Part 10 (1/2)
It was a low building, 150 by 30 feet, divided by a six-foot alley-way into halves, each 150 by 12 feet. Each of these halves was again divided into fifteen pens 10 by 12 feet, with a 10 by 30 run for each pen. This was the general plan for the brood-house for thirty sows. At the east end of this house was a room 15 by 30 feet for cooking food and storing supplies for a few days. The building was of wood with plank floors. It stands there yet, and has answered its purpose; but it was never quite satisfactory. I wanted cement floors and a more sightly building. I shall probably replace it next year. When it was built the weather was unfavorable for laying cement, and I did not wish to wait for a more clement season. The house and the fences for the runs cost $2100.
On the 6th of March Thompson called me to one of the temporary pens and showed me a family of the prettiest new-born animals in the world,--a fine litter of no less than nine new-farrowed pigs. I felt that the fourth industry was fairly launched, and that we could now work and wait.
CHAPTER XXII
THE OLD ORCHARD
March was unusually raw even for that uncooked month. The sun had to cross the line before it could make much impression on the deep frost.
After the 15th, however, we began to find evidences that things were stirring below ground. The red and yellow willows took on brighter colors, the bark of the dogwood a.s.sumed a higher tone, and the catkins and lilac buds began to swell with the pride of new sap.
If our old orchard was to be pruned while dormant, it must be done at once. Thompson and I spent five days of hard work among the trees, cutting out all dead limbs, crossing branches, and suckers. We called the orchard old, but it was so only by comparison, for it was not out of its teens; and I did not wish to deal harshly with it. A good many unusual things were being done for it in a short time, and it was not wise to carry any one of them too far. It had been fertilized and ploughed in the fall, and now it was to be pruned and sprayed,--all innovations. The trees were well grown and thrifty. They had given a fair crop of fruit last year, and they were well worth considerable attention. They could not hereafter be cultivated, for they were all in the soiling lot for the cows, but they could be pruned and sprayed. The lack of cultivation would be compensated by the fertilization incident to a feeding lot. The trees would give shade and comfort to the cows, while the cows fed and nourished the trees,--a fair exchange.
The crop of the year before, though half the apples were stung, had brought nearly $300. With better care, and consequently better fruit, we could count on still better results, for the varieties were excellent (Baldwins, Jonathans, and Rome Beauties); so we trimmed carefully and burned the rubbish. This precaution, especially in the case of dead limbs, is important, for most dead wood in young trees is due to disease, often infectious, and should be burned at once.
I bought a spraying-pump (for $13), which was fitted to a sound oil barrel, and we were ready to make the first attack on fungus disease with the Bordeaux mixture. This was done by Johnson and Anderson late in the month. Another vigorous spraying with the same mixture when the buds were swelling, another when the flower petals were falling, and still another when the fruit was as large as peas (the last two sprayings had Paris green added to the Bordeaux mixture), and the fight against apple enemies was ended for that year.
Thompson had gone for the cows. He left March 9, and returned with the beauties on Friday the 17th. They were all my fancy had painted them,--large, gentle-eyed, with black and white hair over soft b.u.t.ter-yellow skin, and all the points that distinguish these marvellous milk-machines. They were bestowed as needs must until the cow barn was completed. One of them had dropped a bull calf two days before leaving the home farm. The calf had been left, and the mother was in an uncomfortable condition, with a greatly distended udder and milk streaming from her four teats, though Thompson had relieved her thrice while _en route_.
I was greatly pleased with the cows, but must not spend time on them now, for things are happening in my factory faster than I can tell of them. Johnson had built some primitive hotbeds for early vegetables out of old lumber and oiled muslin. He had filled them with refuse from the horse stable and had sown his seeds.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE FIRST HATCH
On February 3 the incubator lamps were lighted under the first invoice of one thousand eggs. The incubating cellar was to Sam's liking, and he felt confident that three weeks of strict attention to temperature, moisture, and the turning of eggs, would bring results beyond my expectations.
After the seventh day, on which he had tested or candled the eggs, he was willing to promise almost anything in the way of a hatch, up to seventy-five or eighty per cent. In the intervals of attendance on the incubators he was hard at work on the brooder-house, which must be ready for its first occupants by the 25th. Everything went smoothly until the 18th. That morning Sam met me with a long face.
”Something went wrong with one of my lamps last night,” said he. ”I looked at them at ten o'clock and they were all right, but at six this morning one of the thermometers was registering 122, and the whole batch was cooked.”
”Not the whole thousand, Sam!”
”No, but 170 fertile eggs, and that spoils a twenty-dollar bill and a lot of good time. What in the name of the black man ever got into that lamp of mine is more than I know. It's just my luck!”
”It's everybody's luck who tries to raise chickens by wholesale, and we must copper it. Don't be downed by the first accident, Sam; keep fighting and you'll win out.”
The brooder-house was ready when the first chicks picked the sh.e.l.ls on the 24th, and within thirty-six hours we had 503 little white b.a.l.l.s of fluff to transfer from the four incubators to the brooder-house. We put about a hundred together in each of five brooders, fed them cut oats and wheat with a little coa.r.s.e corn meal and all the fresh milk they could drink, and they throve mightily.
The incubators were filled again on the 26th, and from that hatch we got 552 chicks. On the 21st of March they were again filled, and on the 13th of April we had 477 more to add to the colony in the brooder-house. For the last time we started the lamps April 15th, and on the 6th of May we closed the incubating cellar and found that 2109 chicks had been hatched from the 4000 eggs. The last hatch was the best of all, giving 607. I don't think we have ever had as good results since, though to tell the truth I have not attempted to keep an exact count of eggs incubated. My opinion is that fifty per cent is a very good average hatch, and that one should not expect more.
In September, when the young birds were separated, the census report was 723 pullets and 764 c.o.c.kerels, showing an infant mortality of 622, or twenty-nine per cent. The accidents and vicissitudes of early chickenhood are serious matters to the unmothered chick, and they must not be overlooked by the breeder who figures his profits on paper.
After the first year I kept no tabs on the chickens hatched; my desire was to add each year 600 pullets to my flock, and after the third season to dispose of as many hens. It doesn't pay to keep hens that are more than two and a half years old. I have kept from 1200 to 1600 laying hens for the past six years. I do not know what it costs to feed one or all of them, but I do know what moneys I have received for eggs, young c.o.c.kerels, and old hens, and I am satisfied.
There is a big profit in keeping hens for eggs if the conditions are right and the industry is followed, in a businesslike way, in connection with other lines of business; that is, in a factory farm. If one had to devote his whole time to the care of his plant, and were obliged to buy almost every morsel of food which the fowls ate, and if his market were distant and not of the best, I doubt of great success; but with food at the lowest and product at the highest, you cannot help making good money. I do not think I have paid for food used for my fowls in any one year more than $500; grits, sh.e.l.ls, meat meal, and oil meal will cover the list. I do not wish to induce any man or woman to enter this business on account of the glowing statements which these pages contain.
I am ideally situated. I am near one of the best markets for fine food; I can sell all the eggs my hens will lay at high prices; food costs the minimum, for it comes from my own farm; I utilize skim-milk, the by-product from another profitable industry, to great advantage; and I had enough money to carry me safely to the time of product. In other words, I could build my factory before I needed to look to it for revenue. I do not claim that this is the only way, but I do claim that it is the way for the fore-handed middle-aged man who wishes to change from city to country life without financial loss. Younger people with less means can accomplish the same results, but they must offset money by time. The principle of the factory farm will hold as well with the one as with the other.