ELECTRIFIED CHICKENS.

Bruce Herald, Volume LV, Issue 64, 21 August 1919, Page 5

ELECTRIFIED CHICKENS.

AMAZING FA KM EXPERIMENTS Experiments have lately been carried out on a poultry farm in the South of England, with such remarkable results that intensified chicken-rearing by means of electricity will undoubtedly be tried on a much larger scale in future. Seventy-five chickens woro clectrifieQ: on this particular farm, the current being appliod for ten minutes every hour during the day. Six chickens only out of a total of 400 died, and the remainder were ready for the market in five-weeks, as against three months normally. The electrified chickens grow at double the usual rate, thus doubling the output of the farm and halving the food-bill per chicken. Not only, however, in regard to' poul-try-raising but also in connection with the growing of crops is electricity proving invaluable, some remarkable results being cited by George R. Pears in his book of great interest to those, who wish to gain a knowledge of how electricity can bo applied to home life, as well as to commerce and business.

By an arrangement or wires, making a network about fifteen feet above the ground, electricity is dischorgod .into the soil. The result in one case was that in a certain wheat crop there was a gain in the number of bushels per acre from the electrified plot adjoining. Furthermore, it obtained seven and a half per cent, better market prices, producig a better baking flour. The cost of the electricity worked out approximately at one penny per day. Similar electrical treatment to grow ing crops produced a seventeen per cent increase in cucumbers , thirty-six per cent, in strawberries, .thirty-three per cent in beet, fifty per cent in carrots, and eighteen per cent, in tomatoes, whilst other vegetables were also ready I for market earlier than non-electrified,