Making Home ProfitableSaint Maur, Kate V. (Kate Vandenhoff)
Science
Making Home Profitable
Saint Maur, Kate V. (Kate Vandenhoff)
Agriculture; Country life
Having read so far, you will now realise that clover hay, linseed-meal,
bran, wheat, oats, beef scraps and unskimmed milk contain practically
all the equivalents of summer foods; the addition, therefore, of corn,
buckwheat or rye in cold weather is safe and simple if given only as
warmth-makers. Never allow the proportion to exceed what is needed for
that purpose, or fat will be made and stored, neutralising all your
care. In other words, the hen fed on corn only, in order to accumulate
the ten parts of flesh and twenty parts of fat needed for the egg, will
be compelled to acquire fifty parts more fat than she requires.
Green bone and water now alone remain for consideration. The former is
beyond doubt the best of egg foods, qualifying as it does in nearly
all the needed elements. Many farmers scoff at the idea of having to
pay for a mill to cut up bone for chickens, yet the same men will not
grudge a hay-cutter for the horse and cow. Green bone means fresh bone
from the butcher, which can be bought for about two cents a pound. The
mill to grind it ranges from eight to fifteen dollars.
Green bone contains the natural meat, juices, blood, gristle, oil
and mineral matter in soluble condition, which renders it easy of
digestion, especially for birds--almost all the components for eggs
(white, yolk and shell), in the most concentrated form possible. So,
if eggs are to become profitable, the bone-mill must be kept going.
When it is impossible to obtain the green or fresh bone, the ground
bone sold especially for poultry can be used, though it is not half so
satisfactory, because the drying process it has to submit to before
grinding leaves little but the phosphate of lime and earthy matter,
which clover and bran furnish in better form. At least half the egg
is composed of water, surely a sufficient reason for impressing the
importance of a generous supply accessible at all times, in clean
dishes, of a proper temperature, cool in summer and the chill off in
winter.
A FLOCK OF TURKEYS
There are six varieties of turkeys: Bronze, White Holland, Bourbon
Reds, black, buff, slate and Narragansett. But the three first are the
ones most worth raising specially for market, as they are large birds
and the most popular varieties. So it is easy to get good stock, to
start with, which is of paramount importance.
A trio of any one of the three varieties will cost from fifteen to
twenty dollars, and if only twenty birds are reared the first year for
market, they will bring at least sixty dollars. That is placing the
average weight at twelve pounds and price twenty-five cents a pound.
This is, however, absurd, when you consider that young toms weigh
twenty pounds and pullets fifteen, feed could not possibly cost more
than ten dollars, which would leave thirty dollars’ profit the first
year.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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