THE COUNTRY.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 66, 18 March 1910, Page 9

THE COUNTRY.

: c OZf MOULTING. To make a success of the poul- '!'■'. try business, as well as of any other, full effect and recognition must be -■,'••' given to producing that which gives the best return. The poultryman who IP -wants the top price for his product must have it to sell at a time when -a bis neighbour hasn't it; when every--73 body has it, he can well afford to be W. - ont of it. 7P The egg market is familiar to all of dpi as. We know how beginning, say, in A.- October, when the hens are all busy 3 shelling out eggs, the price is low; eggs .3 are plentiful, and there are enough for pip everybody. As the summer wears on, 37 and the hens go into moult, production A falls off, and. the price begins to rise, :7& -and from Christmas onward, for several id months, eggs become scarce, and are 3 readily snapped up at high prices -A-through all the winter months. But At' when the spring comes round again, and the hens get busy, the price quickly drops. The wide-awake poultry-man knows that the hen that lays when the 7. others are resting is the one he needs. .'■■.' But nature has so arranged it that the '" greatest' egg production is during the " . spring, and in order to get any quany tity of eggs at other seasons, the : poultry-men endeavours to outdo na- ! ture by forcing his fowls to moult earlier than they would do naturally. Many people have an idea that the induing of their feathers is what .stops hens from laying; this is a mis-. take. A hen will, as a rule, lay on until all or most of her feathers are shed. The thing that stops her laying is the making of new feathers to *"A "replace those lost in the moult. .. .-'.What a heavy drain this is can be e-:.understood if you will . .examine a hen ;%:'. whose new crop of feathers are just d'T.m. hue pin-feather stage. Every one of -P these feathers is draining the ben's 3\, Vitality, and she must supply the neAP cessary material, therefore, through her 3 digestive apparatus, in addition to sup- ',., p.!.:plying the usual bodily waste which goes on all the time. If, in addition, A.-.'she is laying, as is sometimes the case, A|ja further burden is added to her al--73 ready heavy load. HH Nature has arranged that this moult P-7""shaß take place after the hottest of Ay -.summer has- passed, with its weakening m and debilitating effects, and before H cold winter comes on, when the feathers g are necessary for the fowl's protection. "3 And how is the poultry-man to change H this time? A One thing should be. borne in mind I :When it is attempted to force the moult '1 earlier in the year. That is, that during | January and February the weather is about the most trying of the whole year. The fowls are correspondingly weakened and run down, and only the p, perfectly healthy, vigorous ones will ; 7. stand any disturbance of their normal functional activity. It is perhaps just -as well that the other sort die; but, in any event, ail should be given the very best of treatment, when the moult is being forced. This attention should include plenty of shade, frsh water and fcAercise. I The usual method of bringing on a 1 moulfcM? familiar to all readers of the >-.-., -.poiMiy "'papers. TheyiaTe-eall about the . ■same. Tbesone. nios't "frequently alluded 10 is called the Van Dresser method, be- - cause it has been exploited by a poul- | try-man of that name, who 'has been very successful as an egg farmer The - - method is, in short, to cut down the • food to an amount barely sufficient to ,_.;SMjntain life... This is continued for 7- A three weeeks o- a month, or until the thirds i are reduced in flesh, to a great .-■ ---.extent Then tie 7 are fed heavily, so AT-, that s they, take on flesh .at a rapid late. By reducing the weight of the v. tads, the oil and fats are consumed, M and the feature are dried up, and one .. might say, deadened, just as yon deaday en a, tree by cutting the bark around 3 the base *<> Prevent the from rislp fflg. Then when the" feather is thus y: deadened, and ready to fall out, the Heeding is resumed, the birds begin to .-.-_. get fat, the usual amount of oil is seeretedafc the roots of the feathers, the old.feathers fall away, and new ones - begin to form. . In practice several things must be ob- . | served. Krst the feed must be cut down '.enough to reduce the fowl's weight very .- anncb, and with those poultiymen who | jmcfcice liberal feeding, this is a hard 737,p*™?_to do. When one has become ac- : customed to feeding a handful of grain to , J*™ fowl = [t is difficult to substitute for . .the haadinl a small spoonful, but it must ■ .he done". H the fowls have any consid- • - erable range, aR food should be witheld, ami even then they may pick up enough to defeat the object sought. This starv- " ing process must be continued long enough to bring about the neeessaj-y con- : dition of the fowls. This can hardly be - i done in less than three or four weeks; ;p Mat-often takes six. 3 Of course, no hard and fast rule can be «id down aa to the amount of feed and *he, .length of time. This must depend tenfirdy on the condition of the birds. -a- abe object sought is to' make them flrin fat flesh. As a general thing, only enough .-food to sustain life, kept up for three '";P or fear weeks, will bring about the pro- ■ |>er thnmessi When feeding js resumed, .do not go about it in one day. Take '■-••-P-: jgrreeof four days, as their digestive organs mist become accommodated to the heavy feeding, or bad results will follow. After they become accustomed to heavy M 3Reding, feed heavily; the "faster they «S=e on the flesh the biter, ..... -.The feed should be varied. Every ele :-..ftnent is necessary. Protein (in wheat "'■' *n<l meal foods) is necessary for tht y. building-up of new feathers. Fat-form- - " ;-$!&. foods (corn, sunflower seed, etc.), are dneeded to produce the prefer amount of ; . oils, and fat. The more variety the betP ■x'iez, and plenty of it is the rule. ~... By. heavy feeding they should have 6" fan coat' of feathers, well grown, by *be -middle of April, when, with proper . . .feeding they should begin laying. .'. "It win te found well to have two or feee yards during this process. Many ■hens moult naturally earlier than the others.. These, of course, should not be . %eed ;H a hen' is shedding her feathers .7 *w3l,:.,sbe should be let alone, as thirty ..p: says' starving may be too much for her, t and- ruin her. -Then, again,- after you a .have had the fowls on reduced ration for a while, you will find a few that are shedding rapidly: these should be taken out before getting too thin. Some of them ""fllnot lose flesh fast enough, and it will i>e necessary to keep them in longer than *ke others." We never like to keep a hen an the starring pen when she is in full - process of shedding, nor do we want to take.her. out until she is. . - .'"".Jet". must not be thought that when an , -**&% moult has been forced all we have "to do is to sit down and let thing 3 go. " .we of the most discouraging things- in poultry , raising is to have our pullets some "to laying maturity or our hens-get * fan 'coat of feathers, 1 and ' their s&g-.---A" - -" ' ■ \ - .-3 * z- . ■ P "

Sometimes they do this and go for months in perfect condition to lay, apparently, ana yet not lay an egg. When the moult has been brought on, md a new crop of feathers has been p-own, the ground is only cleared for ac;ion. The live poultry man will by pro jer feeding, start egg production; the other sort will condemn the plan of forced moulting as a delusion and a soaxe. "SHOOTING" THE LAND. The American is nothing if not enterprising, and he seems to have a good leal of practicality in his work. The very atest idea is to use explosives to help in breaking up the soil, and the mode of doing it is thus described by a writer:— ■In some parts of Kansas, and especially in the south-east, the surface soil is underlaid with a stratum of compact subsoil or hard-pan, which is impervious :o water and impenetrable to the roots if growing grain, grasses, alfalfa, and nany other products of the farm. These strata of so-called hard-pan vary in thickness and depth; but, however thick or deep they may lie below the surface, bhey check the growth of the cereals, grasses, alfalfa, sugar-beets and ether things which have need to send their roots downward to their natural deptli through an easily penetrable subsoil that receives the surplus rainfall and retains moisture during the season when moisture is most needed; but to obtain these advantages it is necessary to break up this hard-pan, and this is done by boring 2in holes down and into tihe hard subsoil, and dropping therein a stick of dynamite prepared with a fuse for the purpose. The explosion produced by firing the dynamite pulverises the otherwise impervious strata in a way that it would be impossible to do in any other manner. "On some farms which I have visited, the hard-pan lies within 6in of the surface, and varies in thickness from 6in to 6ft. On such land the roots of corn and other things will go down to the hard-pan, turn off at right angles, and draw their nourishment only from the surface soil. To break the lower strata and utilise 36in or so of the water that is handed down to us, sometimes in torrents, is no light task. It is not so costly from a financial point of view, but it takes labour, patience, and perseverance. In so far as the money, is concerned, it will take 80 sticks of powder per acre, which, with caps and fuses at wholesale price, are worth about 6/-, everything else essential except the 2in auger, worth 2/, come under the head 61 labour, which any farmer can do at his leisure in dry weather. The increased yield of corn or wheat per acre in one season will richly pay for "shooting the ground"; and for alfalfa and sugar-beets it is indispensible where the ground is underlaid with a hard subsoil. ••Last summer I dynamited eight acres and seeded it to alfalfa. The ground was level, and when the fall rains came the water, wlrieh formerly stood for days on the ground, was immediately absorbed, leaving the alfalfa field dry and apparently in good condition."—Exchange. ■WHY %EE!\, SPRAY'S DO NOT ■B-mr.t , ;;' aTt.ATK& AJSJi (BRASSES." ' ■ " Ever since spraying* 'solutions h have been used for weed eradication, i people have asked why a spray that will kill weeds will, not kill grains and grasses as welL Some -weeds cannot be killed by sprays without killing the grain also. .At . first. there were only a fe-w weeds upon which sprays could be successfully used; these -were -weeds of the mustard family. But now the list has been extended until .there are a large number that come within the category of weeds that may be effectively controlled. Professor Bolley, of North Dakota, is the father of weed i spraying in America, and he tells in a very lucid- way the reason why grains and grasses are not affected by spraying, as follows: "The grasses and grains are peculiarfor several reasons: (1) They do not have extended absorbing surfaces as compared with most weedy growths. (2) They are indeterminate growers while young, growing from the inside outward at the stem ends, the young or growing. point, being protected while the. leaves have the growing point situated .at the base of sheath. Those parts of . the grasses which come most into contact with the spray are the tip portion, of the leaves, and at the time spraying is usually done these portions have already done their physiological work. Even if the tips of such leaves are killed, the basal portions extend the growth, furnish ing at once new surfaces to the. sunlight. The grasses and cereals also have a pretty good protective feature in the bloom or waxy covered cuticle. In this they are better protected .than most weeds. I have only to call attention to the fact that dew-drops upon wheat and other cereals and grasses stand up as round spheres as if, from waxy surface, while any drop of moisture readily runs over the surface of the leaves of such weeds as mustard and Canada thistle. A drop of . moisture upon a mustard leaf extends at once almost over the entire surface. The result is that- the spray solutions on such weeds come into di-, rect contact with the juices of the plant and at once begin their killing effect; while in the case of wheat and other cereals and grasses the spray solution stands in large drops and the ( .first gentle wind, rattles it off. ,In the wheat field practically the only injury occasioned is where large drops chance to stand for a long period in the axils of the leaves or upon some bruised or injured spot. At first it was not thought that flax, as a crop would admit of spraying. ■ It has been found, however, that if taken at the proper time, the crop is well protected by its waxy coat of bloom."—"Nor , West Fanner."