CHAPTER XVII

WHAT SHALL WE ASK OF THE HEN?

Sam Jones, the chicken-loving man, was as pleased as a boy with a new top when I began to talk of a hen plant. He had a lot of practical knowledge of the business, for he had _failed_ in it twice; and I could furnish any amount of theory, and enough money to prevent disaster.

In his previous attempts he had invested nearly all his small capital in a plant that might yield two hundred eggs a day; he had to buy all foods in small quant.i.ties, and therefore at high prices; and he had to give his whole time to a business which was too small and too much on the hand-to-mouth order to give him a living profit. My theory of the business was entirely different. I could plan for results, and, what was more to the point, I could wait for them. Mistakes, accidents, even disasters, were disarmed by a bank account; my bread and b.u.t.ter did not depend upon the temper of a whimsical hen. The food would cost the minimum. All grains and green food, and most of the animal food, in the form of skim milk, would be furnished by the farm. I meant also to develop a plant large enough to warrant the full attention of an able-bodied man. I felt no hesitation about this venture, for I did not intend to ask more of my hens than a well-disposed hen ought to be willing to grant.

I do not ask a hen to lay a double-yolk every day in the year. That is too much to expect of a creature in whom the mother instinct is prominent, and who wishes also to have a new dress for herself at least once in that time. I do not wish a hen to work overtime for me. If she will furnish me with eight dozen of her finished product per annum, I will do the rest. Whatever she does more than that shall redound to her credit. Two-hundred-eggs-a-year hens are scarcer than hens with teeth, and I was not looking for the unusual. A hen can easily lay one hundred eggs in three hundred and sixty-five days, and yet find time for domestic and social affairs. She can feel that she is not a subject for charity, while at the same time she retains her self-respect as a hen of leisure.

I have the highest regard for this domestic fowl, and I would not for a great deal impose a too arduous task upon her. I feel like encouraging her in her peculiar industry, for which she is so eminently fitted, but not like forcing her into strenuous efforts that would rob her of vivacity and dull her social and domestic impulses. No; if the hen will politely present me with one hundred eggs a year, I will thank her and ask no more. Some one will say: "How can you make hens pay if they don't lay more than eight dozen eggs a year? Eggs sometimes sell as low as twelve cents per dozen."

Four Oaks hens never have laid one-cent eggs, and never will. They would quit work if such a price were suggested. Ninety per cent of the eggs from Four Oaks have sold for thirty cents or more per dozen, and the demand is greater than the supply. The Four Oaks certificate that the egg is not thirty-six hours old when it reaches the egg cup, makes two and a half cents look small to those who can afford to pay for the best.

To lack confidence in the egg is a serious matter at the breakfast table, and a person who can insure perfect trust will not lack patronage. If, therefore, a hen will lay eight dozen eggs, she is welcome to say to an acquaintance: "I have just handed the Headman a two-dollar bill," for she knows that I have not paid fifty cents for her food.

Of course the wages of the hen man and his food and the interest on the plant must be counted, but I do not propose to count them twice. Four Oaks is a factory where several things are made, each in a measure dependent on, and useful to, the others, and we cannot itemize costs of single products because of this mutual dependence. I feel certain that I could not drop one of the factory's industries without loss to each of the others. For this reason I kept a very simple set of books. I charged the farm with all money spent for it, and credited it with all moneys received. Even now I have no very definite knowledge of what it costs to keep a hen, a hog, or a cow; nor do I care. Such data are greatly influenced by location, method of getting supplies, and market fluctuations. I furnish most of my food, and my own market. My crops have never entirely failed, and I take little heed whether they be large or small. They are not for sale as crops, but as finished products. I am not willing to sell them at any price, for I want them consumed on the place for the sake of the land.

Corn has sold for eighty cents a bushel since I began this experiment, yet at that time I fed as much as ever and was not tempted to sell a bushel, though I could easily have spared five thousand. When it went down to twenty-eight cents, I did not care, for corn and oats to me are simply in transition state,--not commodities to be bought or sold. They cost me, one year with another, about the same. An abundant harvest fills my granaries to overflowing; a bad harvest doesn't deplete them, for I do not sell my surplus for fear that I, too, may have to buy out of a high market. I have bought corn and oats a few times, but only when the price was decidedly below my idea of the feeding value of these grains. I can find more than twenty-eight cents in a bushel of corn, and more than eighteen cents in thirty-two pounds of oats. But I am away off my subject. I began to talk about the hen plant, and have wandered to my favorite fad,--the factory farm.

CHAPTER XVIII

WHITE WYANDOTTES

"Sam," said I, "I am going to start this poultry plant from just as near the beginning of things as possible. I want you to dispose of every hen on the place within the next twenty days, and to burn everything that has been used in connection with them. We've cleared this land of disease germs, if there were germs in it, by turning it bottom-side up; now let's start free from the pestiferous vermin that make a hen's life unhappy. No stock, either old or young, shall be brought here. When we want to change our breeding, we'll buy eggs from the best fanciers and hatch them in our own incubators. It will then be our own fault if we don't keep our chickens comfortable and free from their enemies. This is sound theory, and we'll try how it works out in practice. Certainly it will be easier to keep clean if we start clean. Not one board or piece of lumber that has been used for any other purpose shall find place in my hen-houses. Eternal vigilance makes a full egg basket; and a full egg basket means a lot of money at the year's end. I will never find fault with you for being too careful Attend to the details in such way as suits you best, provided the result is thorough and everlasting cleanliness. Nothing less will win out, and nothing less will meet the requirements of our factory rules.

"The first thing to do is to get the incubating cellar made. It ought to be four feet in the ground and four feet out of it. Make it ten feet by fifteen, inside measure, and you can easily run five two-hundred-egg incubators. Build it near the south fence in No. 4,--that's the lot for the hens. The walls are to be of brick, and we'll have a brick floor put in, for it's too cold to concrete it now. Gables are to point east and west, and each is to have a window; put the door in the middle of the south wall, and shingle the roof. Digging through three feet of frost will be hard, but it must be done, and done quickly. I want you to start your incubator lamps before the 3d of February."

"I can dig the hole without much trouble,--big fire on the ground for two or three hours will help,--and I can put on the roof and do all the carpenter work, but I can't lay the brick."

"I'll look out for that part of the job, but I want you to see that things are pushed, for I shall have a thousand eggs here by February 1st and another thousand by the 25th, and these eggs mean money."

"What do you have to pay for them?"

"Ten cents apiece,--$200 for two thousand eggs."

"Well, I should say! Are they hand-painted? I wouldn't have had to quit business if I could have sold my eggs at a quarter of that price."

"That's all right, Sam, but you didn't sell White Wyandotte eggs for hatching. I've contracted with two of the best-known fanciers of Wyandottes in the country to send me five hundred eggs apiece February 1st and 25th. I don't think the price is high for the stock."

"Have you decided to keep 'dottes? I hoped you would try Leghorns; they're great layers."

"Yes, they're great summer layers, but the American birds will beat them hollow in winter; and I must have as steady a supply of eggs as possible. My customers don't stop eating eggs in winter, and they'll be willing to pay more for them at that season. The Leghorn is too small to make a good broiler, and as half the chicks come c.o.c.kerels, we must look out for that."

"Why do you throw down the Plymouth Rocks? They're bigger than 'dottes, and just as good layers."

"I threw down the barred Plymouth Rocks on account of color; I like white hens best. It was hard to decide between White Rocks and Wyandottes, for there's mighty little difference between them as all-around hens. I really think I chose the 'dottes because the first reply to my letters was from a man who was breeding them."

"They are 'beauts,' all of them, and I'll give them a good chance to spread themselves," said Sam.

"What percentage of hatch may we expect from purchased eggs?"

"About sixty chicks out of every hundred eggs, I reckon."

"That would be doing pretty well, wouldn't it? If we had good luck with the sixty chicks, how many would grow up?"

"Fifty ought to."

"Of these fifty, can we count on twenty-five pullets?"

"Yes."

"That's what I was getting at. You think we might, by good luck, raise twenty-five pullets from each hundred eggs. I'll cut that in the middle and be satisfied with twelve, or even with ten. At that rate the two thousand eggs that cost $200 will give me two hundred pullets to begin the egg-making next November. That's not enough; we ought to raise just twice that number. I'll spend as much more on eggs to be hatched by the middle of April or the first of May, and then we can reasonably expect to go into next winter with four hundred pullets. They will cost the farm a dollar apiece, but the farm will have four hundred c.o.c.kerels to sell at fifty cents each, which will materially reduce the cost."

"I think you put that pretty low, sir; we ought to raise more than four hundred pullets out of four thousand eggs."

"Everything more will be clear gain. I shall be satisfied with four hundred. We must also get at the brooder house. This is the order in which I want the buildings to stand in the chicken lot: first, the incubating house, 10 feet from the south line; 40 feet north of this, the brooder house; and 120 feet north of that, the first hen-house, with runs 100 feet deep. We'll build other houses for the birds as we need them. They are all to face to the south. If the brooder house is 50 feet long and 15 feet wide, it can easily care for the eight hundred chicks, and for half as many more, if we are lucky enough to get them.

"We'll have a five-foot walk against the north wall of this house, and a ten-foot s.p.a.ce north and south through the centre for heating plant and food. This will leave a s.p.a.ce at each side ten by twenty feet, to be cut into five pens four feet by ten, each of which will mother a hundred chicks or more. There must be plenty of gla.s.s in the south wall, and we'll use overhead water pipes in each hover.

"There's no hurry about the poultry-houses. You can build one in the early summer, and perhaps another in the fall. I expect you to do the carpenter work on these houses. I'll see the mason at once and have him ready by the time you've dug the hole. The incubators will be here in good time, and we want everything ready for work as soon as the eggs arrive."

Sam was pleased with his job; it was exactly to his liking. He took real delight in caring for fowls, and he was especially anxious to prove to me that it was not so much lack of knowledge as lack of capital that had caused the downfall of his previous efforts. Sam could not then understand why one man could sell his eggs at thirty-six cents a dozen when his neighbor could get only sixteen; he found out later.

The mason's work for the incubator house and the foundation wall for the brooder house cost $290. The lumber bill for these two, including doors and windows, was $464. The five incubators, $65, and the hot-water heater for the brooder house, $68, made the total $897. Add to this $400 paid during two months for eggs, and we have $1297 as the cost of starting the poultry plant.

CHAPTER XIX

FRIED PORK

I had given Nelson this sketch as a guide in working out the plan for the cow barn: Length over all, 130 feet; width, 40 feet. This parallelogram was to be divided lengthwise into three equal s.p.a.ces, one in the centre for a driveway, and one on each side for the cow platforms and feeding mangers. Twenty feet at the west end of the barn was part.i.tioned off, one corner for a small granary, the other for a kitchen in which the food was to be prepared. These rooms were each thirteen feet by twenty. At the other end of the building, ten feet on each side was given over to hospital purposes,--a lying-in ward ten feet by thirteen being on each side of the driveway.

The foundation for this building was to be of stone, and the entire floor of cement; and the walls were to be sealed within and sheeted without, and then covered with ship lap boards, making three thicknesses of boards. It was to be one story high. An east-and-west pa.s.sage, cutting the main drive at right angles, divided the barn at its middle.

At the south end of this pa.s.sage was a door leading to the dairy-house, which was on the building line 150 feet away. The four s.p.a.ces made by these pa.s.sages were each subdivided into ten stalls five feet wide. Two doors on the north and two on the south gave exit for the cows. I had placed my limit at forty milch cows, and I thought this stable would furnish suitable quarters for that number. If I had to rebuild, I would make some modifications. Experience is a good teacher; but the stable has served its purpose, and I cannot quarrel with the results. The chief defect is in the distribution of water. The supply is abundant, but it is let on only in the kitchen, whence it is supplied to the cows by means of a hose or a barrel swung between wheels.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

In the kitchen are appliances for mixing and cooking food, and for warming the drinking water in winter. Nelson and I discussed the sketch plan given below, and he found some fault with it. I would not be dissuaded from my views, however, and Nelson had to yield. I was as opinionated in those days as a theoretical amateur is apt to be; and it was hard to give up my theories at the suggestion of a person who had only experience to guide him. The best plan, as I have long since learned, is to mix the two and use the solid substance that results from their combination.