The Library of Work and Play: Outdoor WorkMiller, Mary Rogers
Philosophy
The Library of Work and Play: Outdoor Work
Miller, Mary Rogers
Agriculture -- Juvenile literature
What do you know about that? I saw this feat done last winter by a
fourteen-year old California boy, and I took his photograph as he was
doing it. What can a boy not do if he has the opportunity? There are
other boys who find it a harder task and a more disagreeable one to
feed half a dozen hens. A boy can feed six thousand hens and gather two
or three thousand eggs a day and go to school.
This California boy had a gray pony to help him, but what enabled him
to perform this feat day after day was system. His uncle, the owner of
the farm, had planned the work to make it easy. The farm contains one
hundred and twenty acres, and the six thousand hens are scattered over
the whole farm in colony houses. The system of feeding was a liberal
feed of soft mash in the morning. Three colony houses were placed
together. The middle one was a laying house; the other two, roosting
houses. In one end of the laying house there was a wheat bin holding
several sacks of wheat. The bin was a self-feeding hopper. After dinner
the fourteen-year old boy jumped on his gray horse and made the rounds
of the houses, opening a door to the hopper of wheat, so that the hens
could eat at will during the afternoon. It took just a moment to jump
off of his horse, open the door, and jump on again, the horse going on
the lope between the houses. He made the rounds in less than half an
hour. About three or four o'clock he hitched his pony to a low wagon
and visited all the houses, gathering the eggs. This was a bigger job
than feeding the hens; he could not go as fast with the eggs. In the
morning, about seven o'clock, he makes the rounds of the houses, and
without getting off his horse opens the doors to the laying houses, and
does it all in fifteen minutes. What do you know about that?
JAMES DRYDEN
AN AMATEUR'S EXPERIENCE
In April, nineteen hundred and one, I purchased four broody hens, two
settings of White Wyandotte eggs, and two of Plymouth Rock. I live
in a suburban district where dogs and cats abound and poultry cannot
have free range. I therefore made two wire-covered board runs, six
feet by eight, eighteen inches high, and against a six-inch hole sawed
in one end of each I placed a box turned on its side for a coop. Of
twenty-eight Wyandotte eggs, twenty-six hatched, and three chicks died.
Of twenty-six Plymouth Rocks only three hatched, and these I put with
the Wyandottes in care of the two most motherly hens.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account