LIBRARY

OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
Oats

I

I

Nature and Its
Natural Laws

J\ Practical treatise on Poultry Culture
for tDarket and Profit

Poultry Raising- on a Large Scale.
Cause and Prevention of Poultry
Diseases.... No Drugs or Medicines
Will Cure or Prevent Diseases of
Poultry... Nature is followed in Rais-
ing Fowls.... Fifteen Years Experi-
menting, and Twenty-five Years of
Practical Experience.

COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY JNO. M. 8ONTA&

'm

B7

INTRODUCTION

|HIS BOOK will help the experts. It is also intended
for those who are about to go into the Poultry busi-
ness as a business on a large or small scale, and for
hatching and raising1 by incubators and brooders for market
purposes.

All Poultry breeders have followed a few experts on
Poultry and 999 out of every 1,000 failed who followed those
so-called experts. Why? Because they really did not know
how to instruct the breeders. They themselves could not
prevent diseases, could not hatch or raise enough to make it
pay. Not one of the experts, professors, doctors or writers
of Poultry, etc. , made it a special study for fifteen years.

I honestly believe that all experts tried their best, and
did not intend to mislead anyone who went into the busi-
ness. Not one in fifty who have written books on Poultry
and who have written articles in Poultry papers were prac-
tical and experienced on a large scale. They have tried it
in a small way in their back yards, raising fifty to 100 chicks
€very year, and what they did raise, I dare say were not free
from disease, nor did they rais»e half what they hatched.

There are really only about fifty large breeders who
raise 5,000 Ducks and Poultry every year. These make it
pay by hard work and at a great expense. If the whole
truth were known not half of these fifty can raise over half
what they hatch. This is a great loss to breeders and this
is the cause of so many failures.

I have bred the so-called Standard Pure Blooded Poul-
try for many years, and side by side raised common Poultry
hatched and raised by hens and also by incubators and
brooders. I found that the common every day stock are
more hardy, stand more exposure than the fine bred stock.

But, the pure standard fowls can be made just as hardy
as any fowls on earth if you only know how, and not one in
10,000 knows how.

4 NATURE AND ITS

Cause of Diseases.

Diseases of Poultry are caused by incubator hatched and
brooder raised. In not knowing- how, or in other words, no
judgment is used, and nature is not followed. Inbreeding,
crowding1, yarding them, etc., etc., are causes of diseases.

Incubators and Brooders.

The greatest cause of all diseases are caused by the
chicks being incubator hatched and brooder raised. Why?
Because they have not the right kind of heat and ventila-
tion. The chicks are raised on the hot-house plan, and na-
ture is not followed. There are just two incubators and one
brooder manufactured to-day that are as near to nature as
can be had, viz: The Axford and the Iowa, and the Natural
Hen Brooder, and if directions are followed you cannot fail
to raise healthy chicks because they are hatched as healthy
as a hen hatches them, large and plump and a ball of down.
Also the Natural Hen Brooder has proper natural heat and
ventilation and so arranged that th« chicks have a free
range of heat and ventilation and there are no corners to
crowd into. Round brooder.

I have made it a special study to discover the cause of
all trouble and failures, etc. The experiment cost me $6,000.
I have raised Poultry in almost every climate in the United
States from New Jersey to California, from British north-
west to the Gulf and I find that Poultry can be raised and
are raised in any soil and climate without disease if you
know how. Nature is the best teacher. I have built over
100 different styles of houses. I built three houses inside of
each other to prevent roup, etc., and still would have
roup, colds, etc. Draughts, dampness, cracks in walls, with
wind blowing in will not cause roup and colds, if only judg-
ment and common sense is used. A fowl roosts on trees in
all kinds of weather, and is the healthiest chicken on the
farm. On the other hand, those kept warm and comfort-
able are subject to all diseases if fed on high rich food, etc.

NATURAL LAWS. 5

Feeding- is the most important point. I have fed all
kinds of Poultry and have tried several hundred different
ways of feeding1. I have camped out in the west and the
wild west. I have watched nature, such as wild and domes-
tic fowls and animals. Seven years of out door life under
canvas tents, day and nigiit, summer and winter, and half
of the night was spent experimenting. Watching- birds and
animals during- the day time, close watch kept, how they
feed and what they eat. My experience tells me that a hen
will do 100 per cent better if she is left alone to pick her own
feed and select her own roost and have a free rang-e on the
farm where grain and cattle are raised. Often she comes
home with twelve to eig-hteen chicks six to eig-ht weeks old.
Who fed those chickens, who watered them, who drove
them to shelter in the rainstorms, etc? One season I had
over two dozen such hens and turkeys come home who stole
their nests, and hatched every eg-g and raised every chick
and poult. Why did not these get diseases? Why did they
not get chilled, etc., and die? Nature is the best doctor.
Follow her closely.

Why do oui Poultry have hundreds of diseases now,
and twenty to forty years ago, our fathers tell us, they
never had diseases. Of course they did not raise 10,000
chickens, as we do now, but they raised from 200 to 2,000
•every year. I was born and raised on a New Jersey Poultry
and fruit farm thirty-three years ago. When I was five
years old I owned my first bantams. When twelve years
old I had over 200 fowls of all kinds. I never had diseases
among my poultry until I read up on Poultry. When I was
^fifteen or sixteen years old I commenced to read up on the
subject. I got all the books and papers I could, made my
own brooders and incubators and in one year I was swamp-
ed with trouble of all kinds, roup, cholera and other dis-
eases. They would die like sheep, wagon loads of them
«very year. I lost money so fast that it got me to thinking;
why is it that I have diseases how and did not have when I
did not know a Leghorn from a Dominick. I always hatch-
ed chicks and turkeys by hens and raised them by heias and

6 NATURE AND ITS

never had any trouble. Now I raised them by a new way,
incubators and brooders, and they die faster than I can
raise them, and what I did raise got sick and had roup, etc.,
if the weather changes or the wind blew in a different di-
rection. During this time I noticed that farmers had poor
houses and old sheds. The wind and snow blew into the
houses, but they had no colds or roup among their poultry.
These farmers did not know anything about poultry, never
read a Poultry book or a Poultry paper, and did not know
that there was anything written on the subject. Some of
them afterward bought books and papers on Poultry and
from that very time they had trouble of all kinds.

The publishers and editors of the Poultry papers are not
in the fault. But those who write for these papers and some
breeders of poultry sixty years ago have written books on
poultry. These very men found that poultry paid if they
were cared for properly. They kept records of eggs laid,
commenced to get fine stock, and every year they imported
a new breed. They improved their poultry, bred them to a
certain color, and now they are so finely bred and inbred so
many times that their constitution has been ruined, their
blood thinned, and they are weakly, consumptive and good-
for-nothing fowls. This is positive proof, as every one knows,
that inbreeding is the most terrible undertaking that any
person can conceive. I don't inbreed my poultry, but you
must remember that they have been inbred from ten to
twenty times before you ever got your Poultry. This in-
breeding is to get a certain strain, and when the color is
obtained which they wish, then they breed for shape, for
size, for a certain color of eye. Every feather must be just
so, and if the feather must be penciled, then they try for ten
years to get a feather such as the Standard calls for. Don't
you call this inbreeding? I do. This is just what has
ruined our Poultry. Then they hatch eggs by incubators
and raise the chicks by brooders, and this is another way to
ruin the health of the fowls. The hens that laid the eggs
were not really sick, if they had been they could not lay
eggs. They were weakened by inbreeding, and it is difficult

NATURAL LAWS. 7

to raise young chicks of this inbred stock by incubators and
brooders that are only fit for kindling1 wood and made to sell,
not to hatch and raise chicks. This you all know to be a fact.
An incubator chick is a hot-house plant and can not stand
outside air or exposure. In the first place, they are not
hatched properly, not the right kind of heat and ventilation
and the moisture the hen gives. To prove this, I will only
call your attention to this fact. Why do incubators hatch
cripples? Did you ever see a hen hatch crippled chicks?
Also, if an egg is fertile, the hen hatches the egg almost
every time, especially if the hen steals her nest. But just
as soon as you test her ejfgs wait for her to go on the nest
and close her nest up tight and the chances are the hen
won't hatch every egg. You cannot fool with nature.

An incubator that hatches the chicks healthy and a
brooder that raises the chicks also healthy, if the owner uses
judgment, can raise the chicks just as well as the hen can.
I have done this four years. I use a good incubator and a
Natural Hen brooder of my own make. I never have any
trouble now in any way. I would have given $1,0«'0 cash
fifteen years ago to have known what I know to-day. I
don't know it all now by a long ways. I learn every day,
by experience only. You may learn or read all your life
time how to make gold into money or read how to care for
Poultry. You learn nothing by reading unless you have a
good book to go by and some experience at least, and the
book must be from a practical experienced poultryman.

Do Incubator Chicks Lay Eggs and Lots of Them?

Yes and no. I have experimented for many years on
this one particular point. The average number of eggs laid
by incubator chickens are sixty to eighty per year. Try it
and see for yourself. The average number laid by a hen
hatched chicken is 120 to 200 per year, according to the
breed. Leghorns are not the best layers. This depends on
the breed of chickens. I have gotten 239 eggs per year from
White Plymouth Rocks, Rhode Island Reds and Black Lang-

8 NATURE AND ITS

shans. These are the greatest winter layers, that is if they
are bred to it, not fancy feathers considered, but for busi-
ness. The Langshans are all the year around layers and are
good mothers, in fact the best; and the Langshans are fine
eating1, thin in bone and skin, with fine grained, juicy meat.
The French like the black fowls best and the French are
considered the leaders of the world in cooking1. America
likes a yellow skin and leg's on Poultry for market. This
you can get on Buff Wyandottes and Rhode Island Reds.
They never have black pin feathers at any age and are al-
ways ready and the right size for the market. A private
family wants a fowl that weighs about five pounds dressed,
plump and round, not all legs and bone. When it comes to
an all around business hen, nothing beats a Rhode Island
Red or a Buff Wyandotte. Black Langshans come next,
and for layers are the best.

For Market Poultry.

Don't keep more than one breed of fowls. You don't
need to fence yourself poor with poultry wire, yards, etc. It
will pay 100 per cent better to keep only one breed, and they
are not one-fifth the trouble and cost in starting. For
market and eggs you will not have any diseases if you keep
your poultry for market only, but if you go in for fancy
show stock you must in-breed to get the fancy points, and to
win in shows. For market I would use the following fowls:
Rhode Island Reds, hens and pullets. They lay the most
eggs with the least care and feed. They were raised for 100
years for market and eggs, and like range cattle rustlers,
they help themselves. But you must give them range, and
you need not have separate pens and yards for market Poul-
try and eggs.

How to Start.

Buy eggs or pullets from a breeder who raises Poultry
for market and eggs. It depends on your money how many
to get, 100 to 1,000 hens and pullets. The hens should not

NATURAL LAWS.

be over one and one-half years old for layers. Pullets are
the best layers. If you have a farm, build small houses
twelve foot long1, twelve foot wide, eight foot high in front
and six foot in the rear, with open shed to the south. These
are for spring, summer and fall use. Put fifty hens and two
cockerels in each house. These houses must be 100 yards
apart and on a colony plan. No yards are necessary. Train
your hens a few days to let them know where to roost and
they all will go to their own house and not all go in one.
An open south front house is the purest and healthiest house
to keep Peultry in. See Blue Print on how to biiild it. Fresh
air every day in the year is the best doctor for all fowls.

Don't Make a Hot-House Plant of Your Poultry.

Don't fuss with your fowls. Give them free range. You
positively cannot make it pay yarding them.

Now about cockerels and cocks. If you have Rhode Is-
land Reds hens, pure, the first year use Rhode Island Reds
cocks and cockerels. Next year use Buff Wyandotte cocks
and cockerel. Next year Buff Rock cockerels. All these
have a sprinkle of Rhode Island Red blood in them. Then
the next year use Buff Leghorn cockerels to twenty-five
pullets or hens. Then the next year use Rose Comb Rhode
Island Reds. Always buy your new blood cocks from a dif-
ferent breeder and you then don't in-breed one chance in a
hundred. You will have better and healthier Poultry;
all will be of one color and size and they will be the
best layers to be had. But for fancy and show you must
keep them yarded to keep them pure. But don't in-breed,
also give them a very large yard. A dozen in a pen and a
yard, 25 by 150 at least.

Cattle, hogs, horses, poultry and birds in a wild state
are not cared for in any way, they help themselves and are
hardier than any of the domesticated animals. When I was
out in the far west in different states and climates, I saw
wild animals, cattle, horses and sheep have their young
in the snow, cold and windy, no shelter, etc. I have never

10 NATURE AND ITS

seen a horse sick, nor a cow, when raised in a wild state.
This is bred into them for years. Ranchmen used to buy
and import pure blood Jerseys, Holstein and Short Horn
Bulls to improve their stock, but not a quarter of them
would live through the hard winters, with no shelter, no
hay, etc., and not being used to it. Finally they bought
cows of pure blood and had them bred to pure blooded
stock. The young stock was born there and from the first
day had to put up with roughing it and they got used to the
climate, and conditions. They did well and picked their
living the same as the rest of the native stock. Now, if
those fine pure blooded in-bred cattle were housed in a
warm house and all kinds of feed and fancy food and side
dishes given them they would surely get sick and not do
well. In fact, most of these finely bred and kept stock are
delicate and thin blooded. The best and only way to get
strong healthy stock is to cross them.

So with Poultry, you must cross them and not with any
old thing, but keep one color, either all Buff or all White.
Use different breeds. Never use a black cock to white hens
or a white cock to buff hens. Always keep the same color,
either buff or white, so when you sell for market they are
all one color and you then get from three to five cents more
per pound, and then you can also sell eggs to broiler men
and to farmers, for this is just the kind of stock they want-
They don't want fancy lacing and show points. They want
practical business Poultry. The year 1900 government sta-
tistics show almost $500,000,000 made in Poultry and eggs
and over three-fourths of this amount is made by farmers.
Eggs are figured at six and eight cents per dozen and poul-
try ten cents per pound. This is the average price farmers
get for their Poultry and eggs. The Poultrymen who make
a business of Poultry get on an average of twenty-five cents
per dozen for eggs and fifteen cents per pound for spring
chickens to private trade, and if they could raise all they
hatch there would be 100 per cent in the business for the
money invested.

NATURAL LAWS. 11

How Wild Turkeys and Prairie Chickens Raise Their Young and
How our Domestic Turkeys and Hens Raise Their Chicks
if They Have Their Own Way.

I have watched wild turkeys and prairie chickens, etc.,
for years, when I helped to trail a bunch of 4,000 head of
cattle from Texas to British Northwest Territory. I have
seen hundreds of wild turkeys in Indian Territory along the
Cinnamon river about the middle of May. We had a bunch-
ed lot of cattle; we could make but a few miles a day, as
they were cows, calves, steers, etc., and almost every day in
that month we had fifty to 100 calves born to care for. In
the evening- we would go gunning for turkeys. We would
watch where they would roost and on a moonlight night
would get the turkeys between us and the moon and then
shoot the gobler and the hens. The hens with young poults
would not roost on the trees, because the young could not
fly. These we could not see but would hear them flutter
away and hide under the grass, etc. We spent two weeks
in this turkey country and I noticed dozens and dozens of
young turkeys. It was a very cold and damp spring, and to
see fifteen to eighteen young poults was nothing unusual.
These turkeys had their young out in all kinds of weather,
and wet grass when we would see them. They were all
ages, some looked to be twelve weeks old, others only a fe*r
weeks. Who drove those turkeys out of the rain and who-
fed and cared for them?

Poultry breeders, note this, and you will all admit that
it is a fact. Breeders kill their Poultry and turkeys by over-
feeding them and not giving the right kind of feed. They
raise them on the prison or on the hot-house plan. In fact
they are prisoners. You will never raise a turkey nor a
goose unless you give them lots of range and let them pick
their own feed and roost. I have not tried this once, but
fifty times or more.

A wild turkey hides her nsst, lays fifteen to twenty eggs
and when these young are a few days old she takes them
out for food, foot by foot. No one ever chases them, no one

12 NATURE AND ITS

"bothers or worries them and they don't get lost. But if you
should scare them, half of them would get lost. Now, the
old hen picks seeds of grass, calls the poults and finally the
young pick their own feed little by little, until at night they
have a crop full. They are not fed fancy food and dosed
with other truck, which is sure death to turkeys. I have
not feed a young turkey for eight years and never raised
more turkeys in my life than I have during that time. Be-
fore that time I lost almost all. I watched them day and
night, fed and housed them with the greatest care, but they
would hang their wings, get lousey, and if I handled them
to get rid of the lice they would die in spite of me. They
want liberty. This last summer I raised seventy-two turk-
eys. I never fed them. In fact they could not get anything
to eat at the house. They hatched out in the woods, lived
on seeds, grasshoppers, and the like. They went through
a dozen heavy rains and the damp dews and they all lived.
I know that if I had kept them at home, yarded and fed
them, they would have all died. In the spring I set twenty -
•eight turkey eggs under hens. Almost every egg hatched,
but before they were five weeks old over one-half died and I
raised only seven out of twenty-eight. I gave them the best
of care and used common sense in feeding, etc., but it was
of no use, they died.

I remember a Black Langshan hen bringing home six-
teen chickens about eight weeks old, hatched and raised in
the woods and never fed. Almost every year I have had
one or two hens come home with ten or twelve chicks. Bet-
ter and healthier chicks could not be raised by any man
with the best of care.

Geese are the hardiest Poultry we have in the world,
but if you try to raise them in a brooder house you cannot
raise one. A goslin must have grass to eat and be out in the
free air and range. It will live on grass alone, and will sel-
dom eat anything else the first week. A goslin hatched, is
a, goslin raised, and they do not want much mothering ex-
cept on very cold nights.

Geese and turkey farming is the easiest and best money

NATURAL LAWS. 15

making- branch of the Poultry business. They require no
feed and very little housing. In fact I never house turkeys
in winter, and never have roup among them. For the geese
you need only a shed with straw and hay, they eat hay like
a cow and old rotten stumps. Once a day I feed China geese
corn and a little ground feed, grit and water. Turkeys in
winter I feed a little oats and corn. I never have fat fowl&
and my stock always lays lots of fertile eggs. Fat fowls
don't lay fertile eggs, but hens must be in good flesh. Ducks
and turkeys also, but not too fat. Have you not seen poor
children running barefoot in late fall and early spring and
also poorly dressed? These children seldom get sick or
have a cold, they are used to it and brought up that way.
They live on common food and not in a steam-heated house,
kept up to 7*5 or 80 degrees. They sleep in a cold bed room
and they don't eat cake, pie and pastry of all kinds, but
their meals are potatoes, old dry bread, not hot buscuits or
fresh bread before it is barely cool, meats, gravies, etc. All
this is not good for children, and the worst thing is tea and
coffee for children. It is not good for grown people. I
have not had a sick child in my house and never had a doc-
tor in the house. If a child has a little fever I don't give
them anything to eat until the fever is gone. You can kill
a fever by starving the system a few days in human beings-
or poultry. If it is a cold, I feed the cold, and give the chil-
dren hot diinks of tea. American children are raised on the
hot-house plan in a temperature of 80 degrees and fed on
high stimulating foods, pastry, and the like. The parents
won't let them out to play in the fresh air. These children
are often sick and always have their family doctor, year in
and year out. On the contrary if they were let out doors ta
play every day in the year, sleep in a cold room, their bed
room aired every day and they were given plain food, they
would not need a doctor and would be happy and healthy.
This applies to poultry as well as to human beings and stock
of all kinds. If you are used to a temperature of 75 to 80
degress in your living rooms and bed rooms, you are more
liable to catch cold than if you were used to a room of 60

14 NATURE AND ITS

degrees or colder. When you make a change, make it by
degrees, don't do it all at once.

Now take it in the dog business or kennel as it is called.
They read up on how to feed dogs. Then they feed them all
kinds of truck and finally the dogs get sick and die. If they
would stop to think, other dogs running around never get
sick and very seldom die while high blooded dogs die like
sheep. They feed on meat, every day in the year, dog
<iakes, and a dozen other things. They feed too rich food,
not enough exercise, and are too finely bred, while a com-
mon dog picks up any old thing. In fact, there could be raised
lots of fine blooded dogs and poultry that would be just as
healthy as any other animal or fowl, if only common sense
was used and if they would only stop to think and wonder
why the dogs and poultry of their neighbors, who don't read
up on pure blooded stock are not sick. The greatest trouble
nowadays is, they study too much on how to get best re-
sults, and at the same time they ruin the health of their
poultry by high feeding and improper food. Some common
people nowadays are beginning to think a little, for instance
coffee and tea is the worst poison a person can take if they
drink three or four cups a day all their life. Government
soldiers are not allowed to drink either coffee or tea. It
makes them nervous and causes headaches and indigestion,
heavy feeling after a meal, and the consequences are they
are not fit to handle a gun, nor march, nor exposure to all
kinds of rough life. During the English and Boer war
when the Boers were captured, they were put in prison and
shipped to an island 300 to 1,000 in one shipload. Some of
them died and most all were sick. This was because they
were crowded in poorly ventilated rooms. Their food was
different from what they were accustomed to, and while be-
fore they had always been accustomed to outdoor life, with
the free fresh air to breath. This is the reason, nothing
else. You have no doubt noticed the following, when you
had Poultry shipped to you in the fall or winter they had
caught a cold, roup was the result and they died. The
cause of this is, from my experience, the Poultry were used

NATURAL LAWS. 15

to an outdoor life and their houses were at a temperature of
40 degrees or even the freezing point. They were boxed up,
put in an express car, near a stove 80 to 90 degrees of heat,
then dumped off at some station where it was below freez-
ing, onto a platform for three or four hours. The sudden
change causes it. This also applies to taking Poultry to a
show. They are kept in a room or hall for a week in a tem-
perature of 70 degrees and then shipped home in a tempera-
ture of zero or lower. They are also fed three times a day
in the show room. This causes a distemper. They don't
get the outdoor air nor exercise, and in fact poor judgment
is used. They really ought to be fed only once per day, at
night only, and very little at that, and they should not be
shipped out of a warm room into cold zero weather. Take
the birds and prairie chickens, they are out in all kinds of
weather and get used to it. They don't have sudden
changes, and have to look for their food, it is not taken to
them. They live and breed and are the healthiest of all
fowls. I remember well when I was married eight years
ago, my father would not go to my wedding because he had
three Jersey cows coming in about that time. He said " I
must be on the watch and give them warm food, keep the
stable warm, blanket them, etc." But with all his good
care one cow died. I was married only about 100 miles from
home, but he could not spare the time for the trip. I told
him this. " In my time I have seen cows have calves in the
snow and in mid-winter at that, and healthier cows and
calves I never saw. They would kick up their heels and run
around like deer." Cows, horses and poultry of all kinds
can be made just as hardy if you start right from young on,
not to do it when they are matured, but when they first
come into this world. I have done it for eight years, you
can do the same if you only read this book to the letter in-
structions. Farmers who don't know anything about Poul-
try have the healthiest chickens. Why? Because they have
no time to bother with their hens, they let them roost in
trees or sheds, and very seldom have a sick chicken. Some-
times they have cholera among the hens. This is caused by

16 NATURE AND ITS

feeding1 corn in hot weather; the hens are too fat, and with
the hot weather cannot stand it. Cholera is nothing- else
than over feeding- stock in hot weather on fattening food.
They g-et diarrhoea, yellow and then green, their combs turn
black, they drink themselves to death to cool off. The rea-
son they drink so much water is that they want to cool off
their insides, as they fairly burn up, their droppings almost
boil, turns yellow, then green and they die by the hundreds.

Poultry in Summer.

Poultry in summer should not roost in the house. An
open shed is the best thing for them. In the fall don't take
them from the open sheds and put them in a warm, closed
house, but leave1 windows and doors open to the south. When
it gets so cold that the ground freezes, then only close the
houses at night, and leave open during the day. Don't have
any top ventilation; this is all foolishness, and is not natural.
Poultrymen have made a thousand mistakes. Don't use drop
boards; the very idea of having drop boards six inches under
the roosts ! The fowls have to breathe the smell of the
manure all night long. This causes consumption, weak lungs
distemper, fever and other sicknesses. Do wild birds have
drop boards ? A wild bird or a turkey roosts away up high
and the smell of the manure never reaches them.

Another mistake Poultry writers have made is feeding
mash foods to Poultry, and all kinds of rich foods, stimulat-
ing- them to make them grow, to make them moult quickly,
and to make them lay lots of eggs. They are only killing
the hens by doing this.

I want to call your attention to another fact. If you
only stop to think, a fowl or bird has a gizzard. They grind
their own food by eating- sharp stones, crockery, glass, etc.
Now, if you feed mash food, the gizzard cannot grind it,
because it is already ground when the chicken eats it. Now
then, the food merely lays in the gizzard a few hours and
passes out. In the meantime the gizzard has been idle, and
the gizzard should be kept busy grinding to keep the fowl

NATURAL LAWS.

healthy. It is the engine of the hen or chicken. If the giz-
zard is idle the rest of the machinery is idle. Feeding mash
food is the cause of indigestion. They eat all the crop holds
and then lie around and do nothing until the next feeding-
time. Meat and other highly rich foods are sure death to
poultry, if they get too much. Poultry writers say that the
chicken gets worms and bugs when on range, so that we
must feed meat to hens that are yarded up. Poultry on
range get bugs and worms, but the bugs and worms are 90
per cent water and only contain about 8 per cent nutriment
and other ingredients. On the other hand, meat and pow-
ders are 80 to 90 per cent nutriment and are too rich for
poultry to be fed every day. Once a week, and a very little
to each chicken does not do much harm, or one pound of
green bone per day to one hundred hens. Only a few years
ago another mistake was made in supplying moisture in
incubators. They find that they were wrong and now have
no moisture. Some of these professors have seen a hen
hatch every chick in a hay loft; the weather was dry; it did
not rain for six weeks. Why did these chicks hatch? Now;
they claim that they have it O. K. Well, to that I will sayr
one incubator has it almost right and near to nature. They
use no tank ; instead they use a heavy woolen cloth; this is
the Axford incubator. I am experimenting on an incubator
and have been for ten years, but will not put it on the mar-
ket until I get a natural heat, and one that will hatch every
egg that a hen can, almost on the same principle as my
brooders.

They say you must heat up a house to get eggs; also
heat up a brooder house to 70 degrees. This is sure death
and sickness to fowls. Just as soon as you heat up a house
to more than 50 degrees the air is not fresh, nor is it healthy
for the poultry or chicks; and if you let them out doors to
get fresh air and exercise they catch a cold. I never heat,
up a poultry house nor have a brooder house warmer than
45 degrees in winter, unless the sun warms it up to a higher
degree. This is natural. A chick is not a hothouse plant,
nor is it natural for young chicks to hatch in winter, nor

18 NATURE AND ITS

can it ever be made to pay to raise chicks in December or
January. February, March, April or May are the proper
months, and before and after that time the eggs are only
50 per cent fertile, and only half of them hatch, and it does
not pay. If you want to raise broilers for profit, you should
hatch during the first part of February and March and run
twenty to forty 300 egg capacity incubators, and have proper
brooders, that will keep a steady heat day and night. A hot
water pipe system never did nor ever will raise over one-half
of the chicks. There are a hundred drawbacks to a hot
water pipe system, and theiexpense is so great that it cannot
be made to pay, if work and expenses are considered, and
the chicks raised. Get a Natural Hen Heat Brooder system.

Hiring a Man.

Always try to get a married man. When he has his
family on the poultry farm he will be steadier and attend to
business day and night. Six months in the year a man must
be on duty every hour of the day, Sundays and every
other day. No picnics or theaters can be indulged in during
hatching time. It does not pay to hire half a dozen men to
run a poultry farm. Labor eats up the profits unless you
have lots of capital and go in on a large scale. There is more
profit in Poultry if you do your own work, and it will pay
you 50 per cent on the money invested if close attention is
paid. But you can, on the other hand, lose more money in
the poultry business than in any other business, if you don't
start right. Don't be afraid to get the best incubators and
brooders. It pays. If you buy cheap traps you will fail.
Follow nature as closely as you can, and with this book you
must have success, if you only follow the directions given.
As you read this book make notes in your memorandum book
and read it often.

Inbreeding and the Results.

"Wild turkeys are in bunches of twenty to forty and only
one gobbler. If more, the strongest and best fighter kills

NATURAL LAWS. 19

all the others. Therefore there is no chance for inbreeding
Sometimes a gobbler will come from another bunch and kill
the leader and take all the hens with him. Now, only the
most vigorous, strong and healthy gobblers lead the flocks
and they are not inbred. If any are weak the leader kills
them. Notice a turkey hen or gobbler if he sees a sick
chicken about the place he will kill it every time. This is
their nature. Now, if all chickens, turkeys and other fowls
were killed when sick, there would be less weak stock, and
more healthy, vigorous breeding stock.

Wild horses and cattle are the same as turkeys. They
kill the stallions and bulls. Only one leader is allowed, and
when a leader gets old and loses his strength the other lead-
ers come into the bunch and kill off the leader. Now this I
have often noticed in the west. So you can see that there
is no chance for inbreeding. If you are bound to raise show
birds you can get good, fine points, feathers, laying and
market qualities by line breeding, getting new blood for the
hen side and keeping a cockerel from the hen you bought for
new blood. Never get a cockerel for new blood if you are
breeding for show purposes; if you do you will be disap-
pointed; you loose ten years by so doing.

Pure blooded stock are the best if only common sense is
used . Never inbreed nor breed from sickly stock, nor from
one that has ever been sick. When buying new blood be
sure you are buying from a new strain. Never get of the
same strain; if you do you will inbreed just as sure as shoot-
ing. I have black Leghorns that are just as good as grow;
in fact they hold two world records; no better layers ever
cackled, for winter and all seasons, and never have been
beaten in a show-room in the largest shows in the country.
I have never inbred once in the same line of blood. My birds
are always looking for a fight. This shows vigor and a
healthy stock. I never kept sickly poultry and never
intend to.

20 NATURE AND ITS

The Cause of Roup.

This is the greatest drawback among poultry breeders.
Cold, catarrh, swollen eyes, etc. All writers on Poultry claim
dampness, draught, etc., causes it. This is a mistake. If
you want roup among your fowls, fall and winter, feed them
all the meat they will eat every day for two weeks, fresh
meat from the butchers, and also feed them on rich foods of
all kinds, and you will have roup in ten days. In the sum-
mer it-affects them differently. They will then get liver dis-
eases and indigestion. In winter, if fed on rich foods, they
get a high fever, 106 or more distemper sets in, their heads
get very hot. This is very -dangerous, and if the fowl should
get over the high fever, they generally get poor and grow
light, all feathers and bone, and the lice will soon make
quick work of the remaining meat and blood. If roup ever
gets into a flock, it means a lot of dead ones, especially if
the roupy bird smells very badly. I have seen thousands
die of roup. This means a great loss, and. is one great reason
why those failed who went into the poultry business.

How to Prevent Roup, Colds, Diphtheria, Catarrh, Swollen
Eyes, Etc.

If common sense and judgment is used in feeding and
housing you will never be bothered with roup or colds of
any kind. Wild birds never have colds and our birds are
nothing but wild birds domesticated. The first hen was a
jungle fowl and has been bred up until now there are over
150 different breeds of pure stock. Above all don't breed
from any sick stock. Never keep a hen around that is sick,
and never in-breed. They have been in-bred dozens of times
before you got them, so don't you do it again. Now in feed-
ing Poultry, feed only "what grows in the field, in the way
of grain, seeds, etc.

Above all build common sense houses. Housing is of
the greatest importance. A wild bird lives out doors every

NATURAL LAWS.

21

day in the year, in all climates and weather, and always has
free range, so notice what I say about free range. Don't
lock them up. Give them liberty, don't make prisoners of
them. They never will do well nor lay half as many egg's
nor half as many fertile eggs if kept fenced in.

In this book you will find blue prints of poultry houses
of my own plans, and if these houses are used you will find
them cheap and healthy for Poultry. These plans cost me a
lot of money and time and are a matter of twenty-five years
experimenting with all kinds of houses. I have made hun-
dreds of different kinds of houses and find these the best.

Feeding to Prevent Disease.

In winter, say December, feed in morning wheat, one
handful to two birds, in straw, at noon a little cabbage,
whole heads and at three o'clock feed them corn, one hand-
ful to two birds. Next day oats in the morning and at noon
feed barley, at night, corn. Every day feed a different kind
of grain; that is, don't feed corn all the time, nor wheat
every day, but three times a week, in other words feed a
variety. Onions every other day cut up. As to mash, don't
feed much of it unless you want sick fowls. Once or twice
a week at noon feed oats that have been soaked in hot water
half a day. Pour off all the water, then mix bran and
ground food with the oats, this makes a dry crumbly mash,
not hot and the gizzard will have a little grinding to do. If
all the food was ground the gizzard would be idle and the
fowl would overload its stomach by eating too much. This
would cause a disorder, indigestion and fever will start, and
finally roup and cold. Don't either starve or over feed ttiem,
but keep them in goodflesh, never feed powders or medicine.
Feed fresh cracked bone twice a week and one handful to
twenty-five birds, not meat but bone. A bone cutter will
be of great help. Humphreys Bone Cutter is the best, easy
to work and cheap. If you want to feed meat boil it first
then it will be good, otherwise it is dangerous. Also always

22 NATURE AND ITS

keep cut clover hay before the Poultry. This is what Poul-
try want. A cow or horse could not live without it, nor
Poultry keep healthy. Notice hens in spring-. They will
almost gorge themselves with old grass. They want some-
thing bulky, and clover hay has lots of lime in it to make
eggs. Don't forget this clover, green food and grain of all
kinds and cracked fresh bone and water, blood warm in
winter and milk. If you have pullets early hatched and of
a laying strain you can get twenty-five eggs out of every 150
fowls every day in the winter and in the spring you will get
seventy-five.

Have your house front south and let them out every day,
or if too stormy open the windows if not too cold. Fresh
air and sun are the greatest health preservers we have for
all living beings.

A dust box in front of every window in each house will
do a great deal for health. They dust themselves to keep
clean the same as we take a bath, whether they have lice or
not. A little air slacked lime thrown in every house will
sweeten it and prevent dampness. It is also one of the best
disinfectants we have. Poultry also like a box of coal
ashes, it makes them lay, makes their combs red and is as
healthy as charcoal for them. They get lots of egg forming
food out of the ashes.

Ventilation is not necessary. Never have a ventilator
in a hen house. The best ventilator is to keep the house
clean, that is, clean out the manure and don't crowd too
many in one small house, Never use drop boards if you can
help it, unless you clean them every day. If you have drop
boards keep the boards about three feet away from roosting
poles, then the fowls won't breathe in the foul air all night
long. This is very dangerous and causes consumption. The
best way to air a house is to open the windows every day,
closing them as night. Don't close house up tight in mild
weather, but keep the window open a little, a.nd from April
to Thanksgiving day keep all the windows open and let in
all the air possible, and then in hot weather keep houses a.

NATURAL LAWS. <£<>

little dark, that is, don't let in the sunlight in the houses all
day long. A dark house is cool in summer.

Spring and Summer Care.

In early spring give them free range and don't house 200t
to 1,000 hens in one bunch. Keep colony houses all over the
farm, 100 to 200 yards apart, the latter is better, then they
will not run over the same range, nor will they all go in one
l\ouse. The house shown in blue print is twenty-four foot
long including scratching shed. This will house fifty to
seventy-five hens easily if 011 free range, and they will do-
better than 300 hens yarded up in pens. Try it. Outside of
house keep a dust box covered with boards so that the rain,
cannot wet the dust. The box should be 4x4 feet and 8 in-
ches deep. Common clay dust is the best with a little air
slacken lime in it. In very hot weather you must see that
the hens have shade.

Spray kerosene oil all over the house, roosts and sidesr
to kill the lice. You will find them under roosts, poles and
in the cracks. Every two weeks spray gasoline over the
fowls. Gasoline is the best, surest, safest and cheapest lice
killer to use. It never hurts them in any way, but don't
have a lamp or lantern near the house when spraying.

Thousands of fowls are killed by lice, especially in the-
fall, when the hens are moulting. They are weak then and
you will always find lice on them, under the tail feathers
and all over them. The body lice, those long, large yellow
ones, will kill a hen in short order when they are moulting..
Sometimes a cupfull of lice are on one hen. Now just imag-
ine one hen louse on your head. The lice prevent the hens-
from moulting, laying, etc. So keep off the lice.

A rooster very seldom takes a dust bath, so spray him
often with gasoline, as the rooster is the most important of
the whole flock, especially during the breeding season.

Keep three cocks or cockerels among fifty to seventy-five
hens; they will not fight when on range, and each rooster

:24

NATURE AND ITS

will go on range with his little flock and thereby he will have
different hens every day, and then you will get fertile eggs.

During- the moulting- season feed the hens cabbage, sun-
flowers, milk and fresh-cracked bone. This will make them
anoult early and make the feathers grow. If you have a
•cockerel you want to show as a cock in the shows, pull his
tail feathers out in September. This will make his tail
feathers grow out and be matured when shown in the winter.
Thus you will score two points pn tail; this goes a great way
toward winning a prize.

Be sure that your hens are free from lice . If you see i
lien with a look on her as if she was starving, she is lousef.
If the cock has glassy eyes and rough looking plumage, aid
generally drags his tail, the lice are eating him up and drink-
ing every drop of blood in the bird. Take care of them /in
time and don't wait until it is too late. A stitch in time
.saves nine.

Cholera comes in the fall. The cause of cholera is that
-the hens are too fat. Corn will do it quicker than any other
"thing, so don't feed corn to hens in summer. Once a week is
plenty. Oats, wheat, millet and free range is good for them.
Always keep lime in the water on hot days. Grit, sharp
«tones pounded up; buy mica crystal grit, or common crushed
stone No. 1; such as is used on the streets is good.

Hens on a range in the fall wont need much grain or

food; they will find lots of bugs and grasshoppers. One feed

a day of oats and wheat screenings is plenty for hens on a

;f ree range. Always keep lots of fresh water in a cool place

-and clean out the pail every day.

Nothing is better than cabbage for hens in the fall. I
tthrow one head of cabbage to thirty hens every other day,
^when they are -moulting, and all the skimmilk they will
-drink. When on the roost at night in the hot summer
weather, keep one side of the house open, with a wire front
and if any dogs or two-legged animals are around lock the
•door, and they will still have plenty of air, as the east side
is all open, except for the poultry wire. This will keep out

CIIINKSK LANGSHANS.

POULTRY BREEDING STOCK.

NATURAL LAWS. 25

skunks, minks, etc. If you leave an opening about 8x10
inches, five feet from the floor, the hens can all go out at
four o'ciock in the morning1, \vhile you are still sleeping1.
You will find the hens out looking- for bugs and grasshop-
pers, which are easy to catch, as the dew makes the grass
and their wings wet, so that they cannot fly.

Corn is the best food for chickens if you know how to
feed it, and when to feed it, and how often. The feeder
must use his judgment. I personally feed corn, cracked,
nearly every day in the winter and spring, but very little,
and sometimes none at all, for a month in hot weather. Corn
makes strong, fertile eggs, and you will find the yolk a
a rich yellow color when you feed it. If your hens show
loose yellow droppings and are drinking all the time, feed
them nothing at all for a week or more. Put lime in the
water, feed cabbage, no grain at all, but lots of grit. The
lime, if stirred up, makes the water white, and sweetens the
water, and prevents looseness of the bowels. You will
notice that a fat hen gets sick first, and if not careful the
whole lot will die of cholera; in other words over-fat hens
cannot stand hot weather, and it will kill them. Therefore
don't keep your hens hog fat and don't feed them too much
corn. In fact, don't feed any corn at all during September
and October, then feed them all they will eat every night.

While hens are coming to moult, and are two years old,
sell them, keeping only the pullets, unless you want a few
hens to breed from. Hens are better breeders than pullets
if you want strong, healthy stock.

Fall Care.

About November 20 the hens should all be sold except
a few of the best stock, held over for next spring breeders,
Pullets are the best winter layers, and twenty-five out of
every hundred will lay every day during the winter. When
it gets so cold that the ground freezes hard move all the
colony houses near the house or some place where it is handy

6V X A TUBE AND ITS

to feed and care for the stock. All the houses should be so
built that they can be moved out in the field in early spring
and back to the house in early winter. This is the cheapest
way to make the Poultry business pay. If you build long
houses, say one hundred to three hundred feet long, all in
one, it costs a lot of money to build it, and the fences are
another high cost, and it will never pay. When I see a plant
going up with a long house for market purposes, and a lot of
money put in fences, I know it will not pay, and ninety-nine
out of every one hundred fail. Just as soon as you imprison
your fowls you will never make pay. Now, why the long
houses and fencing don't pay is a matter of many years
experimenting with me at a very high cost.

Why Long Houses Don't Pay.

1. A long laying and brooder house is too costly, and
if yarded only twelve to fifteen hens can be kept in one pen.
2. The fencing costs as much as the lumber for the house
for one pen. 3. The fowls will not lay as many eggs as if
they were on free range. 4. The poultry are not as healthy
when yarded. 5. It is not nature for poultry to be yarded.
Poultry want free range, the same as the birds of the air.
All around, it never pays to yard them.

How to Make It Pay.. ..Free Range and Liberty.. ..Colony House
Plan.... For Market and Fancy.

A colony house costs only half as much as a pen house
will, and a house 12x12 with a shed attached, will house
fifty hens easily and not be crowded. Why? Because they
are on free range all the time and you can put four times as
many in this style of house. They lay better and do better
all around. No fencing is necessary, and you can move the
houses when and where you like with little cost, where a
long house never can be moved. A long house is very

NATURAL LAWS. 27

unhandy, and plowing- is out of the question. The yards
should be plowed at least every two years, and as the fences
are in the way it cannot be done, and to do it with a spade
is a waste of time and money. The manure in the yards
should be plowed up. Now, with the birds out in the range
in the colony houses, the ground does not need to be plowed,
as they are very seldom about the house, and the manure is
scattered all over the range. The yarded fowls must take
their medicine. The ground in the fenced yards is full of
manure and germs, which cause sick poultry. One reason
why wild birds are never sick is that they are always free,
and seldom are on one place a second time.

There is no use trying it. It will never do to fool with
nature and if you do it it will cost more for the experiment
than you will ever get out of it.

The Colony House in Winter.

In winter the houses should be double boarded inside
with building paper between. Never use tar paper as it
draws the frost and you will have your houses white with
frost in the winter if you use it. It is not good for this pur-
pose. Don't try it. If you have fifty birds in these houses
their own animal heat will keep them warm in winter at
night and in the morning let them out in the scratching
shed, open to the south. This gives them air, sun and exer-
cise, and keeps them out of the snow and the rain cannot
wet the straw. You will be surprised to see how many eggs
your pullets will lay in this style of house and the small cost
and labor of caring for them. On the floor of their houses
use about six inches of cinders and then gravel over this,
then a few inches of sand over the gravel. This makes a
dry floor and rats will not work into the cinders.

Ten colony houses will house 500 fowls and should not
cost more than $20 each, including the scratching sheds, or
a house with shed, 12x2 1. A long laying fancy breeding
house will cost $1,000 to house 500 hens. You s&ve just $800

28 NATURE AND ITS

in building alone to say nothing- about results, as to profits
and healthy stock. Another thing1 about these colony
houses, it takes just half the time to care for the Poultry as
it would if you had the long- houses. In a long1 Poultry
house there is a draught unless you board up tight every
pen to the roof. A 200 foot house is dangerous in case of
fire or contagious disease, but some have these houses 1,000
feet long. Now I have seen over a hundred fail in this style
of house because when a contagious disease like roup or
cholera got in the house it was all over the house and every
one of them got the same disease and all died. Now if a
contagious disease breaks out in one of these small houses
you would not lose many as each house is separate from all
the rest. Now reader, don't you think there is something in
in that? It is my experience, at least. If you are going in
the market business don't waste time and money in building
fancy houses and yards and make people believe that you
are in the fancy Poultry business by having separate yards
and a different breed of poultry in every pen. This will
*oon fade away. If you want a few show birds, pen them
up, say six in each pen and give them 20x150 feet of yard
room and you will not be bothered with disease much. But
it costs too much to fence and house 1,000 or more hens in
this style.

The Causes of Failure are Many.

One principle cause is that the right kind of judg-
ment is not used, for instance a man will take a piece
of paper. and pencil and figure like this. My ten hens layed
200 eggs per year, and each hen netted me $2. Now 1,000
hens will net me $2,000 cash, clear profit. But in doing so
they never look ahead and use common sense. Ten hens
had the run of the farm and all the room and bugs, grass-
hoppers and worms they wanted. They layed well and
raised fifty chicks or more. Now, this man figures 1,000
hens will make him $2,000 cash. I will go and get 1,000 hens,

NATURAL LAWS. 29

build a long1 poultry house, fence them in and I am O. K.
But he finds, as many others have, that crowding-, fencing-
and yarding1 Poultry is not a success, and he fails. A hun-
dred diseases get at his stock, they did not lay, and he quits-
in disgust. But if this man had given these 1,000 hens the
same chance those ten hens had, he would certainly have
made it pay. In other words, he should have put them out
in the field in colony houses 200 yards apart in the spring,
and so arranged that the 1,000 hens would not range over
the same ground. For instance, you have a Poultry house
near your barn. Keep, say 100 hens, and those hens will
range over the range every day on the same ground and go-
back at night and roost. If you had a large house, the
chances are poor for each hen getting a full crop of bugs-
and worms, and not only that, when roosting in a house full
of 200 hens it is not healthy because of so much manure and
bad air. Breathing in the same air causes disease. They
sweat all night and on coming down in the cold morning air
catch colds. Now, if the hens are divided off into small
lots all over the farm they are not overrun on the range
nor over crowded in the houses. If the sheds are open on
one side the air is always pure and sweet and the birds have
all the room they want on the roost and do very well both
for eggs and for the market. If I could convince a wealthy
man that this colony house Poultry farming would pay and
he would invest $10,000 in a farm and plant, and stock it up,
I would manage it for half of what there was in it any time,
after it was well started. This pays better than fancy
Poultry for show and for breeding stock by far. If you
want to go in for the fancy business it takes ten years of ad-
vertising, at a cost of $5,000, then another $5,000 for house
machinery, etc., and $3,000 for fancy show stock; hire an ex-
pert at $75 to $100 a month and pay $50 to $100 at every show
for entrance fees, and with other expenses there is very lit-
tle money in it after all the expenses are paid. You must
also spend a large part of the night writing letters to those
who want eggs, stock, etc. I have been through it all, and

30 NATUEE AND ITS

know just what I am talking- about. If you are well adver-
tised it pays, otherwise not.

Market Poultry Pays.

It always will pay. In the year 1900 $500,000,000 was
spent for all kinds of Poultry, ducks, turkeys and geese, and
eggs. And still this country had to buy abroad. More
money is made from Poultry than from wheat. More than
from corn, horses, hogs, gold, silver or iron. The only stock
that has beaten Poultry is railroad stock. This is a matter
of government statistics. Look it up and see for yourself.

If anyone says the Poultry business will be overdone,
tell him that it was forty years ago when the incubators
were first made. But instead, Poultry and eggs are higher
to-day than ever before, and not only that but we buy 6,000,-
000 eggs from Canada every year to supply the demand.
Then too, we are growing every year, and so are the Poul-
try, and the feathers are used more, and the eggs are used
more in the arts and elsewhere for photography, dying,
glue, etc. Every year there are new uses for the eggs.
Ninety-nine out of every hundred fail who go into the Poul-
try business because they don't know how, but it must also
be remembered that about ninety-six out of every hundred
fail in every other business. If you want to make a success
of any business you must like it first, then you will make it
go. But if you are looking for the dollars on the trees you
will never make it pay.

There is money in pure bred poultry and lots of it, but
there is more money in market poultry and for egg consider-
ing expenses, etc.

I have personally made money in fancy poultry, also in
poultry for the market, but it takes long experience in breed-
ing show birds, and one must know how to mate to win in
shows, and above all you cannot raise winners with fifty
cent Poultry. $100 for a hen or cock is an every day occur-
rence and as high as $500 has been paid for one bird. Eggs

NATURAL LAWS. 31

sell $1 to $15 per thirteen egg's, if you have the right kind of
stock. Farmers sell eggs in the spring for eight cents per
dozen in the stores while I sell them at $5 per thirteen, and
thousands of other breeders do the same thing. If you go
into the Poultry business for the market look up private
trade, and you get twenty-five per dozen easily for your
eggs the year round. But you must stamp each egg and
guarantee them fresh laM and not over three days old.
Thousands of rich families will pay fifteen to twenty cents
above store prices if eggs are fresh and come from reliable
poultrymen, and you can always get eighty to ninety cent
for a three pound spring chicken if you get them in May and
June. Hatch them in an incubator and raise them by
brooders and it will pay you well. If you go in for the fancy
poultry business, advertise and show your stock. It certain-
ly will pay to advertise heavily the year round. It pays me
well in the fancy poultry business, but I am warning those
who are not experienced to go slow and learn to walk first.

Incubators and Brooders.. ..How to Manage Them Successfully.

Round incubators are the best. The incubator house
should be half in the ground, say four feet in and four
feet out, windows in the east side only and a ventilator in
the top. This kind of a house will have an even tempera-
ture the year round. The roof should be double boarded
with a four inch air space, the room should be clean and no
other truck in it except incubators. It should not be very
light and not damp, but should have a sweet smell and lots
of pure fresh air, no draught, windows open to the east only,
floor of sand, no board floor, the only wood to be the sup-
ports of the incubators. The machine must be set level, this
gives an even heat all over the machine.

How to Start an Incubator with Eggs in it.

Above all never save the eggs longer than eight days for
incubators. Should all be of a size and of one breed. Bet-

32 NATURE AND ITS

ter results are had by doing so. With hens eggs start the
incubator at 101^ degrees the first week with thermometer
bulb between the eggs. Do not stand the thermometer up,
but lay it down between the eggs with the top a little above
the bulb end, so you can see it without opening the door.
On the second day turn the eggs, each and every one. Mark
the eggs and you can see when they are all turned. Now,
air these eggs ten to fifteen minutes every day for a week
and turn every egg twice a day. During the second week
turn the eggs three times a day and the thermometer should
show 102|. Air the eggs twenty minutes every other day.
During the third week turn the eggs three times a day and
air them every other day forty minutes in hot weather, and
an hour on the alternate days. The thermometer should
show 103| degrees the last week. On the nineteenth day
stop airing and turning. The air space should then be one-
third of the egg. The chick should pip the shell on the
morning of the twentieth day.

Now when the chicks come out on the twenty-first day
close up all the ventilators. This keeps in the moisture from
the chicks after breaking the shell. If you don't close the
ventilators the air passes through and carries out the mois-
ture, and moisture you must have just at this time. You
should try to get along without putting in water for mois-
ture as it drowns the chicks in the egg by too much moisture.
The water, together with the heat makes the chicks grow
too fast in the eggs and they cannot break the shells.

When the chicks are all hatched, which should be on the
twenty-first day, open all the ventilators. Any chick which
hatches after the twenty-first day is weakly and not worth
saving, and will die sooner or later. When the chicks have
been in the incubator fifteen hours and are all dry open the
incubator door a little. This is to get them used to the out-
side air. In opening the door the thermometer should
show 95 degrees in the rear of the incubator one inch from
the floor. When the chicks are thirty hours old, take them
out and put them in a box with sand on the floor, and a

NATURAL LAWS. 33

cover over them to prevent chilling. Put them in the brood-
er heated anywhere from 95 to 100 degrees two inches from
the floor. See that the brooder has two inches of sand on
the floor. Never have straw on a brooder floor. There
should be a proper ventilation in the mother in the center of
the hover. Not a direct draught, but a perfect slow passing
air going and coming into the mother at all times. This
prevents weak lungs and consumption. The brooder should
be of no hot dry heat kind If the brooder has a hot dry
heat you will not raise half of the chicks, because the heat
is not natural. A moist heat is natural and if given all the
fresh air the chicks want, they will never be bothered with
weak legs, bowel troubles, etc. If you hatch 1,000 chicks
and only raise one-third of the number it will not pay. It
pays to buy a Natural Hen Brooder, a brooder that has nat-
ural heat and ventilation and will heat up in ten minutes
any time.

Feeding Chicks.

•

When the chicks are forty-eight hours old, feed them
their first food, dry bread crumbs. Two hours later oat
meal flakes, and then every three hours feed them a differ-
ent food. Always feed them dry food, never wet. When
they are three to five days old feed cracked corn, cracked
wheat, a little millet seed, hay seed, cracked corn roasted
and bread toasted; boiled milk three times a week and
onions cut up. Never let them drink cold water, as it
causes bowel trouble and cramps.

When chicks are three days old, if the weather permits,
let them out doors in the air and sun. and give them free
run of the yard, and when fifteen days old free range. Never
feed until their crops are empty, and keep them scratching
in straw when three days old. Be sure and feed them a dif-
ferent grain at every meal every day. Never try to raise
them on one kind of feed, it does not pay and you will not
raise one-half of the chicks. A variety makes them grow

34 NATURE AND ITS

•

fast and keeps them healthy. When the chicks are four
'weeks old keep them out doors, that is, brooders and all,
and "when they are six weeks old, keep a box of cracked corn
before them all the time and they will grow like weeds, will
soon tire of cracked corn and will look for bugs and worms.
If they don't get enough on the range they will come to
their cracked corn and will not be hungry. They will keep
growing and will not get fat. They always have an appe-
tite, like a young duck, and eat all the day long, but in do-
ing this give them free range, not yarded.

Look for head lice and use gasoline on their heads and
necks. Do this every month, and you will be surprised to
see those chicks grow. When they are seven to eight weeks
old they will not need any more brooder heat, and should
be put in a roosting coop or in a combination brooder and
roosting coop as shown on the blue print. This coop is the
best roosting coop yet placed on the market. You will see
it has two stories, the upper and lower each about eighteen
inches high, and a round hover, with cloth the same as a
brooder hover. This is used for chicks six to ten weeks old.
The mother is forty inches in diameter, and has perfect ven-
tilation. Their own animal heat keeps them warm. This
brooder will house 100 or more up to ten weeks old. When
they are ten weeks old, train them to go up to the top floor,
on the roosts and put lath over the doors so that the older
chicks cannot go through into the lower floor. In this way
you can keep the coops going all summer. You can make a
lot of them if you intend raising a lot of poultry and you
will never like anything better on the farm than this coop.
You can keep pullets in this coop until late fall and raise
them healthy. They will not sweat and catch cold as there
is plenty of air around roosts. The coop is rain proof, and
cats and minks cannot get at the chicks. The greatest
blunders have been made on chicks after they were eight
weeks old. Poultry breeders and farmers let them hunt
their own roosting place. Generally they all go into a box
or barrel, fifty to 100 in a small space. They crowd to keep

NATURAL LAWS. 35

warm, and crowding- prevents growth. The greatest trouble
is that they sweat during- the night and when morning-
comes the air is cold. They catch cold, roup sets in, half of
them die, and you will have nothing- but small measley
chicks instead of laying pullets. This coop is a matter of
years of experimenting and I personally made it for my own
use and never had better results. With it I have raised pul-
lets which layed at five months old and weighed from four
to seven pounds each. This kind of poultry win in the poul-
try shows and never have been beaten in my case.

Always keep the pullets and cockerels separate, and
never allow a lot of cockerels to worry the pullets. The
cockerels will grow much faster, larger and heavier if alone
also the pullets grow and lay earlier.

About the middle of November put the pullets in their
winter quarters and don't close the house up tight. When
you put them in their new home, give them plenty of air
and gradually close up the house. You must use a little
common sense and judgment about it. You see, they have
been used to out-door air day and night in an open front
shed or coop. Always give them free range. Charcoal is
good for the chicks when but a few days old, as well as for
the hens. Onions cut up fine are the best doctors for fowls
.as it gives them an appetite, cleans out the system, serves as
green food and prevents diseases.

When the chicks are eight weeks old give them milk
every day. It makes them grow.

Pullets in their new winter quarters should be without
cocks or cockerels until February. They will grow larger
and lay better. Feed pullets green food of all kinds and
always feed corn at night, all they can eat. Don't feed
much mash food, feed it only twice a week and mix grain
in the ground food and always just moist, never wet. Keep
dust boxes full of fresh dust and keep the grit boxes full.
Never have drop boards within three or" four feet of the
roosts, unless you clean them off every day or you will have
sickly pullets and hens.

36 NATURE AND ITS'

In mating these pullets for breeding- use a cock over one
year old and put one cock for fifteen pullets in one pen. If
you are selling eggs for the market you don't need the cock
and the eggs will always keep better if not fertilized. You
need not be afraid that some one will set the eggs, as the
pullets having been without a cock, the eggs will not hatch.

Pullets are the only money makers. The hens do not
lay one-third as many eggs as the pullets during the winter
and all the hens over two years old sell for breeders or to a.
market. They sell best about July.

But if you want good, strong, large, healthy chicks for
next year's layers, keep the eggs from the hens for hatch-
ing. If you want to keep eggs for hatching from pullets do
so from February and March hatched pullets, and keep eggs
for hatching after pullets are a year old.

Never force hens or pullets to lay when you want eggs
for hatching, and never feed mash food when saving the
eggs for hatching. Grain makes strong rich yellow yolks,
especially corn, and if you force the hens with all kinds of
powders, pepper, etc., the eggs will not hatch good nor be
very fertile, and most of the chicksi will die in the shell.
Throw the grain in straw and make them scratch for a liv-
ing, but don't overdo that either. Keep them in good flesh,
and to every pen or house give them a pail of coal ashes.
This is a great egg food and is healthy for chickens of all
ages. So is lime and charcoal and clover hay cut up fine.
Never feed hot mashes or have a stove in the hen house in
winter.

Water Fowls arc Money Makers.

China Pekin ducks are the best money makers and pay
better for marketing thanj broilers or spring chickens be-
cause they grow so fast. A ten weeks duckling often weighs
six pounds and in May sells for*-ninety cents each at that
age in almost any market. This is fifteen cents per pound.
A spring chicken weighs only two pounds at ten weeks of

NATURAL LAWS.

37

age and sells for thirty cents. You will say a duck eats
more. Of course they do, eat twice as much, even at that
"there is sixty cents profit in a duck, and it costs only thirty
cents to feed a ten weeks duckling- and a ten week chick
costs fifteen cents each, so you see there is a heap of differ-
ence. Duck business pays well if the proper incubators and
brooders are used, and a good manager, who understands
his business, is at the head of the concern.

How to Start in the Duck Business.

First of all I want to say that the duck business is yery
hard work. Much harder than the poultry business on a
very large scale. I hatched and raised 26,000 ducklings and
chickens in 1898 with twelve helpers at the Chatham Fields
Duck Ranch, the largest ranch in the west. We fed half a
ton of ground food per day, mixing mash food and wheeling
it in the yards all over a ten acre field where the ducklings
are raised for market. We ran thirty-one incubators, a
hatch coming off every day for eight months. I personally
ran the incubators and was manager of the plant. I had to
oversee the whole business, and it kept me on the jump day
and night. So you see it is no small undertaking and only
strong, hardy men can stand it on a large scale. If only a
few hundred are raised any lady who likes the business can
manage it, and for that matter, only those who like the
poultry business can make it a success.

How to Manage Ducks.

Above all buy fifty to 100 ducks early hatched, and one
drake to five ducks. Fifty may run in one pen. Suppose
you buy your ducks in the fall. As soon as cold weather
comes on, start feeding them all they want to eat twice a
day bran and ground feed half and half. Keep grit and
oyster shells in boxes and a pail of water to each pen, every
time you feed. At night see that they have a good bedding

38 NATURE AND ITS-

of straw. You can not raise ducks unless you keep them
dry, when they are at rest at night. Don't close them up
in an air tight house. Ducks can stand a good deal of cold
weather as long as they can keep their feet warm, so you
must provide straw for them to lay on.

About January 1st feed them cooked beets and turnips,,
or a head of cabbage to each pen. and mix in their mash
food ten per cent of beet scraps at each meal. At noon feed
them five quarts of corn to 100 ducks. Never feed them on
grain except at noon, especially when they are laying. If
corn is fed at noon the eggs will be a rich yellow in yolk
and strong. Beef cracklings are very good for ducks. This.
is the leavings after the fat is tried out and may be bought
from any butcher or dealer in poultry supplies. There is a
good deal of fat left on it and also the meat. It is a great
egg food for ducks, and it is also a good fattening food for
young ducks, if soaked in hot water for a few hours. Cut
clover is good for them. In about fourteen days your ducks
will commence to lay. They will commence to lay about
February 1st if fed on beef scraps cooked and beef cra.ck-
lings. Beef scraps can be purchased of Darling & Co., Chi-
cago. As soon as they commence to lay see that they have
egg boxes low down on the ground. They will cover up
their eggs, and if you have clean straw all over the house,
your eggs will not get dirty and will not need washing be-
fore putting them in the incubator. If they are dirty you
cannot test them in the incubator. Washing eggs is no
small job. It is not good to wash duck eggs, as nature has
provided an oily coating on the shell and if this is washed
off you will not get good hatches. While ducks are com-
mencing to lay you must provide a pond for them or a long
water through eight inches deep, two foot wide and four
foot long, and so arranged that they can get in and out
easily. Now the reason for this is to get fertile eggs. If
ducks don't have water to mate in you will not get
many fertile eggs, as it is natural for them to mate in this-
way. They enjoy it and do much better.

NATURAL LAWS. 39*

The first two weeks the eggs are not very fertile, but after
February 15th the eggs will get fertile and then you can
start your machines. They will then lay almost every day
until June. After June let them in a free range, with only
one feeding a day. No shelter is necessary until fall or
snow flies.

Ducks lay their eggs during the night and before nine
o'clock in the morning. Never let them out of the house
before nine o'clock during the laying season.

In May watch the drakes, and if they ride the ducks too
much take one-half of the drakes away, and also the ducks,
which are weak from the drakes riding them too much.

Don't feed oyster shells to laying ducks as the shells
make the egg shells too hard for the ducklings to break
when hatching.

Care of Ducklings From Egg to Market.

When ducklings are hatching in the incubators, don't
open the door at any time until all are out. If you open the
door it lets out the moisture and chills the ducklings while-
wet and hatching. The cold air striking them is fatal.
When they are all hatched and dry open the incubator door
a little to accustom them to the outside air. This you must
do gradually. When they are thirty-six hours old take therm
out in a covered basket or box with sand in the bottom..
Before putting them in the brooder dip their bills in warm'
water for a drink. This gives them a good start. For their
first feed, give them stale bread soaked in water with a lit-
tle oatmeal mixed in. Feed this for a few days every two-
hours. Then feed one-half bran, one-fourth oatmeal and
one-fourth bread all wet up in warm water. Always give-
them a dish of water to drink from while feeding. Never-
feed ducklings sour food or cold water until they are tern
days old.

When ten days old feed one-third cornmeal, one-half
bran, a little middlings and second grade flour. Never feed
much cornmeal, as it is too fattening, and

40 NATURE AND ITS

It also causes bowel disorders. Ducklings cannot stand
much cornmeal until they are three weeks old, then feed
one-half bran, one-half ground food, oats, etc., feed them a
little beef scraps, say ten per cent of the feed and a little
green food chopped up.

When four weeks old feed one-third cornmeal, one-half
bran middlings, feed beef scraps three times a day. Don't
forget grit in the boxes.

When six weeks old feed one-half cornmeal, one-fourth
bran middlings, green food, beef scraps four times a day.
Feed every two hours or five times a day, and when you see
they are off their feed, don't feed anything until they get
hungry.

When eight to nine weeks old feed one-fourth bran,
three-fourths ground food, of one-half corn and one-half
oats ground together and always feed beef scraps and green
food.

At ten weeks old don't feed any green food, or in other
words, don't feed any green food ten days before marketing.
This green food makes the duck look green in color of skin,
and flabby. Grain mash makes them plump and hard in
flesh. Beef makes them grow fast. Their meat is fine in
grain, white and sweet, when fed on cooked meat. Never
feed a duck raw meat nor mix grit in their food, as this is
not natural. Any fowl knows when their system wants
grit. If you mix grit in their food the gizzard gets full of
it and no food can go in the gizzard to digest and finally
they die of indigestion. This applies to poultry as well as
ducks.

The last few days, while ducks are ten to eleven weeks
old. just before killing, feed them almost all cornmeal, with
a little meat and celery cut up fine. This gives them the
celery flavor and they sell better for it.

When young ducklings cross their wings on their backs
they are ready for the market. They should then weigh
six pounds each if they are the China ducks. If they are the
Pekin ducks they should weigh five pounds at ten to eleven
weeks old, live weight.

NATURAL LAWS.

If you have a good market at home you need not ship
^them east. But if you have not it pays to look up a good
market. Ducklings bring- fifteen to twenty-two cents per
pound from April to May 20th and the best prices are ob-
tained in Boston and Philadelphia, often twenty-eight cents
per pound in early May.

Dry and Scalded Picking.

This depends for which market. Some want dry picked,
others scalded ducks. Dry picking is very hard and it takes
a long time to pick them. An expert can dry pick a duck in
twenty to thirty minutes and it takes a good picker to dress
thirty ducks a day. On the other hand an exper can dress
seventy-five scalded ducks a day, so it pays best to scald
them. Dry picked ducks sell at two cents per pound more
than scalded, but it takes all the profits away, because a
man's time is worth more in picking.

How to Kill and Pack.

Catch them by the neck with a hook made of wire on the
-end of a pole. Use a sharp pointed killing kife. Cut a cross
in the back of the throat and then turn up the point and put
the knife into the brain. This will loosen the feathers.
Now if you are going to dry pick get at it before the duck
gets cold. Begin with the wings and tail, then the breast
and back. If you are going to scald them put them in hot
water just coming to a boil. Take them by the necks, two
at a time and dip in and out for a few minutes until all the
feathers are wet. By trying a few feathers on the breast
you will know when the feathers pull easily. Put them on a
bench and pull out as fast as possible without teaiing them.
Use the thumb and finger to pull feathers and by doing it
quickly and not taking too many feathers at a time, you can
dress one in ten minutes easily. When you have all the fine
down picked off, dip it in cold water, wash out blood from

42

NATURE AND IT»

bill and neck and then dip in hot water just a second, and
then in ice cold water and keep there until all the animal
heat is out of them, say for two hours. Dipping- them in the
hot and cold water makes them plump and round looking"
and they will sell much better. Never dip heads in hoi
water, as it makes the eyes look bad, as if the duck had
died from some disease. Then pack them on a shelf or in
an ice box.

Ship ducks at night or early in the morning- before the
sun is out, and then the ice will not melt so fast. Wrap the
ducks in paper with ice between them and pack in boxes or
barrels.

At What Age to Market Ducks.

Some market ducks at eig-ht weeks of age, some at six
weeks, but the largest profit is when the ducks are from ten
to eleven weeks old. If you get only twelve cents a pound
for ducks in late spring it pays, and if they weigh six pounds
each at twelve cents a pound you get seventy-two cents for
each duck, and it only costs about thirty cents to feed them
until eleven weeks old.

Diseases and How to Prevent Them.

If your ducklings are lame you are feeding too much
grain, or are feeding too much fattening food. Always feed
a little bran, this keeps the bowels loose. Cornmeal is dan-
gerous to newly hatched ducks. If your ducklings have
cramps, the cause is cold drinking water, or you are housing
them too close in a brooder. They don't need much heat to
keep warm when four weeks old. When you lock them up
for the night give them all the air you can or they will
sweat and steam and you are liable to overheat them. This
causes cramps when they are sweaty and go out in the cold
morning air. Always give them warm water to drink until
they are at least ten days old and warm food, not hot, but

NATURAL LAWS. 4£

blood warm. Ducks are very hardy but cannot stand get-
ting wet while they are very young. A wet duck before
three weeks of age is generally a dead duck, but when their
feathers are out they like the rain and wet.

Ducks for Market.

Never let young ducks go in a pond if you are going to*
market them. They fatten better and grow quicker without
water, but you must have a pail so that they can put their
entire heads in water when they are five weeks old. This i&
to clean their eyes and bills.

Never keep feed in troughs or it will sour. Clean out- .
the troughs every day in warm weather, Sour food will
kill a duckling.

Keep forty ducklings in one pen, say 10x40 or larger,
and a shed to go under for shade. Keep a dry place for them
at night. Pekin ducks lay about 100 eggs per season and a
White China about 140 per season. The eggs hatch about
the same as hens eggs, as regards fertility, but it takes-
twenty-eight days to hatch them.

Breeding ducks should be let out every day in the year
and their houses should be well aired. They should not be
too closely housed. Lots of air means success in this busi-
ness, and foul air and wet houses means failure. Try to
keep the yards and houses ciean. Clean out at least once
every week and throw air slacked lime all over the yards
and houses.

Sore eyes in ducklings is caused from filth, and want of
grit, and proper watering dishes. The dishes must be deep
so they can stick their heads in the pail over their eyes.

All told, keep ducklings dry, feed green food, lots of air
and shade. Don't let them paddle in the water all day while
young. Not too much cornmeal while young, no sour foodr
and you will have solved the problem.

Be careful in salting foods. Use about one handful of
salt to a 200 pound mash, and only salt once a week.

44 NATURE AND ITS

Never have different ages among" your ducks, have them
all of a size and if some are smaller put them with a smaller
lot. Then they will get a fair show for their living.

Don't feed much meat to ducklings when very young,
and never feed grain. Never give them milk to drink as it
makes the down come out.

Always water while feeding mash or they will die. they
must have water to clean their bills out and their nostrils
for air.

When ducklings are raised for breeders don't force them.
They don't need feeding five times a day. Never let them
in the water to swim. They lose their weight and will not
fatten. Also keep them yarded. If you are raising them
for breeders, let them in the water when they are eight
weeks old. They enjoy it and do well on free range and
find lots to eat in the way of bugs, etc. If these directions
are followed you will make it pay better than corn or hogs.

There is twice the money in ducks that there is in hogs.
Hogs sell at $3 per 100 pounds and ducks will bring $10 per
100 pounds any time in the year and sometimes will bring
.$25, so you see the profits are good in ducks.

GEESE.

There are half a dozen breeds of geese, but the best
market geese, and the hardiest, are the Toulouse and the
Brown China.

The Toulouse goose lays forty eggs per year. The
Brown China lays sixty to seventy per year. The weight of
rgoose and gander when one year old is about twenty pounds
-each and their meat is coarse and flabby.

Brown China geese are the most beautiful geese one can
imagine. They look like swans and are like soldiers when
out of the water, their heads up and very proud. They are
very gentle and the young are hardy.

NATUKAL LAWS. 45-

A goslin hatched is a goslin raised. This tells how
hardy they are. Their meat is the best, fine grain and flavor
and sweet and juicy. Their feathers are high priced and
sell for seventy-five to $1 per pound.

Management of Geese.

Greese need free range and water to do well. They eat
grass like a cow, also hay in the winter and they like to eat
rotten stumps, roots, etc. Geese cannot be raised in a large
number, twenty-five will want an acre and a pond. The
China geese are not roamers. They will stay around the
house and should have a shed out near the pasture so they
will not hang around the dwelling house.

There are lots of farms where nothing can be raised, at
least not on parts of such as swamps or woody land.
This is an excellent place for geese. Many farmers make it
a business and as they eat but little grain and mash it pays
better than any other stock, considering the land they run
in. Any old shed will do for shelter. They live to be fifty
years old and lay and hatch as long as they live. Ganders
when three years old should not be kept for breeding, the
young gander is best. The young gander is more active and
the eggs are more fertile. The goose eggs will not be very
fertile until three years old. The breeding season com.
mences about February. The goose generally lays three or
four litters of eggs, fifteen to twenty at each litter. When
the goose lays her Erst litter and wants to set take the eggs
away and set them under hens. Always leave one egg in
the nest or she will look for another nest. A goose always
covers up her nest. When she lays her last batch, let her
set on the eggs and hatch her own young. The young gos-
lins live on grass the first week. If you feed them anything
give them mash or bread, milk curd, etc., but never try to
yard them. This is not their nature and they will die if you
try it. They like green food of all kind.

The young goslins should be fed on mash food, beef
scraps, cooked turnips, potatoes, whole corn and oats.

46 ITATUBE AND ITS

Be Gentle with Geese.

Don't have a goose fat when the laying- season com-
mences, but feed them well while they are laying.

To fatten young geese for market, fatten them only
twelve days. Put them in a pen and feed three times a day
cornmeal and beef scraps and a little bran. Keep them
quiet while fattening and don't scare them. Don't irritate
them in the least or they will not fatten. At ten weeks of
age they are ready for the market, just when the wings
reach the tail. Pick them dry, and it should be done before
<jold weather comes in October or before, as in cold weather
the feathers are hard to pick.

If you want to pick them alive do so just before cold
weather comes, and never pick a goose unless the ends of
the feathers or quill is dry so no meat or blood is on the end
of quill. In the spring and early fall is the best time to pick
them. The best results are gotten when crossed, say a
Toulouse on a China, or Embden goose, or an Embden on a
China. They mature quicker and weigh much more. Green
young geese sell best when the Jews have their holy days.
A goslin will frequently bring fifteen cents per pound and a
goslin weighs twelve to fifteen pounds when fifteen weeks
old.

TURKEYS.

Here is where nature must be followed to be successful.
They are easy to raise if you know how, and if you don't
know how you will never make it pay. It is a password
among farmers that the turkey is hard to raise, they say
that if they get wet they die, they get lousy, their wings
get heavy, they get weak, fall over and die, or they get loose
yellow droppings and die.

NATURAL LAWS 47

This is so, but if they would stop to think and study
their natural habits they would be successful. I lost hun-
dreds of turkeys before I studied nature and understood its
natural laws.

I have seen turkeys in their wild state in the southwest,
and watched them, their habits and nature, and noticed a
great many things, how to feed, where they roost and a hun-
dred other important points.

A turkey is a wild fowl which has been domesticated and
improved in size and color. A turkey above all will not bear
confinement, yarding or handling at any age, but especially
the young.

How to Start.

Above all start with old stock. They must be three
years old, at least the hens. Never try to raise turkeys
from young, hens, they are poor mothers and their egg are
not very fertile. The young are weakly and you positively
must not fence them or keep them around the dwelling
house. Build a high shed for them, say sixteen foot high,
and it depends how many you are going to raise as to the
size of the house. The best place for turkeys is in a timber
country. Have the house away from all other poultry.
There are a dozen reasons for this. They will not do well
among poultry, and they overeat themselves with grain. It
is not natural for them. They in their wild state look for
their food and it is not thrown to them. There never was a
sick wild turkey, nor a wild bird. They are never overfed.
Nature provides bugs, seeds, etc., and they don't have to
stay in poorly ventilated houses with a bad smell of manure.
They will do best on trees the year around. If you can
make them go in the sheds or a house sixteen foot high with
poles up high, they will like this better than if in a low
house. In the spring let them go in groups of say ten to
twelve in a bunch, and have a house for each bunch. Make
the houses say one-fourth mile apart, or the gobblers will
fight and kill each other. Get them used to their own sheds

48 NATURE AND IT&

Don't bother or scare them in any way. When you feed the
old stock do so near their sheds at night. When they are
laying1 don't go near their nests and let them hatch their
own young. When the poults are hatched don't handle
them at all.

They positively cannot bear handling, and the old hen
can do more for the poults than the best poultryman on
earth. She will see that they do not get wet or overfed and
if you keep away she will raise all of them. I have done
this for eight years. I tried every way to raise them at
home, but one hen in the wild state could raise more than I
could with half a dozen hens, with day and night care.

About once a day I go out and feed them milk curd and
black pepper and onions cut up fine. Pepper and onions are
life savers for turkeys. They live on grasshoppers, bugs
and the hen herself will not go hungry. But just as soon as
you feed corn and grain to turkeys they get too fat and get
indigestion and yellow droppings, loose and sulphur looking
stuff. This is not cholera but indigestion, too much grain,
and if you feed the young and catch them every day or drive
them in when a storm comes up they will get sick in spite of
you. They are very timid and it worries them to death to
be chased or driven. The lice will not bother them if you
let them go wild and help themselves. If you want to you
can use gasoline on both the old and the young turkeys, if
you are sure they have lice. Spray it on them and it will
not do them the least harm. Provide a dust box for them of
wood ashes and sulphur mixed, and have the box covered so
that the rain will not wet the dust. A shed for this would
be a good thing, so arranged that the sun could shine in the
box and yet keep the rain off. Make the roof about three
feet above the box, and about twice the size of the box.

In the fall about November 1st pull out or cut their
wing feathers. Drive the turkeys in a shed or yard and
feed them on boiled corn and beans for ten days and then
get them in the market five or six days before Thanksgiving
Day. The Mammoth Bronze turkeys ought to weigh fifteen
to twenty pounds each, and this at nine to ten cents per

NATURAL LAWS.

pound will make each turkey bring $1. 50 to $2 each, a good
profit, with no cost and no time to speak of. Turkeys pay
better than any other thing on the farm considering time
and cost.

In California turkeys are herded like sheep. I have seen
thousands of them herded by boys. At night they are
driven into a large twenty-five acre yard in the center of
which are high trees with poles laying from one tree to the
other. They roost on these and no coyotes or wolves or
wild cats can get at them. They are shipped east in carload
lots, and sell at $1.25 each on foot, when fall comes. A
small fortune is made, as they are seldom fed except for the-
market in the fall.

BELGIAN HHRES.

Nature must be followed in these to be successful.
Have you not noticed that if you capture a wild bird or a
cotton tail rabbit that they will die if you try to keep them
in a cage? To prevent this they must be given their liberty ..
You can keep them if you make a fence tight all over and
large enough, say one acre for fifty or so and have it away
from the house and as near wild as you can get it, then you
will be successful in raising all.

Belgian Hares can and are raised in small yards. In
fact, most all have no yards at all, only small boxes, 2x3
feet, but they have to be very careful, clean out every day
and pen each separate. The bucks must be kept separate
from the does, or they will kill the young and fight with
the other bucks. This is a good deal of work and expense
to keep each separate and takes a great many dishes, and
many gates to open to clean each pen. It is impossible to
keep them healthy and have them do well if they are con*
fined without outdoor air and exercise.

50 NATURE AND ITS

Belgian Hares for Market and Breeding.

I always had success and no diseases. I kept them in a
large yard so no dog's could get at them and a fence high
enough. A rabbit must be on a free range so to speak, or a
large yard to run in and a lot of boxes in a long shed partly
underground, high and dry, .with a small opening in the box
about 6x6 inches. When the doe has her young she closes
the hole up tight so no buck can get at the young and he
will not take the trouble to open the holes. When you feed
them you can do it on a large scale, also watering them and
no doors or gates to open.

A woody underbrush is an excellent place to raise hares
in. They eat bark, grass, clover and brush, and they love
hazel brush. Have a load of straw in the yard and a lot of
little houses all over the yard, and in each of these little
houses have a bench fourteen inches high for the doe to go
up on so the young cannot bother her when she is at rest.
Have a box in the ground, say three feet long 12x12 inches
and a hole in one end for the doe to go in, and on the other
end a pipe three foot long attached to the box for air for the
young. This pipe should go about a foot above the top of
the ground. When she closes up the hole the young will
have air through this pipe.

A good plan is to change bucks every week and keep the
ones you have had in the yard in a large room or in separate
boxes and feed them on oats, hay and water. This will
give them a rest and they will not overdo themselves. The
bucks get very poor if they have too many does to care for
in breeding.

Feeding the Hares.

Hay, oats, corn and clover. Hay is the best food, and
onions and cabbage. Not too much green food should be
given them and all the water they want. Onions are the
best medicine for colds in hares and is good for indigestion.

NATURAL LAWS. 51

Don't overfeed them, keep them a little hungry at all times.
A rabbit in the wild state gets its feed little by little and it
takes them all night to get enough to eat. You never saw a
sick wild rabbit, because they have liberty and never get too
much to eat, they have to hunt for it. A good plan is to
have a space yarded separate with a roof over this yard and
a foot of straw in the yard. Throw oats, corn and carrots
in the straw, then they have to hunt for their feed, the same
as the wild rabbits do and they have to work for all they
get and dig in the straw for their feed. They will not over-
feed then.

A Belgian Hare is the finest eating, there is no better
meat. One pair will raise at least seventy-five young in a
year, and the young when six months old commence to breed,
so you see one pair will easily raise 150 hares in one season.
They commence to breed in March and keep it up until
October and November. The best way is to let them breed
only six litters and mark the bucks so that you will not in-
breed. Use different bucks every year or you will be sorry.

Their pelts sell for thirty to forty cents each. All kinds
of imitation furs are made from it. The hide is tough, and is
toughest hide in the rabbit family. Rugs are sometimes
made from the pelts, but they are very expensive and sell
for a high price. Fur hats are made from them and many
other things.

The business will never be overdone. It will be fifteen
years before this country will have all the breeders they
want, to say nothing about them for the market. You can-
not buy Belgian Hares in the market now, and you will not
be able to do so for several years to come. They are too ex-
pensive to be sold for food at present, as they are all being
used for breeding, and until they are for sale in the markets
how can they overrun the market. There are more cotton
tail rabbits and jack rabbits in America than there ever will
be Belgian Hares and they will never sell for five cents like
the cotton tails.

The Belgian Hares weigh from eight to fourteen pounds
according to age. One year old they weigh eight pounds.

52 NATURE AXD ITS

I have had bucks that weighed fourteen pounds each, and
have raised hares ever since I was a boy. My nick name
was *' Rabbits " at one time. I could sell them at $1 each at
the market and the Sprague Commission Co., will buy all
you send them at SI each, or ten cents per pound. But they
cannot get any, although they have a demand for them so
Mr. Sprague told me personally.

I can sell all I want for breeding purposes at $5.00 per
pair, and up to $25.00 per pair. If they are standard bred,
have four red feet, good in color and shape ticking, length
of body, and golden under color, they sell from $25.00 to
8100.00 each.

But all in all the market will pay, and pay well; and if
you want to go in on a small scale, try them. A small yard
or house will do, but on a large scale, for market and breed-
ers, it will not. unless you provide a large yard and follow
nature.

It costs three cents per pound to feed hares, and you sell
them for the market at the weight of eight pounds at ten
cents per pound. You get eighty cents for each hare, and it
costs you twenty-four cents for feed. One hare will net you
fifty-six cents, and one pair of hares will raise seventy-five
in one year; so you see it pays. One pair can make you
easily fifty dollars per year, figuring all cost and feed, etc.

As the young will start breeding when they are six
months old, one pair will really raise one hundred and fifty
hares, if you understand your business. It certainly can be
done.

It is no fad. It is an industry. They will be raised just
like poultry, hogs and cattle for one hundred years to come.

The young should be weaned when four to six weeks
old, and fed very light, and not very much green food.

Never handle them by the ears. Take them by the neck
or just over the shoulders. They are too heavy to be hand-
by the ears, and it makes the ears lop when handled in
that manner.

They are a fine looking animal, of a golden red looking
color, with black tips on their hair, called ticking.

JS ATUEAL LAWS. 53

Their meat is something delicious. It is the best meat
one can eat.

A hog is a slow, sluggish animal, and if you eat their
meat you derive no benefit from it, because there is no
nutriment and no muscle forming or strengthening meat
about a hog. On the other hand, a rabbit, or hare, fed en
grain, is an active animal, and is all muscle and meat. They
are not fat, the meat is of a fine, sweet grain, with small
bones. The meat is very strengthening to sick people.

Hares live to be five to eight years old and they breed
every year. Bucks should not be over two years old, but
the does should be kept, as they are valuable animals. Feed
dry foods as much as possible, and be careful about feeding
the young green food. If you do they are apt to get pot-
bellied and the snuffles, and die. Dry food and water, and
once a week cabbage and carrots, but not too much at a
time. Don't bother the nest; let them alone; the doe will
do what is right, and will take care of the young better than
the manager can. Dry bread and milk is good for the doe
while she has her young, once a day, and other grain extra.

Pedigreed Hares Pay.

Every one wants pedigreed stock. If you want to sell
stock at a high price, don't be afraid to buy stock for breed-
ers at 810.00 to $50.00 per pair, with a good pedigree behind
them. Four red feet, a golden red collar, long in shape, arch
back, well laced, etc.

If I had one thousand pedigreed hares, I could sell them
at 85.00 each in one week. It pays to get good stock; and
don't be afraid of overdoing the hare business. They have
bred Belgian Hares for thirty years, and stock still sells at
4100 to $500 each.

54 NATURE AND ITS

Diseases and How to Prevent.

Nature Followed and No Drugs Used.

Causes of failure in the poultry business are diseases,
and chicks dying- after they are hatched. Ninety-nine out
of every hundred read up on poultry, and feed them all
kinds of powders and medicine, and kill them by filling- them
with all kinds of stuff. Nature provides bugs and seeds
of all kinds but no medicines or powders. Wild birds never
have diseases, and they raise all their young- right out in the
open air in all kinds of weather. But just as soon as you.
cage up a wild bird, it don't make much difference what it
is, sooner or later it will get sick and die, just as sure as
the sun shines. Now it ought not to die, because it is
where it is dry and warm, fed regularly, and has the best of
everything. But the best of care will not make the bird
live. Why? Because the bird is a prisoner, has no liberty,,
is used to free range, and the regular food given is too high
for it, No exercise, nor a fresh, pure air, as if out and free,
and other things to which it is accustomed.

Expert book writers and expert poultry men say that the
hen that is on free range gets meat all day long, such as bugs
grasshoppers, worms, etc., and we must feed our poultry
meat from the butcher shop to poultry that are yarded up,
because they cannot get worms, etc. Now they feed meat,
all that they can eat, and a dozen other things, to make the
hens lay. If this is done in the winter time they will get
roup and distemper, just as sure as you feed meat and fresh
bone in any quantity. In summer if fed on meat they will
get liver troubles and go light, and other diseases of the
same nature.

Now, why is it they get sick, if fed on meat? Just this,
it is too rich for them. You must stop to think that worms,
bugs, etc., are about ninety per cent water and it is not a
rich food. It makes chicks grow and hens lay, but the food
is not rich in nutriment and protein.

NATURAL LAWS. 55

Oil the other hand, beef or any kind of meat is rich pro-
tein or nutriment, over seventy per cent and the rest water.
It also causes indigestion as the meat is hard to digest, not
being" cooked. The gizzard cannot grind meat, it grinds
grain, but this meat gets to the gizzard in chunks and stops
up the opening of the gizzard at times and what food is
eaten after the meal stays in the stomach, causing a disor-
der, distemper and indigestion. It causes a high fever and
affects the liver and bowels. If you want to kill a dog just
feed him all the raw meat he wants. You will soon notice
a froth on the mouth, he will get stiff and a regular distem-
per set in, and if not attended to he will die.

It is the same with fowls, the first visible effect of rich
highly fed poultry is a high fever, heavy breathing, water
and froth in eyes, swollen eyes and head, then canker in
mouth, then bad breath, worse than a rotten egg. This is
roup, and if one has it they all get it and the whole lot will
die. It is contagious. No medicine on earth will cure roup.
The very best thing to do is to not feed anything for a week.
Give them water. This will stop the fever. Hunger is the
best cure for almost any disease. Not only that, but a sick
bird or person has no desire to eat. and if forced to eat
while sick it is very dangerous.

Mash food also causes roup. Mash fed to poultry over-
loads their whole system, causes disorders and indigestion,
fever, and if in winter the fever brings on a cold, then roup
gets into the flock.

To prevent roup, feed a variety of grain, and give them
free range. Give them lots of outdoor exercise and sun.
Keep the house clean and open every day for air. Throw
the grain in straw and keep them scratching.

To prevent frost on the walls of poultry houses air it
well and don't close it up tight.

Birds in the air never have roup or colds. They are not
housed nor fed on high rich foods and are out in cold, rain
and snow.

Above all, don't overcrowd the house with hens and
don't keep 1,000 in a house, even if it is 1,000 feet long and

•00 NATURE AND ITS

fifty feet wide, because it canses dampness and frosty walls,
from the moisture of their breath and from the manure.

If a hen is out doors and roosts on trees the year round
she is the healthiest hen of the bunch. She does not breathe
and re-breath in the same foul air over and over again, and
is not crowded on the roosts. It is natural for them to roost
on trees. A chicken was originally a wild jungle fowl and
wants free range and the sun of the ranch at all times.

How to Make Them Lay in Winter and Still Have Natural Ways.

Now to come as near to nature as possible and make
them lay in winter, have a shed open to the south for them
to scratch in and throw a load of horse manure near the
house. You will see how they will scratch and dig for the
•oats, etc., in the manure. It also keeps their feet warm.
One load of manure will heat up and keep warm for weeks.
Then give in straw; feed green cabbage and fresh cracked
bone cut with a bone cutter. Now in feeding bone, feed
only twice a week, say one pound to fifty hens at each feed.

A dust box must be in the house near the window. Put
-coal ashes in the box and you will get eggs in a way that
will surprise you, if they are early hatched pullets. Don't
fence them in at all.

Cholera.. ..The Cause.

This disease is feared among all farmers and poultrymen
There is net much cholera in poultry nowadays. But it was
;all the go some years ago. They don't keep the hens fat
like they then did, and they don't feed them three times a
-day. In summer don't feed hens at all. Corn is very heat-
ing and fattening. The two causes for hens getting cholera
is that the fat hen cannot stand the heat, and corn burns
them up inside, cooks and boils the food in their stomachs,
•dysentery, yellow, watery droppings, which look as if mixed
with sulphur, getting green after the bird has been sick a

WORKING HOMER PIGEONS.

CHINESE GEESE.

NATURAL LAWS. 57

few days. In summer, say July, stop feeding- corn and keep
them thin. Give them oats and wheat and always keep lime
in the water. Give them all the grit they want and let
them roost out doors. A lot of fowls in a small house in
summer makes it very hot for them at night.

If you have some sick with cholera, give them a mash
with strong red pepper in it twice a day for a few days, and
put iron and alum in the water.

Fowls should not be fed much in the summer, lots of
range and green food and water, fresh and clean kept in a
cool place will prevent cholera every time. The wild birds
do not have cholera because they do not get too much corn,
nor are they fed too high. They have to look for their food
and thus are never overfed. A hen will never starve in sum-
mer on a farm; she finds all kinds of feed and fifty hens* on
a farm about a house need no food given to them at all, but
100 or 1,000 hens need some, because there is not enough for
them all. But if they are out on the colony plan, a house
every 100 yards all over the farm they will be spread all over
the farm and will not run over the same ground and thereby
each getting their share.

Chicken Pox.

This is caused by overcrowding in one house, the bad
air and foul heat in a close house. Don't let a lot of
young chickens go in one house. Divide them off and have
a coop with roosts in a house say 4x4 feet, 4 feet high, and
keep thirty or forty in a house like this, with a front cov-
ered with poultry wire. Close it up every night to keep out
night prowlers, such as skunks, minks, cats, dogs, etc.

Scabby Legs in Poultry.

Cause: Dirty, filthy houses and roosting places. Lice
get under the scales and play havoc with the legs. Lard and
sulphur mixed and rubbed on thickly, will be of great help

58 NATURE AND ITS

and make the leg's nice and smooth. This should be rubbed
on three or four times. Keep the roosts well oiled with
kerosene to keep off the lice. You will find millions under
the roost poles.

Egg Eaters.

Nests should be in a dark place and so low that the hens
cannot stand up in the nest and pick at the eggs. Keeping
the hens scratching1 in straw will prevent egg eating. Close
confinement causes this trouble.

Feather Eating.

. This is also caused by close confinement, and being
penned in a yard with nothing to do. Give them free range.
Free range is what is wanted by poultry. If they are yarded
up they get into all sorts of trouble.

PIP.

This is caused by overcrowding and old runs, where
fowls have been kept for years. A new location is a preven-
tative. Gapes is also caused by filthy quarters. Put lime in
water, and also throw air slaked lime in the houses and all
over the poultry. Do this at least once a month. To all
poultry, if not sick, lime, air-slaked, in powdered form, is the
best disinfectant there is. It sweetens water, houses, and
prevents lice and dampness.

Gasoline is the best lice killer, sure and safe to old and
young poultry. It never disturbs them nor makes them sore*
nor will it kill them. Spray it all over them with a sprayer,
but be careful not to have a lamp or a match near it_

Never hatch late chicks. Anything hatched after June
1st is not worth having. The late hatched chicks never will
amount to anything. In the fall they are small and puny,
and liable to diseases and colds, because they are not full
feathered and not matured.

NATURAL LAWS. 5J>

A Warning to Poultry men.... Cause of Roup in Young Stock....
Raising Young Stock.

The poultryman must be very careful about housing-
young" stock after they are six weeks old. They are out of
the brooder and need no more heat. Now, most breeders
put barrels and boxes all over the place for them, and thirty
to fifty crowd into one box or barrel. This is very danger-
ous. They sweat at night, come out in the wet dew and
cold air at four o'clock in the morning; they catch cold and
their eyes swell up; they get thin and make a noise in the
throat as if they had a frog in it. They die of consumption
because they are in a hot, tight box, and sweat all night, and
the air is not pure. They breathe in and out the same
breath, which causes weak lungs, consumption, colds and
roup. You must provide an open shed for them with roosts
and don't let them crowd all night. The open shed with an
open front and a good tight roof, is an ideal house for them,
and you will see the difference in stock. You will see them
grow like weeds. We make a combination roosting coop
and brooder for this purpose — two floors, the first being"
eighteen inches high, and the second three feet high. On
the lower floor is a mother, the same as in a brooder, but
without any heat. This floor is for chicks when six weeks
old. They need no more heat when that age in the spring,
so they are put in this brooder underneath the coop. When
they are ten weeks old they are put up on the upper floor on
the roosts and slats placed over the doors to second floor to
prevent the older chicks going into the lower floor. You can
then put younger chicks in the lower floor again where the
round mother with the cloth is. If fifty chicks are put on
the lower floor their own animal heat will keep them warm,
and it is so arranged that the ventilation is perfect and the
chicks cannot sweat nor crowd. On the upper floor thirty
to forty chicks can roost with ease ; up to four months old
and after that thirty is plenty. That number can stay in the
coop until snow flies. You should have ten to forty of these

<>0 NATURE AND ITS

-coops all over the plant, depending1 on how many chicks
you are going to raise.

They are the best coop on the market in this line, and
are worth twice what they cost, if you want good, large,
healthy pullets to lay, and want to win in the shows. They
are rat, cat, mink and water proof.

They should be made of No. 2 pine flooring, and will
last for years. They weigh about two hundred pounds, and
can be shipped from St. Charles to almost any point within
one thousand miles for one dollar. We can ship them from
here in knocked down condition, with the different sections
put together.

We sell these coops complete for $15.00, ready to ship.
On orders for half a dozen we will pay the freight anywhere
in the United States.

These coops were invented and made on our ranch by
John M. Sontag.

The blue prints show the construction of the coops, and
any one can make them for themselves. The cost will be
about the same as if ordered from us direct.

The Best Poultry for Market, for Meat and for Eggs.

After twenty-five years of practical experience I have
found the best poultry for market, meat and eggs at any
age from six weeks to two years to be as follows:

The best layers on record are the Black China Lang-
shans. I have tried over seventy-five of the best breeds
known. If you want eggs when it is twenty below zero,
you can have them if you keep Black Langshans and have
the egg laying strain. Not all the breeders have this strain
and it is a matter of years and experience to breed them for
laying. I have Langshans that averaged 209 eggs each per
year and I breed from them only. I have also two pullets
that have won the worlds record in the show room. They
are winners as well as layers. I breed for both.

NATURAL LAWS. 61

Practical Points of a Langshan.

A Black Langshan fowl is the best mother. Why? She
is very careful with eggs and her chicks. She will take them
of any age and size and mother them, even if they are not
her own hatched. She is not always looking for a fight, but
is very gentle and tame. They do not set like other large
fowls. Only once a year they care to set, while others want
to set all summer and are willing to try to hatch stones or
their own feet.

They lay the year round, and when my wife wants eggs
she goes into the Langshan house for them. This she can
not do with any other breed. I will put them up against
any other breed in this country. Some people think the
Leghorn is the best layer. This is a great mistake. Keep
account for yourself which is the best. I have kept egg
records for ten years and know whereof I write. A Leg-
horn will lay eggs like the old harry for a while, especially
when every other hen lays, but when it comes to laying in
the winter she is behind every other breed. She lays eggs
when they are eight cents a dozen in the stores, but a Lang-
shan will lay when they are thirty and forty cents a dozen,
and when eggs are twenty-five cents in the fall the Leghorn
is moulting, but the Langshan is laying right along through
the moulting season.

Some say that the Langshan has black legs and black
feathers and does not sell good or dress well. How about a
turkey? Have they not black pin-feathers and is not their
meat good? A Langshan is better eating than a turkey.
The French cooks always prefer a black fowl, because they
say the meat is juicier, sweeter and finer in bone and skin.

A turkey has black legs, so has a Langshans, and the
meat is extra good in both. The best Black Langshans come
from the cold northern part of China, and are hardy and
stand the cold climate better than any other breed. You
must introduce the Langshans to your market. In fact, I

62 NATURE AND ITS

never need to sell them to the market for meat, as I cannot
raise them fast enough for breeders.

I get $5 to $15 each for cockerels and $2 to $10 for hens
and pullets. Eggs I sell at $2 to $5 per thirteen and the
hens lay well up to three years of age. When other hens
lay only forty eggs a year a three-year-old Black Langshan
will lay 100 or more. Now this is a matter of experience
and record. No prouder fowl lives. They are fine appear-
ing with their glossy black feathers and the green sheen ad-
mired by all who see them. They weigh from eight to eleven
pounds when one year old. If you want to make dollars
and cents the year round try them.

What One Hen Can Do.

She can clear you $10 a year. This is how it can be done
•with fifty hens. One pure bred hen, bred for laying will lay
over 200 eggs a year. You can sell one-half of the eggs for
the market, because in the fall and winter you cannot sell
eggs for hatching at any price, because nobody hatches
chicks at that time of the year.

Now we will set all the eggs this one hen lays between
February and July. This gives us say 150 days for her to
lay 100 eggs. This she can do if she is from a laying strain.
Those 100 eggs set under other hens while she is laying, and
if she should want to set break her from it, and in a few
days she will go to laying again. Now set all the eggs she
lays, 100 of them, and seventy-five will hatch chicks, and say
you raise only fifty of them. Now, those fifty will sell for
twenty-five cents each on the market when they are three
months old on the average. Fifty chicks at twenty-five
cents each is $12.50. The cost to feed the hen and these
fifty chicks is, say $2.50. This makes $10 net over all costs
for one hen, without considering the eggs sold in the fall
and winter. If you sell the chicks when six months old you
get more for them. If you have good stock and advertise it
you can sell them from $2 to $5 each and make $100 clear on

NATURAL LAWS 63

each hen. This has been done a great many times and hun-
dreds can prove it.

Now, fifty hens treated the same way can do the same;
but this is where the trouble comes. Why? Because you
do not give them all the same care, and range, and show.
This you must do or you cannot make $1.00 net on each hen.
You must work for it the same as in any other business.

The best all around chicken for the market is between
the Rhode Island Red and the Buff Wyandotte. The best
layer of the two is the Rhode Island Red, and as for the
market, it is six of one and half a dozen of the other. The
Rhode Island Reds are next in laying1 to the Langshans.
They are better than the Buff Wyandottes or any other
breed. They are hardy and have always been bred for lay-
ers, and had to rough it for wild fowls. This breed origi-
nated in Rhode Island, and farmers down there have quit
fancy stock and have gone to egg farming. Some keep as
many as three thousand hens, one hundred in each house, one
hundred in each house on the colony plan. They are never
yarded and are always on free range. They are used to all
manner of rough life, cold, wet and dampness. As the
entire state is low and wet, it does not affect them, as they
are accustomed to it.

Egg Farm Pays.

My advice is to go in the egg farm business and have
houses all over the farm. Don't crowd; fifty in one house is
plenty; and if on free range the year round you can at least
net Si. 00 each from each hen; and if you have one thousand
hens you can make a good living at small cost. Say twelve
houses, 12x24 including shed, as per blue print. Each house
will cost you about $25.00, and are good for twenty years if
kept in repair. You don't want anything better and easier
than this. You don't have to bother with fences and gates,
long, expensive houses, separate pens and troughs for each
twelve hens. You can get twsnty-five cents per dozen for
your eggs the year around at private houses and hotels and

NATURE AND IT&

clubs and banquets. A forty acre farm is all you will need,
with the houses one hundred yards or more apart.

Fertile Eggs in Winter.

It is impossible to get a good percentage of fertile eggs
in winter, and those that are fertile hatch weakly chicks.
It is against nature to hatch them in winter. The eggs will
be most fertile in April and May, and that is the time when
the wild birds commence to hatch their young. It is only a
•waste of time to hatch in winter. The best time is in March,
April and May. The chicks will do well then, because they
will have the outdoor air. live in the grass, and will be busy
looking for bugs, worms, etc. The warm air and sun makes
them grow and do well. Only a small percentage of them
will die at this time of the year. Don't try to go against
nature. You will fail if you do.

When you save the eggs for hatching, feed corn and
oats. Corn makes strong, rich, yellow yolks, and the chicks
will be strong. Fresh cracked bone fed to the hens at this
time will help to make them lay fertile eggs. Feed this
cracked bone only twice a week, and only one to two pounds
for fifty hens. The fresh, raw meat and bone causes worms,
and liver diseases, roup and distemper, if you over feed.

Fattening Poultry.

To fatten for the market you should have them in good
flesh, and it will then be easy to fatten them. Feed them
on cooked cornmeal and buckwheat. Mix charcoal in the
feed. Cooked beans are good flesh producers, and a little oil
meal should be mixed in with it. Never over feed, and the
first few days give them only half enough to eat. Then for
the rest of ten days, feed them heavily, but never leave any
food before them. Fatten them only twelve to fourteen
days. If you fatten them any longer they will get sick and
run down.

NATURAL LAWS. 65

Birds and Nature.

Remember that the wild birds are out in all kinds of
weather, cold, ice, snow, and they don't have colds or roup.
They roost in trees, and not in a bad smelling- house. They
always have fresh air, and the bad air from their droppings
never reaches them, They are not tender, like a hot-house
plant. They gradually get used to the outdoor life. They
never overfeed and are never fed on all kinds of egg food to
make them grow and lay. They have to look for every seed
they get, and work for it. Flying is exercise for them.
Their eggs always hatch. You never saw an unfertile egg
in a bird's nest. Nature will do more for fertile eggs and
health for poultry than all the truck you can possibly feed
them . If a poultryman reads the analysis of foods, and fol-
lows the directions of those professors, doctors and would-be
experts on these lines, he will get into trouble . A hen at
liberty finds a great variety of food and is always healthy.
She will lay a lot of eggs, and almost all will be fertile.

A hen in confinement will worry, and all the food you
give will do no good. Half of them will be sick, and a third
of the eggs will not be fertile. Those that are fertile are
weakly and sickly chicks when hatched.

A hen that steals her nest will most always hatch every
egg and she can care for the chicks without any food from
man at all up to three weeks old. This I know to be a fact,
and I seldom water or feed the chicks, and they are as
healthy as prairie chickens. Wet grass and rains do not
bother the hen, she will care for them right out in the open
air, the same as other birds. This ought to be a lesson for
those who are in trouble with poultry. Follow nature, and
follow as closely as you can. Don't heat your hen houses,
or don't heat your brooder houses after March.

If you want to raise chickens in December, January and
February, keep the house just above the freezing point, have
sand on the floor and give them all the air possible. Have a
pen with straw in it to keep them scratching for the grain.

66 NATURE AND ITS

Don't force their growth. You have probably seen a hot
house plant or vegetables grow up high, and before they
reach maturity, fall over, the stalk not being strong enough
to keep it standing. So with chicks, they get weak legs
and cannot hold their weight up. Then too, a hot house
plant grown in winter and put out doors, even in mild
weather, will lie down and only the best care will keep it
from dying, because it is not used to the outside air. But
if the the hot house plant had had outside air from the be-
ginning of the sprouting, it would stand all kinds of expos-
ure. So with chicks, you must get them used to the outside
air at the start, and then you will be successful. I have
tried many ways to care for poultry, and find that all the
food on earth is no good if you don't give them air, sun and
free range. Never yard them up after they are a week old.
It pays to let them run, and you will not be bothered with
diseases.

I will if necessary visit all who read this book and fail,
regardless of distance and expense. What others do, you
can.

I will close this little book and say this: Don't judge the
value of the book for its size, but consider the contents. A
book ever so large is of no use if it is not a practical one.
Further, a great deal of information can be gotten out of
this book if directions are followed. If at any time you are
stuck, write me. There is no such book written on poultry
and you cannot help being successful and make it pay for
the market.

The blue prints are also original and from my own plans
and they will save you a lot of money when building poul-
try houses. If you cannot make it successfully with these
instructions you will fail in any other business. Dozens are
now doing well with my advice, and have paid well for the
instructions by letter.

Fruit Trees and Poultry Great Money Makers.

These two go well together and a sure crop is assured
every year. Poultry are money makers every year, but

NATURAL LAWS. 67

fruit trees do not bear a full crop, as the trees rest a
year. Fruit does better when the poultry are among them
because the chickens get all the worms, bugs and insects
that would otherwise ruin the fruit and trees. The only
place where plums do well is where poultry is plenty, as
they kill all the culture worms and other insects.

How to Plant Trees and Have Them Do Well in Any Soil and
Climate.

For a forty acre farm buy the trees in a nursery in your
own state, because you know then that they are acclimated.
Order them early in the spring, and just as soon as the frost
is out of the ground dig holes forty feet apart for apples,
twenty-five feet for cherry trees, twenty feet for plum and
pear trees and other trees that do not branch out too far.
The idea is to get them far enough apart to get air and sun
when they are ten to twenty years old. While the apple
trees are growing you can plant plum and cherry trees be-
tween them and when the apple trees are fifteen to twenty
years old, the cherry and plum trees will die out from age.
In this way you use up all the ground possible. This is the
best place on a farm to raise poultry. They manure the
land and keep bugs and worms off the trees. It is a good
place for shade and is better than in the woods, as there are
no hawks or other animals to bother them. The thick
woods hide the hawks, crows and animals which pray on the
chicks, while the orchard is free from them.

When and How to Plant Fruit Trees.

When your trees come put them in a cool place and pour
water over the roots. Do not plant them on a dry warm
day when the sun shines, as the roots are very delicate and
will die if exposed to the sun. The best time to plant is
after four o'clock in the afternoon and before the sun is too
high in the morning, say seven o'clock. You should have
plenty of help to plant your orchard and do it right.

DO NATURE AND ITS

The trees are best at three years old, or five to six feet
high, strong and at least two inches in diameter near the
roots. If you buy them by the thousand you can get them
for about ten cents each. When you plant them cut off all
the broken roots and trim all the branches almost like a
whip. This will put all the strength in the roots where
otherwise it would be in the branches, and the tree would
die when hot weather came on. In planting, put in two
handfuls of wet oats around the roots. This will start the
fibre roots and you will be surprised to see the trees grow.
The toats sprout around the roots and this starts the tree
roots to grow. Don't fail to do this. Now, if you have no
black loam on your orchard, haul some in and throw a few
shovel fulls in each hole after the oats are around the roots.
Put in a little fruit and root crop fertilizer over the black
soil, stamp the ground hard over the roots so no air can get
to the roots, then shovel in the rest of the soil. Water each
tree if the soil is dry. If the soil is wet it is not necessary.

Mulching Trees.

When the tree is planted, heap up the soil around it, put
straw or wild hay around the tree, and put stones on the
straw to keep it from blowing away. The straw prevents
the sun and air from drying out the soil at the roots. It is
impossible to grow fruit trees unless you do this. Trim the
trees down like a whip, this is one of the secrets of success.
You should also cultivate them at least six feet on each side
of the trees. Run a plow on each side and then harrow it
level. Do this three or four times every summer up to
August. You must cultivate trees to make them grow
quickly, and it will surprise you in a few years to see those
ten to twelve foot trees bearing fruit. Plum trees will have
fruit two years after planting, peaches in two years, cherries
the fourth year and apples in six years. To get peaches,
trim the branches down for three years to get a good trunk,
then let the branches out. In Indiana, Illinois, Michigan
and Wisconsin, it is customary to mulch the trees heavily

NATURAL LAWS. 69

with straw in the fall, about three feet around and a foot
deep, and keep it there until May 15th. This prevents the
tree from blooming too early.

Most of those who start in peach farming- have either
the flowers or fruit frozen and the consequence is no
peaches. Now, if you . mulch them heavily to keep the
ground cold around the tree and keep the frost from coming
out of the ground, the tree will not start growing until
after the danger from frost is over. Peach trees will bloom
early in April if care is not taken, while they should not
bloom until May 15. By doing this you will be certain
of a crop. It will also pay you to «rope them up with straw
or old bags. This will prevent the frost killing the trees.
Where the snow is deep in the winter it is not necessary to
do this, but where there is not much snow it should be done.
Snow is about the best protection from frost we hare, es-
pecially for young trees, clover, grass, etc.

When trees are six to eight years old, no more cultiva-
tion is necessary. Peach trees bear very little fruit after
eight years old, but other trees are good for many years if
properly trimmed every year.

Spraying Fruit Trees.

Spray the trees when the buds are ready to bloom, and
again ten days after blooming. There are thousands of
small flies that injure the flowers, by and spraying it will
kill them, and they will not go near a flower that has been
sprayed. Any nurseryman will tell you just what liquids to
use for spraying, or the Government will send you a small
circular on spraying for the asking

Poultry in the Orchard.

Every one hundred feet have a small house to hold fifty
hens. Have these colony houses all over the orchard. The
young stock should also be raised in the orchard , as the shade

70 NATURE AND ITS

is good and the cultivated ground furnishes an excellent
scratching place for them,

The best fruit soil is a sandy clay loam, with gravel un-
derneath, say three or four feet. This furnishes a natural
drain. The trees should be planted on a ground sloping
slightly to the east, except for peaches, which should be
planted on the north or west slopes. This slope does not
warm up as quickly in the spring, and so holds back the
growing until the danger from frost is past. It is also cooler
in the summer, and the shadows are longer, so the soil does
not dry out as fast.

Wild plums do best in a low, wet place, near a river or
swamp.

An orchard when in good bearing condition will bring
in from two to three hundred dollars per acre if well cared
for. Care and work will make it pay. One hundred hens
will do well on an acre and bring you in one hundred dol-
lars net after paying for all the feed, if the eggs are sold at
store prices. If they are sold for fancy prices, for show and
breeding stock, one hundred hens will make a thousand
dollars an acre. You must advertise your fancy stock, how-
ever, to make sales.

My advice would be to work the two together, and thus
make the best use of the land. It will pay one hundred per
cent better than corn or oats, and is less work. Fruit always
brings a good price if it is A No. 1, but if not first class it is
not wanted at any price. Hundreds of farmers do not care
for their trees, never go near them, and in the fall the
ground is covered with apples, worm eaten, while if they
had cared for their tree, cultivated them and sprayed them,
they could get from two to five dollars per .barrel for the
apples. Baldwins, Ben Davis, Russets, North Star apples
sell like hot cake at good prices.

Looking for a Manager.

If you intend to go into the poultry and fruit business
on a large scale, it will be necessary to consult a practical

NATUBAL LAWS.

71

man who understands it in all its branches. The whole
secret lies in starting right, in location of farm and build-
ings, the selection of the proper poultry for the market, and
eggs, and a dozen other points.

Thousands fail in not starting right. They invest ten
to fifteen thousand dollars in buildings, machinery, boilers,
etc. I can start you right, having had years of experience,
and having started ranches, east and west, from the founda-
tion. I have plans of my own, original and up-to-date. They
show buildings which are cheap, handy and practical, for
the health of the poultry. These blue prints and plans are
the best on the market today, and I can save you several
thousand dollars in starting, After you are started any one
can make it pay, if this book is followed, and you need not
pay an expert one hundred dollars a month to manage it for
you.

The best time to start is in July or August, not later.
Never start in earlv spring or late fall. I will start you out
right, and will go anywhere in the United States or Canada
for the small amount of five dollars per day and expenses.
I will guarantee to start you right, that you will have the
best plant in the country, arid that you cannot help but be
successful.

For twenty-five dollars I will correspond with parties by
mail, make plans and give you directions which will help
you greatly, and will save you a lot of money in the end.
Don't make the mistakes others have.

Thousands make a good living from poultry, and what
others do you can do, at half the expense, with my direc-
tions.

I can come to start a plant for you at any time between
June first and October first, or will correspond with you at
any time.

Respectfully yours,

• JNO. M. SONTAG.

AN INITIAL

OF 25

OVERDUE.

ilA* 1938

DAY

LD 21-95m-7,'37

I / o j r\

Itoiu

101943