Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 November 1874 — Boiled Corn for Poultry. [ARTICLE]

Boiled Corn for Poultry.

In the breeding of poultry as in all other pursuits a little care and forethought invariably return an apparently disproportionate result. In the rearing of poultry, where the expenditure .on each fowl is small and the material provided comparatively inexpensive, we are apt to overlook the small wastes which occur in the transformation of the different grains into poultry, but which aggregate’quitc a respectable sujji, The opjsion that corn is very nourishing food for fowls is so universal that no further thought is given to the matter. If ’any one should suggest that corn would be easier of digestion if soaked or boiled he would very likely receive the unsWer that eorn was nothing hard to digest for birds, which swallow stones ard other hard substances without detriment, A moment’s thought, however, will convince tbaf the millstones and the grist are very different things, and feeding hard grain, although not exactly like feeding the millstones with pebbles, bears a certain likeness to it. The trouble attendant on the preparation of food, if it is to be cooked, may indeed seem very disproportionate to the advantage to be derived from such treatment, but in reality little time need be spent, as before going the rounds of the nests a little hot water may be poured over the grain, a tight cover put on the kettle, and the whole placed over the stove,

• where, by the time ybur rpunds are com I pleted, the corn will have become | steameriirad mellow, andhave lost none ;of its good qualities. Remember each hen has a certain amount of animal force to'be expended every day in some direci tion and the less she has to give to digesting her food the more she will have | to be expended in egg-producing. The i advantages of the warm food in winter | when much food goes toward producing I animal heat to withstand the cold are I twofold—from the direct action of the warmth and the slower action of the food itself, to say nothing of the fact that the content produced by nourishing food will result in more eggs, for a hen thoroughly at home will lay many more eggs than a discontented one. We have, performed the experiment ourselves and know that feeding boiled corn does pay, and it is as a result of experience that we offer this- plan to our friends.—English Farmer. A young man residing with his father in Patchogue, L. L, a fgw nights ago heard a noise in the direction of a watermelon patch and, lookingout of his bedroom window, saw a man in the act of “hooking” one. He seized a gun loaded with small shot which he kept handy Tor such purposes and blazed away at the supposed thief. A yell followed and the was horrified to discover by the voice that lie had shot his own father. The “bld man” came running into- the house with-a-big watermelon under his arm which he had been selecting for breakfast the next morning, and it was found fortunately the entire charge had lodged in the melon—not a Sffot having struck the person of the supposed thief. At the late Methodist Conference in Batavia, N. Y., one of the elders said he was once settled over a weak church, and appointed a committee of young ladies to collect subscriptions for it. One of them was so successful that he thought she would be a good overseer and helpmate in a family, and so he married her.