attendants. The
heat conveyed to the interior of the incubators, as we have de-
scribed, is controlled automatically. An electric battery in the
adjoining room communicates with the hot-water chambers over
the eggs, and also with the gas-jets; and when the temperature
becomes too hot or too cold for the healthy and rightful progress
of the hatchings, the undue variation of heat is instantly an-
nounced, through indicators governed by the electrical current
and apparatus contrived for this special purpose. ‘The atmo-
sphere in the incubating department is kept moist and humid
—like the warm spring air—by placing open, shallow pans of
water around, upon which the heated air acts advantageously,
evaporating it evenly and admirably.

The numberless eggs produced and procured by Mr. Baker
for his immense incubators are each and all tested before setting
in the trays, and afterwards, at stated times, to ascertain if they
are stale, clear or fresh, and vitalized. ‘And all day long, and
every day in the week, hundreds of chickens are now torthcoming
from the drawers of the incubators, as we can aflirm from per-
sonal observation.

The young birds remain in the trays (where they first see day-
light atter breaking their shels) for two or three hours, when
they become dry and lively, and are soon transferred to what
Mr. Baker calls his ** brooding-house ”—delineated on page 42.
This glass house is thirty feet in width, and one hundred and
fifty-eight feet in length. It is sixteen feet high to the central
peak inside, and it is divided off into fifty separate compart-
ments (twenty-five on either side), in each of which are kept
and * brooded,” artificially, one hundred chicks from the second
day of their birth to two or three months old; the accommoda-
tions within this large conservatory being ample for five thou-
sand chicks at a time, of all ages.

Here may be seen chickens of every hue and stripe, from the
size of a half-grown robin to that of a pigeon or partridge, all
in high health, active, sprightly, and evidently happy in the con-
stant “‘summer atmosphere” that is kept up in this building

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RANGE OF LAYING HOUSES, (75 sEctions,) 460 FEET FRONTAGE, AT CRESSKILL.

44 RAISING FOWLS AND EGGS

also, for their benefit and convenience. Here they chirp and run
about their little yards, and grow and thrive continuously, until
they become good-sized broilers; and then, at weights of from
one and a half to two and a half pounds each, they are fattened,
* dressed, and sent to the hotels and restaurants in New York at
forty to fifty cents per pound, dead weight, to be served up as the
always-desirable early spring chickens we see announced upon the
fashionable hotel and restaurant bills of fare in that city.

There is always a ready demand for these chicks. Mr. Baker
will hatch and raise over two hundred thousand during the
present year, probably ; and he offers nothing for sale, but always
tinds his market for everything he can get into good condition,
as we have described.

In this house the chickens are ** brooded”’ when quite young
by a patent hen-mother to each pen, which is hollow, made of
zine and filled with hot water, lined underneath with blanketing
(not sheep’s wool), and fixed close to the ground in a slightly
inclined position, underneath which the chicks creep for extra
warmth, when they feel the need of it, and which answers the
full purposes of the ‘* brooding” afforded by the natural mother-
hen, without the lice nuisance that so commonly accompanies
the natural mode of brooding.

At the proper age, selected transfers are made from this house
to another and larger range of buildings, similarly glazed and
ventilated, in which are also confined, in numerous separate
apartments, the laying-hens and pullets kept on the premises by
Mr. Baker. This latter range is glazed on one side only, and
contains seventy-five separate pens.

This laying-house (four hundred and sixty feet long) is divided
into seventy-five compartments, and each pen has three rooms or
divisions init. The pens run through from front to rear, and
are six feet wide, each, by twenty feet long, from east to west,
upon the following ground plan, on page ol.

The front of the middle sections of these pens is provided
each with sashes that raise to the roof or lower at will to open
or close up the two back parts of the pen in cold weather, the
front division being covered on top and outside with open mesh-
wire only, beneath which, in fine weather, the laying-fowls enjoy
the open air and the limited run. These pens havea clean, dry,
graveled floor all through, and the whole premises there are
thoroughly underdrained, to keep them perfectly dry at all sea-
sons. Above the ground-floor the pens are well ventilated, and

IN QUANTITY FOR MARKET. 45

the birds thus confined (as they are continually in this house)
are in excellent health and condition.

They are fed from the rear of the pens. <A narrow tramway
runs completely through the building, and the tenders place their
feed in small truck wagons, one commencing at one end and the
other at the farther extreme of this long four-feet-wide passage,
depositing the feed of mash or grains, as the case may be, in the
little hoppers as they proceed, until the two men meet in the
center of the passage, when the feeding is finished. Fresh
water is carried through small iron pipes along this entire range
of pens, and under each drinking-vessel are packed loose stones,
to a considerable depth, to drain off the spot and avoid damp-
ness around the inside of the pens.

This immense laying-house is heated by steam or hot-water
pipes again, and the apartment is kept at continuous summer
heat (in the colder seasons) by this means ; whereby Mr. Baker
has found, with stimulating food and constant care, that his
fowls ** lay well in winter time,” as well as in the warm months
of the year. The wire meshing inclosing the open fronts of the
pens prevents damage from rapacious night vermin, hawks, etc.
In each pen there are kept from twenty to twenty-five hens and
pullets, or about two thousand laying-fowls in all ; and these are
of all sorts and kinds — well-bred, full-bred, cross-bred, ete.,
—the majority being Asiatics, Leghorns, Spanish, Bucks Coun-
ty, Colored Dorkings, Houdans, and erosses of all these, most of
them being good birds, and all well suited to Mr. Baker’s pur-
pose — to wit, laying of eggs only.

Every description of food is given them, at times, in variety,
and plentiful supplies of every kind of grain are always ready
at hand; meal of all sorts, granulated bone, ‘“ Imperial Ege-
Food,” bran, scraps, shells, shorts, etc., with which their bill of
fare is alternated, and green food, a little fresh meat, etc., is
frequently added as well.

The cleanliness of the entire premises is a triumph. We
never saw any fowl-houses, large or small, so scrupulously nice,
from ‘floor to roof, as were these ; ; and we are not surprised
that Mr. Baker is rarely troubled with lice, and has little sick-
ness, comparatively, among his enormous numbers of fowls,
young or old.

Nor far from this building stands the cramming or forcing-
house, one hundred and twenty feet long by twenty-five feet
wide, which is an unique affair, and quite novel in this coun-
try. This house is proportionately extensive and formidable,

46 RAISING FOWLS AND EGGS

like the other arrangements on this huge chicken-farm. There
are erected within it eight round, upright wooden “ feeding-
machines,” each having five tiers of small boxes, pigeon-hole
shaped, for the accommodation of a single fowl in a box, and
each machine will hold in the five circles running around this
upright drum, two hundred and ten birds, when deposited
there for fattening, or forcing flesh upon them for marketing.

It requires but fifteen to eighteen days of this cramming to
put the fowls taken from the runs in ordinary trim, into the
very best possible condition for the table. The extra flesh thus
put upon them through this process, is not literally fat, but
good sound, solid meat ; and old birds, too, are, by this means,
rendered tender, juicy and palatable, to a surprising degree.
There can be so prepared in this building, thirty thousand
chickens per annum. ‘This place is kept dark and cool dur-
ing the ‘forcing ;” it is carefully ventilated, and its success
as an auxiliary to Mr. Bakers general plan, has proved won-
derful. The mode is similar to that in use in France, but Mr.
Baker’s plan is an improvement upon the French method in
many of its details. ‘The process of forcing, as adopted at
Cresskill, is to confine each bird by himself in one of the boxes.
The legs are strapped to the sides, and the head and neck only
protrudes from an opening in front. The front of the boxes
shows like the drawing on page 50.

Kach box holds one fowl. The feeder takes it by the head
and, thrusting a pipe into its gullet, forces from a mess-tub
near by, through a flexible tube, the boiled, mashed food pre-
pared for this purpose. With a single movement the crop is
tilled, and the next bird is similarly served. In less than three
weeks the weight of fowls or chicks thus treated can be nearly
doubled ; and although they are never released (except to be
slaughtered), after going into harness in this apartment, they
quickly become accustomed to this queer mode of feeding, and
rather enjoy it. Their food is of the most delicate and nutri-
tious kind, mixed with milk (not water), and they thus fatten
very readily and kindly. Mr. Baker is now enlarging this house,
and expects to be able another season to force, say, fifty thousand
cocks and hens by this well-conceived and really profitable plan.

From his two thousand laying-fowls Mr. Baker can get but a
tithe of the eggs he desires, with which to supply the require-
ments of his immense incubating-establishment. He uses them
all, however, as fast as they are laid, and he gets a great many
in a year, of course. But he remarks: ‘I am nota seller, lam

IN QUANTITY FOR MARKET. 47

a buyer, constantly. I offer nothing for sale. All I can do in
the chicken-raising line is disposed of as soon as the birds are
big enough to eat. I constantly advertise for eggs in quantity
for hatching, and I can always dispose of five to ten thousand
at a time, could I procure them fresh and reliable for incubation.”

He now has the capacity for hatching and rearing in a twelve-
month a quarter of a million chickens, and he is ambitious to
double this production, for he is certain of a ready market for
them all, as the weeks and months go by, annually. There is
no limit to the product, indeed, when managed upon Mr. Baker’s
system. And, though there be few Americans who will ever
approach this gentleman, probably, for extent of operation in
this sort of enterprise, yet, in a more moderate way, where
hundreds instead of thousands of dollars need to be invested,
and where the poultry-raiser is contented with hatching tens of
hundreds of birds for market, instead of tens of thousands, the
example of Mr. Baker may well and profitably be emulated.
But it will need brains, patience, culture, tact, experience and
ready means, as well as a love of the work, to insure success
upon this plan, even on the far lesser scale.

The magnitude of this splendid undertaking, as conceived and
carried out by Mr. Baker, is altogether exceptional in the way
of raising domestic poultry. ‘There is no establishment like this
in the known world, considered either as to cost, extent or mode
of management. On a small scale, comparatively, we have had
steam-hatched and other artificially incubated chickens, both in
this country and in England, in the past twenty years. But it
has been left to an enterprising, talented, scientific and wealthy
American to achieve this crowning triumph in the “ art of hatch-
ing and raising domestic fowls ” in large quantities successfully,
and eventually to good profit.

This has been accomplished, however, after long and careful
experiments in every conceivable way ; and, the skilled operator
has not only devoted years of time and constant toil to his work,
but he has expended and invested in actual cash upon this enter-
prise, what most of us would esteem a very pretty fortune, by
itseli —seventy to eighty thousand dollars !

Although everything about this mammoth establishment 1s so
extensive, the simplicity and economy of the entire arrange-
ments are strikingly apparent. Nothing appears to be lacking
for the eomtort, shelter and accommodation of the fowls, old
or young; and an enormous sum of money must evidently have

48 RAISING FOWLS AND EGGS

been expended, first and last, to bring this place and its ample
conveniences into their present acceptable shape at Cresskill.

The care of the fowls and chicks is continually an object of
concern to Mr. Baker and his assistants. And though his lay-
ing-house is so large, (equal to the accommodation of over two
thousand adult fowls together, in the seventy-five pens), he has
already prepared the ground for the purpose, and will shortly
extend his building to about eight hundred feet frontage, adding
three hundred and fifty feet in length to its present size. This
will, in all, give space for one hundred and thirty-five pens, to
accommodate, under one roof, about three thousand five hun-
dred laying-hens and companion roosters.

Sitting-hens are of no account in Mr. Baker’s economy. He
does not use them. From his large supply of grown fowls he
obtains all the eggs he can, for incubating artificially ; but he
purchases, at about three times the ordinary wholesale price, the
lafge majority of the tens of thousands of eggs he uses in hatch-
ing and experimenting annually.

He pays, on the average, five dollars a hundred for all the
eggs he can have delivered to him in proper condition — fresh-
laid, sound and hatchable. His correspondence is large, for
strangers are attracted by his continuously advertised offer of
this price for all the eggs he can obtain, and find serviceable.*

The estate of Mr. Baker faces the North River, upon the
westerly bank, and his country-house and grounds occupy the

* I have been frequently applied to by correspondents who ask me to furnish them with
a recipe for saving eggs, for family use—and in response, an infallible mode for preserving
eggs fresh, and in perfect condition through the year, is given here. This plan is for saving
eggs for consumption, or sale, only—not for future hatching. In June, July and August,
eggs are worth a cent and a half each, on the average. This is the time to “lay them
down’? most economically. From Thanksgiving to Christmas, they bring four to five
cents apiece. The gain to any family by this simple and certain means, (or to the egg-
seller), is apparent. The cost of the process is but nominal. Lay your eggs down in the
fall, or summer, in a liquid composed as follows: one quart of lime, and one quart of com-
mon salt, dissolved in eight gallons of boiling water. When coup, put your eggs into this
liquid, ix stone-jars—and they will keep for months. I have tried this method many years,
and have never met with failure.

A New York firm writes me recently to enquire “if the use of stone-ware jars is indis-
pensable ?’”? Yes. The above preparation cannot be successfully used in wooden, or com-
mon soft earthen-ware vessels—as the chemical properties of the combination I recommend
does not work well in any jars save those described—and I have experimented with all sorts.

It may be that new hard-wood kegs, or small sized barrels, might answer the purpose
for preservation, in quantities, for a limited period. But I have found that the shells of
eggs thus kept for eight to ten months at a time, will grow tender; and they would not I
think afterwards bear much rough handling—for example, in transportation. G,. P. B.

IN QUANTITY FOR MARKET. 49

front of his farm, which runs in a gentle slope back from the
river, upon the highest portion of the well-known ‘ Palisades.”
The face of the perpendicular rocks that form the extreme
frontage of this point on the Hudson is so squarely upright
that a stone dropped from the extended hand, over the railing
before his summer-house, will fall in a direct line to the gravelly
margin of the river below, a distance of five hundred and
sixteen feet.

The premises are comparatively new. That is to say, Mr.
Baker had selected this tract of land for the purpose to which
he has devoted it, some years ago. But it was then the “ prim-
itive forest,” almost. It is now cleared up, and handsomely
ornamented — his fowl-houses, incubating-house and chicken-
breeding arrangements being located at quite a distance from
the residence, the pretty artificial lake, the tree-dotted lawn,
gravelled walks, ete. “

The hen-houses, incubating-house, stables, forcing-house,
&c., are all severely plain in their style of architecture, but are
costly, extensive and well-built, throughout; and the modes
adopted by Mr. Baker to render the interior of the fowl and
chicken-rearing premises cool and airy in summer, or warm,
healthy and comfortable for his vast poultry-families in winter,
are in all respects the most economical, the most practical, and
the most substantial for these ranges of buildings that we have
ever seen devoted to this business. And thus, while there is no
glitter, no unnecessary show, no lavish expenditure for tinsel or
ornament, everything is durable, comely, and good, for the uses
the proprietor intends it.

The upper lines of sashes, shown upon our engravings on pages
42 and 43, along the tops of both the long ranges of glass houses,
are so contrived as to be easily raised upright, or to any lesser
height, over each section or pen where the chicks or fowls are
confined. This affords ample ventilation at all seasons. The
sashes are raised and lowered by automatic contrivance, and the
entire buildings, in which both old and young stock pass their
days, can thus be quickly and effectually aired, at any hour in
the year.

We might add pages of description to what we have herein
clearly set down regarding the minor details of this colossal
fowl-breeding establishment. But sufficient is now recorded to
give the reader a clear idea of Mr. Baker’s plans and the general
workings of his marvelously well-constructed scheme in whole-
sale chicken-raising. As a stride in modern improvement

50 RAISING FOWLS AND EGGS

AN OPEN SECTION OF THE GREAT INCUBATOR.

SAMPLES OF BOXED FOWLS, SECURED FOR FATTENING IN
THE FORCING ROOM,

IN QUANTITY FOR MARKET. ; aah

towards the indicated end, this vast undertaking has no parallel ;
and it may safely be assumed that Mr. Baker’s success, in every
aspect, is a marvel.

The time of Mr. Baker and his assistants is fully occupied in-
side and outside of his chicken-houses and incubating-rooms ; so
much so, that it is latterly found inconvenient to receive and
entertain strangers there. Mr. Baker has nothing to sell from

GROUND-PLAN REAR OF PENS, SHOWING TRAMWAY AND BACK STONE-WALL.

52 RAISING FOWLS AND EGGS

his place. He has already hatched out this year several thou-
sand chicks in his immense incubators, which are now doing
finely, in the large brooding-house. He has growing, ina range
of boxes hung around the entire length of the brooding-house,
beds of lettuce, which he has cut with long shears, to distribute
daily among the young birds —a luxury they enjoy intensely.

After a careful survey of the premises, and noting what has
been done and what is still in prospect at Cresskill, we conclude
that Mr. William C. Baker stands head and shoulders above us
allin America as a poultry-raiser, and that his enormous chicken-
farm is the largest and most perfect institution of its kind ever
attempted, or ever yet consummated successfully, on either side
of the Atlantic.

The above account is both interesting and curious. The
poultry fraternity of this country will be surprised alike at the
magnitude of this undertaking of Mr. Baker, and at its success.
Nothing like it exists elsewhere on earth, to-day. And the as-
tonishment is enhanced, that so enormous an establishment for
the raising of chickens is found in America !

A few years ago, it will be remembered that the agricultural
journals of this country published a long detailed account of
the immense fowl-houses and incubating arrangements for the

roduction of chickens and eggs in countless numbers, artifi-
cially, of one Monsieur De Sora near Paris, France.

Atter this fabulous account had had its run through the print-
ed journals, and the curiosity of the public had been vastly
excited over so curious and astounding a record, it turned out
that this thrice magnified tale, “a thousand times o’er-told,”
had no real foundation at all, in fact! There was no such
poultry-establishment in existence, as ** De Sora’s.” ‘There was
no such fowl-hatching estate in France. There was no such
individual as De Sora. The whole story, from beginning to
ending, was a canard.

But in the record now made, which is taken from the pages
of the Hartford, Conn., * Poultry World” for May, 1877, there
is accuracy and verity. We have examined Mr. Baker’s great
estate, and we have been gratified and surprised —as others in-
terested in fow!-breeding matters have been — at its vastness,
its economy, its feasibility, and its entire success.

In a foot-note to page 46 of this book, we have recorded for
the benefit of our readers a method for preserving eggs, all the
year round, where they are used trom time to time, for family

IN QUANTITY FOR MARKET. 53

consumption. This is a simple but certain way to keep eggs
for future household uses — but they cannot thus be availed of
for hatching purposes, after immersion in,the liquid prescribed,
since the preparation permeates the shells, more or less, render-
ing them tender, comparatively, after any considerable length
of time.

We deem this closing chapter on the “ raising of fowls and
eggs for market, in quantity,” a very valuable addition to our
present treatise. And although, as the writer in the * Poultry
World” observes, Mr. Baker will scarcely meet with competi-
tors, in the present century, upon so vast a scale as he conducts
chicken-raising, yet his method of managing the business settles
the hitherto long mooted problems that poultry can be raised to
profit, artificially —and that one thousand or five thousand
fowls can be kept and reared (as he does it) under a single roof.

This experiment, so successfully carried through by Mr.
Baker, has been determined only after a long and earnest trial.
The amount of money expended by him during the several
years that he has been quietly and unostentatiously pursuing
his labors in the work hé undertook, has been very large. He
has met with disappointment, oftentimes, and his persistence
has been remarkable. But his ample means, his peculiar tastes,
and his love of the occupation have served to aid him in the
achievement of this triumph.

He has demonstrated very clearly that unlimited quantities
of chickens can be artificially hatched, and afterwards success-
fully reared to marketable condition,.without the use of hen-
mothers. ‘The difficulty of razsing chicks, atter getting them
safely out of their shells, is what has troubled :all who have
hitherto attempted this work upon a large scale — more es-
pecially when such effort is undertaken in the cold seasons of
our variable climate.

Whatever may come of the record we have now made re-
garding Mr. Baker’s success, it affords us great pleasure to add
this interesting accodnt in these pages. And we feel very con-
fident that all who read our present treatise on ‘raising fowls
and eggs in quantity for market,” will be gratified with this
valuable addition thus made to our book; from a study of
which the ambitious poulterer may learn much that down to
the present day has been generally unknown and unappreci-
ated.

54. RAISING FOWLS AND EGGS

A FEW GOOD RULES FOR FOWL-RAISERS.

The limits of this treatise are nearly reached. We must close these pages, and will do
this in recommending to the reader the following rules, which we have found valuable in
our own practice, and which we deem it essential should be observed, in the main, by all
who would rear good chickens economically, healthily, and profitably.

First. — Whatever varieties of fowls you breed, begin aright, by procuring good stock
at the outset, and purchase it of known reliable men.

Srconp. — When you obtain such stock, keep it and breed it clean, and do not attempt
experiments by ‘‘crossing’’ or mingling it with other varieties, if you wish to produce
uniformly the sort you have laid out your money for.

Tuirp. —If you are a novice in fowl-breeding, commence with one sort only. You
will find this advice valuable. When you have hada year’s experience with this, try
another— if you like. But never attempt (if you are a beginner) to keep and rear two
or three varieties at first.

Fourtu. — Never take it for granted that all the chickens or fowls you see portrayed in
the papers are exactly what you can purchase from the advertisers. Such ‘fancy’?
pictures often represent-individual specimens. But you will anticipate too much if you
expect to get such perfect fowls as you sometimes see delineated.

¥irtH. —In the hatching season, set your hens as early in the year as you can, safely
—considering the character of the weather. The earlier you can get the spring chicks
out, the better— provided you take proper care of them after they are hatched. For the
fall and winter, the first birds produced in the year are always the best.

Srxtn.— The above rnle will apply particularly to those who raise fowls for eggs or
marketing — since the early pullets will lay usually during the following winter, and the
young cocks at Christmas will make finer roasters. These are the chickene that mature
first, and lay first, naturally — whatever the breed may be.

SEVENTH. — Choose the evening in which to set your hens. The advantage in this
method is found inthe fact that the fowl always remains more quietly upon the nest at
first. And twelve hours in the dark, after she is thus placed, accustoms her to the eggs so
that she will prove more steady and contented afterwards.

Ercutu. At no season will it answer to neglect to destroy the parasitic vermin that
infest the hen-houses, the nests, and the perches. These pests must be kept under, or
you have no comfort, little regular health among the birds, and few eggs from your
stock, however well you may feed them.

Nintu.— Remember that if you can give young fowls and chicks a good range, in pref-
erence to limiting them to small contracted runs, they will do fifty per cent. better while
they are growing up. And if you are obliged to keep them in limited quarters, their
premises should be kept clean, and they should be fed with varied cooked and green food,
and boiled vegetables, etc., as well as upon grains.

TentTH.— Do not assume to know all about raising good chickens, until you have
learned how it is done. Begin modestly, therefore —read, and study up to your work
and ascertain by careful observation and experiment what is best to be done.

ELeveNntri.—Apportion the dimension of your hen-houses to the size of your flocks.
Never try to keep a hundred fowls in the space that only twenty or thirty should occupy,
for their comfort. Ventilate your houses well, at all times—in cold or hot weather.

TweE.rru. — Prevent the presence of illness among your fowls by good care, judicious
feeding, and necessary shelter for them. If they get sick, dose them as little as is need-
ful. A domestic hen or cock requires little medicine to restore them to health, if they

IN QUANTITY, FOR MARKET. .« 55

get out of trim. When ill, first ascertain what is the matter with them. Then give them
the right kind of treatment to cure their ailment.

THirTEENTH. —In making your first purchases of either eggs, chicks or fowls —if you
are in search of the best of any given variety, go to head-quarters for what you desire.
You will have to pay a little more for your original stock, perhaps, to begin with. You
thus obtain good birds, or reliable eggs for incubation; and these will always give you
the best satisfaction.

FourTrENtH.—If you prefer ‘‘crossed’’ fowls, and are ambitious to own only such as
are suitable for marketing purposes, or as common layers, there is no necessity to pay
‘‘fancy’’ prices for them. There are plenty of this stock to be had at moderate rates,
and for the uses above indicated, these are quite as profitable as any.

FiIrrrentH. — Whatever you commence with, provide your stock with comfortable
quarters ; feed them judiciously, and regularly; keep your premises cleanly, and afford
the fowls good ventilation when housed; let them have clean water for drink, and sound
grain for food; keep them free from vermin, and ‘‘doctor’’ them only when they need
such service. Thus you may succeed in your wishes, and thus only can domestic fowls
be bred or kept to advantage.

These brief directions will help the amateur to hatch, keep, and rear good chickens
advantageously, economically, and satisfactorily. It is easy to do this in the right way.
It wil! not prove profitable if attempted carelessly, and conducted negligently.

It should be understood that when well done, no live stock pays so well, in proportion
to the outlay required, as does poultry — whether it be cultivated as fancy stock or for its
marketable product in eggs and chickens. But, like any other business undertaking, this
requires attention, and the exercise of judgment, to render it successful and profitable.

We submit the advice contained in this little volume to those who may feel a desire to
embark in fowl-raising, with some confidence —~since we have succeeded fairly, ourself,
through such practice. And this brings us for the present to the ENp.

—_07G,00-——

66 Spee ata a
THE POULTRY WORLD,”
HARTFORD, CONN, H. H. Stoddard, Editor.
Superbly illustrated in 1877 with original
is?" CHROMO-LITHOGRAPHIC PLATES £1

of modern standard Poultry! An elegant monthly
Magazine, quarto size, for the Fancier, Family and
Market Poulterer. $1.25 per year, postpaid. $1.00
after first year’s subscription. Or, $2.00 only, in-
cluding our new artistic original feature of

Twelve Beautiful Colored Plates

to be issued in 1877. Present subscribers are charged
but 75 cents im addition to what they have paid,
($1.25) for the 12 colored pictures—to be mailed
them, postpaid. This is the most elegant series of
life pictures, in colors, ever produced in America.

HAETFORD, Cons
. Isz
7,

GERMAN

UU?

PILLS.

THE STANDARD SPECIFIC REMEDY FOR

cs ROUP

OR COMMON FOWrT ATIUS.
<>“ —

THE GERMAN ROUP PILGS,

(Kunkel’s Original Recipe)

Have deservedly acquired a world-wide reputation through their extraordinary Efficacy, Adapt
edness, Operative and Restorative Qualities, where they are judiciously administered to

ORDINARY SICK FOWLS!

It is a patent fact that the insidious disease known among poultry men as Roup is the most
troublesome, and in its aggravated forms one of the most destructive, or fatal, of all Fowl disorders.
But the combination of HEALTH-GIVING INGREDIENTS embodied in the peculiar pre-
scription from which the universally approved and promptly effective

GERMAN ROUP PILLS

are manufactured, has proved indeed a wondrously successful and reliable discovery, that in thou-
sands of instances has been voluntarily proclaimed by prominent and experienced fowl Fanciers,
Breeders, Amateurs, Dealers, and Poulterers, in every section of the United States and the
Canadas, to be f-r a general Fowl medicine UNRIVALLED, as well as altogether UNEX-
CELLABLE! And although some feeble mrrations have occasionally been*foisted upon the
over-credulous, these have quickly been forgotten, when the GENUINE ARTICLE has been
procured and has been givena single trial, amongst their failing or diseased fowls.

After five years of steady and UNEXAMPLED SUCCESS in the hands of Mr. Finer
KUNKEL, (the original producer of this superior fowl-medicine in America), the subscriber has be-
come the Proprietor of the now celebrated, convenient, and useful

GERMAN ROUP PILLS,

. and they will be manufactured under his supervision hereafter, at Hartford, Conn., where all
orders for supplies at wholesale (or by mail for single parcels) should be addressed.

hese Pilis should be kept constantly on hand by all fowlraisers—since their birds are liable

any day to be attacked with incipient rowp; and this medicine is a positive cure for the disease,
it administered seasonably—as hundreds of constant buyers most willingly testify.

US Agents are now Wanted for good locations where the territory is not already engaged.
There are thousands of towns in the United States in which no Agent is as yet established, where
a live man can make a goodthing among the poultry breeders with an authorised agency for the sale
of these reliable Roup Pills, which take precedence over anything of this kind ever before known.

y*, Sample Boxes MAILED, postpaid, to any address, for 50 cents. Larger sized boxes (con-
taining more than double the quantity) for $1.00. To AGrnrs and the Trapr, wholesale rates
will be given—affording them a very liberal margin on sales effected. For full explanatory Cir-

culars, Testimonials, etc., address
H. H. STODDARD,

Editor of the “Poultry World,” HARTFORD, CONN.

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GERMAN GERMAN

ROU?

cs ROUP

OR COMMON FOWZT ATI.IUIS.
<>

THE GERMAN ROUP PILLS,

(Kunkel’s Original Recipe)

Have deservedly acquired a world-wide reputation through their extraordinary Efficacy, Adapt«
edness, Operative and Restorative Qualities, where they are judiciously administered to

ORDINARY SICK FOWLS!

kt is a patent fact that the insidious disease known among poultry men as Roup is the most
troublesome, and in ics aggravated forms one of the most destructive, or fatal, of all Fow] disorders.
But the combination of HEALTH-GIVING INGREDIENTS embodied in the peculiar pre-
scription from which the universally approved and promptly effective

Git NAN ROU P PitiGs

are manufactured, has proved indeed a wondrously successful and reliable discovery, that in thou-
sands of instances has been voluntarily proclaimed by prominent and experienced fowl Fanciers,
Breeders, Amateurs, Dealers, and Poulterers, in every section of the United States and the
Canadas, to be fr a general Fowl medicine UNRIVALLED, as wellas altogether UNEX-
CELLABLE! And although some feeble Imrrarions have occasionally been foisted upon the
over-credulous, these have quickly been forgotten, when the GENUINE ARTICLE has been
procured and has been given a single trial, amongst their failing or diseased fowls.

After five years of steady and UNEXAMPLED SUCCESS in the hands of Mr. Finer
KUNKEL, (the original producer of this superior fowl-medicine in America), the subscriber has be-
come the Proprietor of the now celebrated, convenient, and useful

GERMAN ROUP PILLS,

and they will be manufactured under his supervision hereafter, at Hartford, Conn., where all
orders for supplies at wholesale (or by mail for single parcels) should be addressed.

These Pilis should be kept constantly on hand by all fowl-raisers—since their birds are liable
any day to be attacked with incipient roup; and this medicine is a positive cure for the disease,
if administered seasonably—as hundreds of constant buyers most willingly testify.

\# Agents are now Wanted for good locations where the territory is not already engaged.
There are thousands of towns in the United States in which no Agent is as yet established, where
a live man can make a good thing among the poultry breeders with an authorised agency forthe sale
of these reliable Roup Pills, which take precedence over anything of this kind ever before known.

«*, Sample Boxes MAILED, postpaid, to anv address, for 50 cents. Larger sized boxes (con-
taining more than double the quantity) for $1.00. To AGrnts and the TRADE, wholesale rates
will be given—affording them a very liberal margin on sales effected. For full explanatory Cir-

culars, Testimonials, etc., address
H, H. STODDARD,

Editor of the “ Poultry World,”?” HARTFORD, CONN.

~

CHROMO EDITION.

FOR MARKET.

—>>>——

HOW TO DO I".

WITH DESIGNS FOR FOWL-HOUSES, COOPS, RUNS, &c,

By GEO. P. BURNHAM.

AUTHOR OF “DISEASES OF POULTRY,’’ “SECRETS IN FOWL BREEDING,”’ THE
“ GAME FOWER,”’ ETC.

Imnwvs TRATED.

<>

MELROSE, MASS.
1877.

Copyrighted by G. P) BurnHam, 1877.

GET THE BEST, AND THE SAFEST,”“FOR FOWLS OR CHICKS. ©

sa in FER. ‘ia lal ae 1875.

IMPERIAL

Pee FOOD!

WILL MAKE HENS LAY.

——_.0595 00—_—_. eg
HE reputation of this article has been so rapidly increasing for feel years,
that it is now in common use by the best poultrymen and far mers through- §
out the country, and is largely kept for sale by dealers and agents. We

continue to send by mail to ay parties ordering, at the usual prices:

50 Cents for Trial Packages; $1.00 for Full-Sized Packages; | Bb

and our FIVE-POUND BOX BY EXPRESS, freight paid by the pur-
chaser, $200. This «ives an opportunity for persons to buy the article in
localities where the Druggist or Grocer does. not haveitin stock. We claim

for it, and have innumersble testimonials to the facts, that it wil Largely 4
Increase ‘Eeg-Production, Strengthen Weak or Drooping }
Fowls, Promote the Healthv Growth and Developement of] |
all varieties of Poultry, and insure fine condition and smooth plumage. } ©

FOR VOoOuUNG CHICES ;
this preparation has proved invaluable, promoting growth and early feathering,
while sick and. drooping chiekens are unknown. where the ‘‘Kgg Food” is fF.
given regularly, according to directions. ye

It has a direct effect on, the liver and digestive organs, readily assimilating fF
with the osseous or bohy structure, thus, giving hardiness and vigor at the |)
most eritical period of their existence.

Avoid Cheap Eamnitations !

Our Trade Mark is on each package of the GENUINE avttuls pit
With the indorsement of gentlemen so well Known to the Farmers and re ae
Poulterers of this country as are

I.K FELCH, CHAS. H.EDMONDS, C. C.PLAISTED,
S.J. BESTOR, H. T. SPERRY, JAS. M. LAMBING,

and hosts of others, the fraternity can be assured of its value. We will send a
circular containing testimonials to any one, on application. Liberal prices are
given to parties who desire to sell; and a little time given to it will pay a hand-
some profit to an agent, in ahy part of this country.

oO

As a special inducement to individual purchasers, whe have not yet tried the
ImerrRtAL Eee: Foop—we will send free, (with each $2.00 ackage ordered, ) to al
buy ers, 2 copy of G. P, Burnham's latest work on poultry culture, just out, entitled

“ Raising Fowls and Eggs for Markets" a capital original Treatise on this sub- | &
ject, handsomely illustrated with plans of Fowl-houses, Chicken-coops, Yards and Runs, | \@
ete. A most desirable and practical little work, from the pen of this veteran author. a
Full particulars mailed on application to

ALLEN & SHERWOOD, Proprietors,

29 Pearl Street, Hartford, Conn. f-

ef