"Just think, Bob, five hundred little chicks for me to look after.

Won't it be perfectly splendid?"

"You won't get five hundred, Edith. If we get sixty to seventy per cent, hatched, it will be as much as we can expect. Unless, of course, we have especially good luck and you might get as high as eighty or ninety per cent."

"What will we do with the eggs that are not fertile?" she asked.

"Oh, we'll boil those and feed them to the young chicks after they're hatched; they make good chicken feed."

"How many of the chicks do you suppose we can raise in the brooder?"

"If we hatch 300 to 400 out of the 500 eggs, we'll be doing fine, and if we can raise sixty per cent of the full hatch, it's considered very good. Of course, considerable will depend on the way they're fed and cared for, but with good care, you ought to average that many.

We'll have to raise these in one of the new pens we've just built for the laying hens, because our brooder house will be one of the last buildings we'll put up, and we may not get it ready until late fall.

When the chicks are large enough, you can put them in colony houses out in the orchard."

"I hope we can raise more than sixty per cent, Bob. Won't it be fine to have so many chicks? When we get these hatched, are we going to hatch more?"

"Yes," replied Bob, "Aunt Bettie thinks we should hatch at least 1000 to 1500 eggs in order to have a good pen of layers this fall. Of course, you know half the chicks will be roosters, and these we will dispose of. The white Plymouth Rocks we can caponize and easily sell, and the white Leghorns we will either have to kill and sell as broilers, or it may be we can sell them to the farmers around here to improve their flocks. So you see, if we have 1000 chicks, we can't count on over 500 hens."

"What would you do, Bob, if you had 1000 hens?" asked Edith.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A WELL MANAGED FLOCK OF POULTRY WILL RETURN GOOD PROFITS AND CAN EASILY BE CARED FOR BY THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN]

"Don't you remember the hen house is made so it may be extended? Of course, by the end of the summer, when the chicks have grown up, Mr.

Brady will have taken so much sand from the pit that Uncle Joe will be willing that we should go ahead and complete our buildings, and one person can care for 1000 hens almost as easy as 500. A 1000 hen flock is about the right size. Aunt Bettie and I didn't exactly deceive Uncle Joe, but we thought we'd educate him a little at a time."

"I heard him tell Aunt Bettie the other day he was going to let her have all the money that they made from the dairy and poultry," said Edith.

"Well, if he does," said Bob, "Aunt Bettie will make a lot of money-- almost as much as Uncle Joe, outside of the sand pit."

"How would that be, Bob?"

"Because it is possible to make very big profits in these if they're properly looked after," said Bob; "but of course, the chickens will have to pay rent for the houses, based on their cost and use of the land they occupy--the same as cows do for their stable and pasture, and all the labor and feed Uncle Joe supplies will be charged up against them. I've been reading the story of a successful poultry and dairy farm in one of the bulletins. They kept twenty cows, the same as Aunt Bettie is planning to do, and it stated that in addition to the milk, cream and b.u.t.ter used by the family, they sold almost $2400 worth of b.u.t.ter, and they got almost as much more from their poultry.

The bulletin didn't say, of course, how much it cost to produce it, but with our system of cost-keeping where we charge up labor, feed and rent and credit them for whatever they produce, we'll be able to tell almost to a cent just what they earn."

"Won't you let me keep the cost-accounting system for the chickens, Bob?" asked Edith. "I'm sure I'd like very much to look after them all myself. I think that farming, if done intelligently, is the most interesting business that one can engage in."

They were standing on opposite sides of the incubator, and Edith was handing Bob an egg as she made this remark. Bob's hand closed over the egg and fingers that encircled it. He held it for a moment, while he looked into her eyes; then, as she blushingly withdrew her hand, he stammered:

"I'm glad, Edith, you like farming the same as I do."

"Well, it is interesting, Bob, and I do like it," she said, looking at him shyly.

"What are you two doing in here with all those eggs?" asked Ruth, bursting suddenly in upon them. "One would think you were in church, you're so quiet."

"Why, we're going to raise chickens by machinery," explained Bob.

"Do you have a motor to run it?" she asked. "How do you make it go, Bob? It must be terribly hot in here," she added, looking at them questioningly.

"Why?" asked her cousin, without looking up from the tray of eggs she was filling. "Why, Bob's so red in the face. I never saw his face so red before, except the time he ran down to the pond to take the turtle off Duncan Wallace's nose."

"You must have the room warm where you keep the incubator," said Edith evasively.

"Let me put the eggs in, Edith," said Ruth, "I know how to do things like this," as she began mixing the Leghorns and Plymouth Rocks together.

"Oh, don't do that, Ruth; we must keep them all separate. We write the names and dates on them and make all kinds of records, so we'll know the chicks when they're hatched."

"How can you tell from an old egg what kind of a chick you'll get. How do you know you won't get black chickens out of white eggs."

"Maybe we will," laughed Bob. "Anything is liable to happen on a farm where you get girls off apple trees and turtles off Scotchmen's noses."

"Pretty near ready for dinner?" called her aunt, looking in for a moment as they completed the work of filling the incubator.

"We've just finished," said Edith. "Bob said I might take care of the incubator and keep the record of the chicks, if you were willing, Aunt Bettie."

"Yes, Edith, I'd be only too glad to have you do it," replied her aunt.

"Thank you, Aunt Bettie. I like farming better every day," and she gave Bob a shy glance, as he closed the door of the new incubator house.

XVIII

THE NEW IMPLEMENTS

When Joe Williams purchased Brookside Farm from his father, the equipment of farm implements which his father turned over to him was meager; indeed, the few that answered the name of implements were so old and had been so badly neglected, by being exposed to all kinds of weather, they were practically useless.

After a conference with John White, the banker, Joe Williams sent for Mr. Patterson, the representative of the Farmers' Harvester Company.

The three spent a half day together going carefully over their full line of farm implements, selecting from the list such new machines as they felt were best suited to their requirements.

A tractor, disk and harrow had already been delivered to the farm, and left there after the spring plowing, but no arrangements for the purchase of them had yet been made. After having seen the advantage of these implements, and heard them favorably commented upon by his neighbors, Joe Williams decided they must remain at Brookside.

He now selected a new riding corn planter, one not only capable of planting corn in rows, but also in hills, and as a companion to this machine, he selected a horse-drawn cultivator. After considerable discussion, he decided to purchase a side delivery hay rake and a windrow loader, chiefly on account of the speed with which hay could be gotten in with this combination. He could then leave his hay out until it was just right and get it in quickly ahead of storms. With these two machines, he also bought the latest improved mowing machine.

Then he picked out a substantial reaper and binder. The erection of the new silo made it necessary to select machinery for filling it, and a corn binder, with a bundle elevator, was finally selected on account of the saving in labor. A blower type ensilage cutter with the necessary pipe for filling the silo and leather belt for driving it by the tractor, were selected. Then a new grain drill with fertilizer and gra.s.s-seed attachments was added.

"I guess that's about as many implements as I can afford to buy at one time," remarked Joe Williams.

"Now, look here, Joe," said John White; "why do a thing half? You know you'll be short a number of things if you stop here; besides, you've left out a lot of low-cost tools that you ought to have to make a complete equipment."

"Why, what more do I need?" asked Joe, surprised at the banker's statement.

"Well, for one thing, you ought to have a first-cla.s.s manure spreader; it will do the work much quicker, and save you many backaches--now that you've decided to fertilize heavily. Then you should have a good power-driven corn sh.e.l.ler and a small mill for grinding corn meal and buckwheat flour. You also ought to have a one and a half horsepower kerosene engine, mounted on a portable hand truck."

"What would that be for?" asked Joe Williams, looking up.

"Well, you'll have a lot of places to use it--such as running the washing machine, turning the grindstone, corn sh.e.l.ler, or the cream separator, if the electric system breaks down, and other small jobs around the farm, where a portable engine will be very handy to save work and increase speed."

"We'll have the engines on the tractor that we can use," protested Williams.