The South-Western Farmer and American Horticulturist from Wichita, Kansas • 12

A 12 THE SOUTHWESTERN FARMER. POULTRY. THXHD ANNUAL STftTk FArIRt MY HENS WONT LAY, Ife ft You say your hens wont lay? There is just where you are wrong; they certainly will lay if you give them the proper food and care. The trouble is not with the hens, but with your manner of managing them. It is not in lack of food, but the lack of fcertain kinds of food that is the cause of the trouble.

A hen is simply an egg machine, which, if properly fed, will, by the laws of nature, produce eggs; she will lay eggs because it is her nature to; you cant expect something for nothing, neither should you look for eggs unless you feed the fowls on an egg producing food. Supply them with the food-elements of which to make eggs. Right here let us ask, what constitutes an egg? Fat? starch? corbonatcs? salts? No! but albumenoids, fibrinc and shell. The only foods that are directly digested are the albumens. The salts undergo no change at all.

The fats and starches, after undergoing a process of fermentation in the crop, and grinding in the gizzard, finally sup ply the fat-tissue-' the energy and fuel of the hen machine. Where hens have a whole farm to range oer, they know what they want and go af ter it, but when in confinement common sense should be used in feeding. AT WICHITA, SFJPTE.MBF.R 0 22-3-4-5 and 6 85 have had the experience of our friend and his wife and have never learned the cause. If there is a good profit in handling 50 hens on 160 acres, if you are assured of the same profit on one a-cre, would it not pay you to devote several acres to this industry, giving each 50 hens a house and run to themselves? We think if you will stop to figure this out you will see that nothing on the farm will pay you-better if you will get a few well-established rules thoroughly committed to memory and then act them out. There is hardly a business under the sun that is bungled like that of poultry raising.

Any one lias an idea that lie or she can make money at it, and that all they have to do is to buy a few liens, put them into an old house that is fit for nothing and ft ready to tumble down; or let the hens steal their nests away and at the end of three or four weeks bring in a brood of thirteen chickens, they soon realize their mistake. While there is very little laborious work eternal vigilcncc is the price of success, ane if you are not willing to pay this price, liave just as little to do with the business as possible. MITES. If you have not a fooliih prctlju-dii-e again! pigeons you can enjoy broiled squabs or a fine pigeon pie nearly anv month of the war, without even 9 9 feeling the cot. Every farmer should have a dove ot on his place or tlx a roo-ting place in the loft of some out building.

The pigeons will do the rest. The U-st way to get rid of ml mites is to u-o a mixture of coal tar and coal oil. I about one-sixth of the a-mount of oil that you do of tar, and mix well until of the consistency of paint. Apply with a brush. The cheapest kind of coal oil is the bc-t as the high grade -will not mix well unless you heat them together.

If thi mixture is applied to the nests and jerchoa once a month you will have no troublo with mites. This receipt is worth several times the subscription price of the South-Western Farmer to any one interested in poultry. $8,000.00 in purses in the Speed Department paid at the wires, After Each Kace.s8 Entries Close September 12, 1896. CHICKENS ON THE FARM. Running races each day, good purses, American Ass-ociation Rules to govern except otherwise noted.

Entrance fee 10 per cent of purse which must accompany all nominations. Liberal Premiums and special inducements to exhib ibitors of Live Stock, Poultry, and Pet Stock and forAg rieulturl, Horticultural, Manufacturers and Merchants Display. Big prizes for largest and best displays of gar den and farm produce grown in one township. Entrance fee 10 per cent, 6 per cent when nomination is made, per cent deducted from money winners. Record made on and after Sept.

1st, no bar. In talking hen with a fanner friend last week he told me chickens paid just so far, 11 is wife hasen tire charge of the poultry but he had read so much about the large profits in the business he became interested and for four or five years had watched it carefully and advised with his wife. Their joint conclusion was that they could carry over fifty head of chickens each year ami make a fair profit on the time and money but when they attempted to increase their Hock the result had always been the same--disastcr. Our friends experience is that of thousands of others. Chickens thrive ami are profitable on a farm if they are not kept in too large numbers, and many a farmers wife has shed tears over their losses when they tried to do business on a large scale.

Some try year after year with the same result; others try it once and give it up, and very few stop to enquire into the reason. The fact is we can take fifty hens and be as successful on one acre of land as our neighbor who gives his hens the range of 160 acres-no matter whether he has 500 breeding birds or 50. Hens will not stand crowding in a chicken house and herein is the cause of failure. Better results are obtained if only 25 are allowed to roost in the same house. There is nothing new in this statement to the experienced poultry man, but in driving through the country one finds so very many who Get ready for the Idig Fair For information a- Secretary, bout entries address, OIIl I lp WICHITA, KANS.

One man has found a cure for the bloomer craze, lie was a shrewd Vermonter, and his wife has been addicted to the bloomer habit for several weeks. In vain lias ho coaxed, expostulated and threatened, but his better half has refused to give up her swagger costume. After this sort of urging had gone on for a while the wife went out for a spin one day, clad in her favorite togs. While she was gone her husband 6at down at the 6ewing machine and made a pair of bloomers for every hen on the place. lie drew them on the hens and when his wife returned lie called her to the barnyard.

They look exactly as yoir do ho said, only they are a good deal more graceful. You can depend upon it there were some lively words for a few moments, but the woirian has not worn bloomers since, and, what is mor6, she declares that she will never be seen in them a-gain. This might be a good remedy for other husbands to try who fail to see the beauty of the new womans latest rig and to properly appreciate it. Philadelphia Time. One fare on all Railroads in Kansas, Oklahoma and Indian Territory, and from Kansas City and St.

Joseph, Mo..