== i Bellefonte, Pa. September 5, 1924. THE BIRTH OF THE OPAL. The sunbeam loved the moonbeam And followed her low and high, And the moonbeam fled and hid her head She was so shy, so shy. The sunbeam wooed with passion, Ah! he was a lover bold, And his heart was afire with mad desire For the moonbeam pale and cold. But she fled like a dream before him, Her hair was a shining sheen, And oh, that fate would annihilate The space that lay between. Just as the day lay panting, The ar ns of the twilight dim, The sunbeam caught the one he sought, And drew her close to him. Out of his warm arms startled, And stirred by love's first shock, - She sprang afraid, like a trembling maid, And hid in the niche of a rock. And the sunbeam followed and found her, And led her to love’s own feast, And they were wed on that rocky bed, And the dying day was their priest. And lo! that beautiful opal, That rare and wondrous gem, ‘With the moon and the sun blend into one Is the child that was born to them. JOHN JACKSON’S ARCADY. (Concluded from last week). There was so much to say and to tell that neither of them tried to talk, but only sat there holding hands, like two children who had wandered for a long time through a wdod and now came upon each other*with unimagin- able happiness in an accidental glade. Her husband was poor, she said; he knew that from the worn, unfashion- able dress which she wore with such an air. He was George Harland—he kept a garage in the village. “George Harland—a red-headed boy ?” he asked wonderingly. She nodded. “We were engaged for years. Sometimes I thought we’d never mar= ry. Twice I postponed it, but it was getting late to just be a girl—I was twenty-five, and so finally we did. After that I was in love with him for over a year.” When the sunset fell together in a jumbled heap of color in the bottom of the sky, they strolled back along the quiet road, still hand in hand. “Will you come to dinner? I want you to see the children. My oldest boy is just fifteen.” » She lived in a plain frame house two doors from the garage, where two little girls were playing around a bat- tered and ancient but occupied baby carriage in the yard. . “Mother! Oh, mother!” they cried. Small arms swirled around her neck as she knelt beside them on the walk. “Sister says Anna didn’t come, so we can’t have any dinner.” “Mother’ll cook dinner. What’s the matter with Anna?” , “Anna’s father’s sick. She couldn’t come.” A tall, tired man of fifty, who was reading a paper on the porch, rose and slipped a coat over his suspenders as they mounted the steps. * “Anna didn’t come,” he said in a non-committal voice. . “I know. I’m going to cook dinner. Who do you suppose this is here?” The two men shook hands in a friendly way, and with a certain def- erence to John Jackson’s clothes and his prosperous manner, Harland went inside for another chair. . “We've heard about you a great deal, Mr. Jackson,” he said as Alice disappeared into the kitchen. “We heard about a lot of ways you made them sit up and take notice over yon- der.” John nodded politely, mention of the city he had just left a wave of distaste went over him. “I'm sorry I ever left here,” he answered frankly. “And I'm not just saying that either. Tell me what the years have done for you, Harland. I hear you've got a garage.” “Yeah—down the road a ways. I'm doing right well, matter of fact. Nothing you’d call well in the city,” he added in hasty deprecation. “You know, Harland,” said John Jackson, after a moment, “I'm very much in love with your wife.” “Yeah?” Harland laughed. “Well, she’s a pretty nice lady, I find.” . “I think I always have been in love with her, all these years.” “Yeah?” Harland laughed again. That some one should be in love with his wife seemed the most easual pleas- antry. “You better tell her about it. She don’t get so many nice compli- ments as she used to in her young Six of them sat down at table, in- , cluding an awkward boy of fifteen; who looked like his father, and two little girls whose faces shone from a hasty toilet. Many things had hap- pened in the town, John discovered; the fictitious prosperity which had promised to descend upon it in the late 90’s had vanished when two factories had closed up and moved away, and the population was smaller now by a few hundred than it had been a quar- ter of a century ago. After a plentiful plain dinner they | ed all went to the porch, where the chil- dren silhouetted themselves in silent balance on the railing and unrecog- nizable people called greeting as they passed alon, After a while the younger children went to bed, and the boy and his fath- er arose and put on their coats. “I guess I'll run up to the garage,” said Harland. “I always go up about this' time every night. You two just ‘sit'here and talk about old times.” .* As father and son moved out of « sight along the dim street, John Jack- son turned to Alice and slipped his | arm about her shoulder and looked into her eyes. “I love you, Alice.” “I love you.” Never’ since his marriage had he said that to any woman exéept’ his Te alae fy, ght, spring all a “in the air, and he felt as if he were hold- ing his own lost youth in his arms. forced jocularity. ‘back and see the old town again.” but at the | the dark, dusty street. “I've always loved you,” She mur- mured. “Just before I go to sleep every night, I’ve always been able to face. Why didn’t you come never known such happiness. be- fore. He felt that he had establish- ed dominance over time itself, so that it rolled away for ' him, yielding up one vanished springtime after anoth- er to the mastery of his overwhelm- ing emotion. “We're still young, we two people,” he said exultantly. “We made a silly mistake a long, long time ago, but we found out in time.” : “Tell me about it,” she whispered. “This morning, in the rain, I heard your voice.” “What did my voice say?” “It said, ‘Come home.’ ” “And here you are, my dear.” “Here I am.” - Suddenly he got to his feet. “You and I are going away,” said. “Do you understand that?” “I always knew that when you came for me I'd go.” : Later, when the moon had risen, she walked with him to the gate. “Tomorrow!” he whispered. “Tomorrow!” His heart was going like mad, and he stood carefully away from her to let footsteps across the way approach, pass and fade out down the dim street. ith a sort of wild innocence he kiss- ed her once more and held her close to his heart under the April moon. Iv When he awoke it was eleven o'clock, and he drew himself a cool bath, splashing around in it with much of the exultation of the night before. “I have thought too much these twenty years,” he said to himself. “It’s thinking that makes people old.” It was hotter than it had been the day before, and as he looked out the window the dust in the street seemed more tangible than on the night be- fore. He breakfasted alone down- stairs, wondering with the incessant wonder of the city man why fresh cream is almost unobtainable in the country. Word had spread already that he was home, and several men rose to greet him as he came into the lobby. Asked if he had a wife and children, he said no, in a careless way, and after he had said it he had a vague feeling of discomfort. “I'm all alone,” he went on, with “I wanted to come he “Stay long?” They looked at him curiously. “Just a day or so.” He wondered what they would think tomorrow. There would be excited little groups of them here and there along the street with the startling and audacious news. “See here,” he wanted to say, “you think I've had a wonderful life over there in the “city, but I haven't. I came down here because life had beat- en me, and if there’s any brightness in my eyes this morning it’s because last night I found a part of my lost youth tucked away in this little town.” At noon, as he walked toward Al- ice’s house, the heat increased and sev- eral times he stopped to wipe the sweat from his forehead. When he turned in at the gate he saw her waiting on the porch, wearing what was apparently a Sunday dress and | nearly five when he dismounted from from his chair in the rear of the plat- | to him; and yet he fought blindly against it as he felt his own mood of ecstacy slipping away. For twenty hours he had recaptured the power of seeing things through a mist of hope —hope in some vague, happy destiny that lay just over the hill—and now with every word she uttered the mist memory, the very face of this woman before his eyes. “Never again in, this world,” he cried with a last despairing effort, “will you and I have a chance at hap- piness!” ] that it had never been a chance; sim- ply a wild, desperate sortie from two He looked up to see that George Harland had turned in at the gate. “Lunch is ready,” called Alice, rais- ing her head with an expression of relief. “John’s going to be with us too. “I can’t,” said John Jackson quick- ly. “You're both very kind. “Better stay.” Harland, in oily overalls, sank down wearily on the steps and with a large handkerchief polished the hot space beneath his thin gray hair. “We can give you some iced tea.” He looked up at John. “I don’t know whether these hot days make you feel your age like I feel mine.” “I guess—it affects us all alike,” said John Jackson with an effort. “The awful part of it is that I've got “Really ?” Harland nodded with po- lite regret. “Why, yes. The fact is I promised to make a speech.” “Is that so? Speak on: some city problem, I suppose.” : “No; the fact is”—the words, form- ing in his mind to a senseless rhythm, pushed themselves out—“I'm going to speak on What Have I Got Out of Life.” Then he became conscious of the heat indeed; he felt himself sway dizzily against the porch rail. After a minute they were walking with him toward the gate. “I'm sorry you're leaving,” said Al- ice, with frightened eyes. “Come back and visit your old town again.” “I will.” Blind with unhappiness, he set off up the street at what he felt must be a stumble; but some dim necessity made him turn after he had gone a little way and smile back at them and wave his hand. They were still stand- ing there, and they waved at him and he saw them turn and walk together into the house. “I must go back and make my speech,” he said to himself as he street. “I shall get up and ask aloud ‘What have I got out of life?’ And ‘Nothing.’ I sahll tell them the truth; that life has beaten me at every turn- ing and used me for its own obscure purposes over and over; that every- thing I have loved has turned to ash- es, and that every time I have’ stoop- jed to pat a dog I have felt his teeth in my hand. »And so at last they will | Jeary the truth about one man’s eart. ; | A i The meeting was at four, but it was was passing, the hope, the town, the strange when I saw him yesterday; perhaps he gave in at last under the strain of trying to do many things for ‘many men. Perhaps this meeting we're holding here comes a little too late now. But we’ll'all feel better for having said our say about him. “I'm almost through. A lot of you will think it’s funny that I feel this way about a man who, in fairness to him, I must call an enemy. But I'm going to say one thing more”—his voice rose defiantly—“and it’s a stranger thing sitll. Here, at fifty, But he knew, even as he said this, * this | me, or ever had it in its power to give. ’ long-beleaguered fortresses by night. | and still wearing that all smile he knew so well how to muster, there before them all I shall answer, | there’s one honor I'd like to have more than any honor this city ever gave : I'd like to be able to stand up here be- fore you and call John Jackson my friend.” He turned away and a storm of ap- Dlause rose ‘like thunder through the | Dall. feet, then sank back again in a stupe- ed way, shrinking behind the pillar. | { The applause continued until a young man arose on the platform and waved them silent. “Mrs. Ralston,” he called, and sat down, - A woman rose from the line of, <hairs and came forward to the edge of the stage and began to speak in a quiet voice. She told a story about a man whom—so it seemed to John Jackson—he had known once, but whose: actions, repeated here, seemed utterly unreal, like something that had happened in a dream. It appear- | X . to go back to the city this afternoon.” ed that every year many hundreds of Young man’s shoulder. babies in the city owed their lives to something this man had done five years before; he had put a mortgage ; upon his own house to assure the chil- | dren’s hospital on the edge of town. It told how this had been kept secret at the man’s own request, because he wanted the city to take pride in the hospital as a community affair, when but for the man’s effort, made after the community attempt had failed, the hospital would never have existed at Then Mrs. Ralston began to talk about the parks; how the town had baked for many years under the mid- land heat; and how this man, not a very rich man, had given up land and time and money for many months that a green line of shade might skirt the boulevards, and that the poor children could . leave the streets and play in fresh grass in the center of the town. | That this was only the beginning, she said; and she went on to tell how, | when any such plan tottered, or the public interest lagged, word was brought to John Jackson, and some- | how he made it go and seemed to give ' it life out of his own body, until there was scarcely anything in this city that didn’t have a little of John Jack- son’s heart in it, just as there were | have a little of their | Jackson. ! Mrs. Ralston’s speech stopped ab- ruptly at this point. She had been crying a little for several moments, but there must have been many people there in the audience who understood ' what she meant—a mother or a child here and there who had been the re- cipients of some of that kindness— because the applause seemed to fill the whole room like an ocean, and echoed back and forth from wall to , wall. i Only a few people recognized the ‘short grizzled man who now got up hearts for John moving herself gently back and forth the sweltering train and walked to- ' form, but when he began to speak si- in a rocking-chair in a way that he re- membered her doing as a girl. ‘Alice!” he exclaimed happily. Her finger rose swiftly and touch- ed her lips. . “Look out!” she said in a low voice. .He sat down beside her and took her hand, but she replaced it on the arm of her chair and resumed her gentle rocking. : I careful. The children are in- side.” “But I can’t be careful. Now that life’s begun all over again, I’ve for- gotten all the caution that I learned in the other life, the one that’s past.” “Sh-h-h!"” : Somewhat irritated, he glanced at her closely. Her face, unmoved and unresponsive, seemed vaguely older than it had yesterday; she was white and tired. But he dismissed the im- pression with a low, exultant laugh. “Alice, I haven’t slept as I slept last night since I was a little boy, except that several times I woke up just for the joy of seeing the same moon we once knew together. I'd got it back.” “I didn’t sleep at all.” “I'm sorry.” “I realized about two o'clock or three o'clock that I could never go away from my children—even with you.” . He was struck dumb.. He looked at her blankly for a moment, and then he laughed—a short, incredulous laugh. * “Never, never!” she went on, shak- ing her head passionately. “Never, never, never! When I thought of it I -began to tremble all over, right in my bed.” She hesitated. “I don’t know what came over me yesterday even- ing, John. When I'm with you, you can always make me do or feel or think just exactly what you like. But this is too late, I guess. It doesn’t seem real at all; it just seems sort of crazy to me, as if I'd dreamed it, that’s all.” : John Jackson laughed again, not in- credulously this time, but on a men- acing note. “What do you mean?” he demand- She began to cry and hid her eyes behind her hand because some people were passing along the road. “You've got to tell me more than that,” cried John Jackson, his voice rising a little. “I can’t just take that and ‘go away.” = “Please don’t ‘talk so loud,” she im- plored him. “It's so hot and I'm so confused. I guess I'm just a small town woman, after all. It seems some- how awful to be talking here with ‘you, when my husband’s working all day in the dust and heat.” “Awful to be talking here?” he re- peated. : ! “Don’t look that way!” she cried miserably. “I'can’t bear to hurt you 80. You have children; too, to think of—you said you had a son.” “A son.” The fact seemed so far away that he looked at her, startled. “Oh, yes, I have a son.” : A sort of craziness, a wild illogic in the situation had communicated itself En j ward the Civic Club hall. Numerous cars were parked along the surround- ing streets, promising an unusually large crowd. He was surprised to find thronged with standing people, and that there were recurrent outbursts of applause at some speech which was being delivered upon the platform. “Can you find me a seat near the rear?” he whispered to an attendant. “I'm going to speak later, but I don’t —I don’t want to go upon the plat- form just now.” “Certainly, Mr. Jackson.” The only vacant chair was half be- hind a pillar in a far corner of the hall, but he welcomed its privacy with relief; and settling himself, looked curiously around him. Yes, the gath- ering was large, and apparently en- thusiastic. Catching a glimpse of a face here and there, he saw ‘that he knew most of them, even by name; faces of men he had lived beside and worked with for twenty years. All the better. These were the ones he must reach now, as soon as that fig- ure on the platform there ceased mouthing his hollow cheer. His eyes swung back to the plat- form, and as there was another rip- ple of applause he leaned his face around the corner'to see. Then he uttered a low exclamation—the speak- er was Thomas MacDowell. They had not been asked to speak together in several years. : “I've had many enemies in my, life,” boomed the loud voice over the hall, “and don’t think I've had a change of heart, now that I'm fifty and a little gray. I'll go on making enemies to ‘the end. This is just a little lull when I want to take off my armor and pay a tribute to an enemy—because that enemy happens to be the finest man I ever knew.” John Jackson wondered what can- didate or protege of MacDowell’s was in question. It was typical of the man to seize any opportunity to make his own hay. “Perhaps I wouldn't have said what I’ve said,” went on the booming voice, “were he here today. But if all the young men in this city came up to me Land asked me ‘What is being honora- ble?’ I'd answer them, ‘Go up to that man and look into his eyes.’ They're not happy eyes. I've often sat and looked at him and wondered: what went on back of them that made those eyes so sad. Perhaps the fine, simple hearts that spend their hours smooth- ing other people’s troubles never find time for happiness of their own. It's the man at the soda fountain who never makes an ice-cream soda for himself.” : There was a faint ripple of laugh- ter here, but John Jackson saw won- deringly that a woman he knew just across the aisle was dabbing with a handkerchief at her eyes, His curiosity increased. “He's ne away now;” said the man on the platform, bending. his head and staring down for a minute at the floor; “gone away suddenly, I understand. © He seemed a little that even the rear of the hall was i lence settled gradually over the house. “You didn’t hear my name,” he said in a voice that trembled a little, “and | When they first planned this surprise meeting I wasn’t expected to speak at ‘all. I'm John Jackson’s head clerk. Fowler’s my name, and when they de- cided they were going to hold the , meeting, anyhow, even though John Jackson had gone away, I thought : perhaps I'd like to say a few words” —those who were closest saw his ‘hands clench tighter—“say a few words that I couldn’t say if John Jack- son was here. “I've been with him twenty years. That's a long time. Neither of us had gray hair when I walked into his of- fice one day just fired from somewhere and asked him for a job. Since then I can’t tell you, gentlemen, I can’t tell you what his—his presence in this earth has meant to me. When he told me yesterday, suddenly, that he was going away. I thought to myself that if he never came back I didn’t—I didn’t want to go on living. That man makes everything in the world seem all right. If you knew how we felt around the office——" He paused and shook his head wordlessly. “Why, there's three of us there—the janitor and one of the other clerks and me— that have sons named after John Jackson. Yes, sir. Because none of us could think of anything better than for a boy to have that name or that example before him through life. But would we tell him? Not a chance. He wouldn't even know what it was all about. Why”—he sank his voice to a hushed whisper—“he’d just look at you in a puzzled way and say, ‘What did you wish that on the poor kid for?” He broke off, for there was a sud- den and growing interruption. An ep- idemic of head turning had broken out and was spreading rapidly from one corner of the hall until it had affected the whole assemblage. Some one had discovered John Jackson behind the post in the corner, and first an excla- mation and then a growing mumble that mounted to a cheer swept over the auditorium. Suddenly two men had taken him by the arms and set him on his feet, and then he was pushed and pulled and carried toward the platform, arriving somehow in a standing position after having been lifted over many heads. They were all standing now, arms waving wildly, voices filling the hall with tumultuous clamor. Some one in the ‘back of the hall began to sing “For he's a jolly good fellow” and five hundred voices took up the air and sang it with such feeling, with such swelling emotion, that all eves nificence far beyond the words. This was John Jackson’s chance now to say to these people’'that he had got so little out of life, He stretched out his arms in a sudden gesture and they spoken woman and child. “I have been asked —” His voice faltered. “My dear friends, I have John Jackson half arose to his! were wet and the song assumed a sig- | were quiet, Jotning every man and |; {been asked to—to tell you what I have got out of life —" Five hundred faces, touched and smiling, every one of them full of en- couragement and love and faith, turn- ed up to him. “What have I got out of life?” He stretched out his arms wide, as if to include them all, as if to take to his breast all the men and women and children of this city . His voice rang in the hushed silence. “Everything!” At six o’clock, when he walked up his street alone, the air was already cool with evening. Approaching his house, he raised his head and saw that some ong was sitting on the out- er doorstep, resting his face in his hands. When John Jackson came up the walk, the caller—he was a young i man with dark, frightened eyes—saw him and sprang to his feet. : “Father,” he said quickly, “I got your telegram, but I—I came home.” | Soa Jackson looked at him and in | “The house was locked,” said the young man in an uneasy way. “I've got the key.” John Jackson unlocked the front door and preceded his son inside. “Father,” cried Ellery Jackson quickly, “I haven’t any excuse to make —anything to say. I'll tell you all about it if you’re still interested—if you can stand to hear ——” : John Jackson rested his hand on the his kind voice. “I guess I can always stand anything my son does.” This was an understatement. For John Jackson could stand anything now forever—anything that came, anything at all.—By F. Scott Fitzger- ald, in Saturday Evening Post. SALVAGING HIDDEN WEALTH. In the rivers of the Lake States there lies today millions of dollars’ ‘worth of wealth in the form of pine logs which became waterlogged and sank during the drives of fifty years ago. These timbers when reclaimed from the river bottoms are virtually as good lumber as the day they were cut from the living tree. The lumber is slightly brittle but its value. is re- duced very little. When the drives | were on in the old days the lumber- | jacks and rivermen worked feverishly to keep the logs together that they {hight take advantage of the freshet | water which was stored by means of a { series of log dams in all the larger I rivers and their tributaries through- out the pineries of the Lake States. | Logs were banked on the river during the winter and in the spring break-up | they went tearing down to the mills : : : : : :3-s far below on the main streams. Dur- walked on, swaying slightly, down the | few people in this city that didn’t 'ihg periods of extremely high water ! many of these logs became hidden | from view in quiet backwaters. Be- ' coming waterlogged they sank to the bottom where they have been pre- served throughout the long years. This timber is the property of several lumber companies, many of which . have gone out of existence years ago. Each log, however, bears the stamp of the company which cut it and under the law it remains that company’s property. An attempt to salvage these timbers would be, in the eyes of the law, theft, unless undertaken by the owners or their heirs, many of whom have died. It has been estimat- ed that in the Menominee River alone there is more than 100,000,000 feet of lumber worth about $25 a thousand feet today. The Muskegon, Manistee and Au Sable rivers in Michigan, the Chippewa, in Wisconsin, and many of | the larger streams in Northern Min- I nesota have these golden hoards in their beds awaiting the inevitable day when the laws will permit the exploit- ; ation and utilization of their hidden treasures. In the meantime the tim- bers will keep indefinitely.—Ex. 1,458 Try for State Scholarship. In the State scholarship examina- tion held in 332 High schools of the State orMay 2nd there were 1,458 candidates. Every county in the State was represented in the examin- ations. Allegheny county with 176 competitors had the largest number. That county is entitled to six scholar- ships, one for each Senatorial distriet. Philadelphia county, which ranked second with 92 candidates, is entitled to eight while Luzerne county with 61 candidates is entitled to two scholar- ships. Fred B. Wilson, of Carnegie High school, Allegheny county, ranked the highest of all the competitors making a total of 282 points in the three sub- jects. Constance Ziegler, of New Cumberland county, was second with 278 points. Ruth Graham, Mercer High school, was third with 276 points. Richard N. Thyer, Central Central High school, Scranton, ranked fourth with 275 points. All candidates were required to take examinations in English and Ameri- can history. Each candidate had to elect a third subject from the follow- ing list: Mathematics, physics, chem- istry, biology, German, French, Latin Spanish. The grades made by the majority in American history were low. The grades in English, on the other hand, were uniformly high. The rades in the elective studies ranged rom low to high in individual cases. Pennsylvania to Test the Old Oaken Bucket. Analysis of drinking water along state highways, as a precautionary move to protect motorists, has been started by the Pennsylvania State Health Department. An ambulance, converted into a field laboratory and managed by two ex- pert analysis, has started in this work at the eastern end of the Lineoln high- length of that road in Pennsylvania, sampling and testing the water avail- able to traveling motorists. Other highways will then be investigated. As soon as the tests are completed the results will be forwarded to the field engineers, and placards stating that the water has been examined and found pure will be posted over the wells or springs. ~—-—Mail bags are now picked up by airplanes in full flight by means of a hook wihch seizes a rope to which the bags are attached. “Don’t feel too badly,” he said in way, and will travel over the entire FARM NOTES. —One of man’s friends is one of the ground beetles known as Calasoma sycophanta, says Nature Magazine of Washington. It is a glittering green and gold beetle with a head and tho- rax of deep purple. It was imported from Europe among other natural en- emies of the gypsy moth and brown- tail moth. Both adults and young of the Calesoma beetles are extremely voracious and f on other insects, especially the caterpillars of moths. | —It is quite common for pigs to i bloat and die quickly when suddenly turned into green clover when they are very hungry or not accustomed to such feed. That often occurs when pigs have been grazing grass and the pasture becomes so short that the owner decides a change is necessary, and so turns the pigs into a lush clover without due preparation. Wet clover, as with cattle, is most likely to cause bloat. Any green feed may have the same effect, under similar circumstances. The modern method of raising hogs is to let them graze a succession of green crops from early spring until late in autumn. Rye, oats and peas, rape, clover, alfalfa ‘and corn are the crops most used for this purpose, and losses from bloat or acute indigestion do not occur under this system of feeding, as the pigs be- come accustomed to the green feed rearly in the season, and take it daily without becoming inordinately hun- gry. —A practical manner of reducing the production costs of market eggs ‘consists in feeding fresh garbage plac- ed before the flock as soon as possible after it has been rejected from the ta- ble. Used judiciously the United ! States: Department of Agriculture | says it will reduce the cost of egg and meat production from 25 to 30 per { cent. The garbage must be fresh and | free from all fermentation and sour- | ness. The intrinsic value of garbage as a poultry feed is due to the fact that it provides a varied ration which fits all the needs and requirements of the flock. . , One explanation of why the small flock owner, with his backyard bevy of hens, secures heavy production of eggs, hinges around the fact that he emphasizes the use of table scraps in the ration. Similar results obtain where large commercial flocks are given access to daily allowances of sanitary, well-selected, and palatable garbage. Although the character of garbage varies throughout the year, due to the fact that more succulent | vegetables and fruits are used during the summer, this refuse is also a valu- : able substitute for costly grains and | concentrates in the hen menu. Unfortunate results which in i some instances have followed the use of garbage are due to feeding a mix- ture of table scraps that was not carefully selected. Hens like fresh garbage, but are not able to digest scraps of tin, phonograph needles, and similar foreign material. Unless such substances are separated from the garbage, disastrous results invariably follow and the poultryman soon aban- dons garbage feeding and condemns it as unsatisfactory. The Department of Agriculture recommends that fresh garbage be run through a meat or | vegetable chopper, and mixed with a 'little ground feed before it is fed to the fowls. : | As much of the table refuse should be fed as the flock will clean up with i a relish in the course of an hour. All ‘ feed which the birds reject should be removed from the feeding pens or ‘yards as soon as possible thereafter. | Otherwise, it sours and contaminates { the premises and, subsequently, if the fowls eat it it invariably causes di- gestive troubles. Where garbage is fed, it is also pre- requisite to provide a light ration of grain twice daily, as well as to supply dry mash in a hopper before the flock. As a rule table scraps are rich in pro- tein and only occasionally is it neces- sary to supplement the mash with ap- proximately 5 per cent. of meat meal. During the summer garbage decom- poses and forifignts quickly and it (must be fed before it reaches this stage. The feeding of garbage is fa- j vored during cold weather because in the winter the refuse keeps better. Suburban flock owners may often se- cure the garbage from neighboring families who do not keep hens. This source of feed may be so plentiful that the flock owner can expand his hen-keeping operations and even af- ford to pay a small amount for the garbage. Experiments in feeding garbage at the government experimental farm at Beltsville, Md., indicate that ten hens will consume about one quart of gar- bage daily. A suitable dry mash as a supplement to this garbage consists of 3 parts by weight of corn meal, 1 part of bran, 1 part of middlings, and 5 per cent. of meat scraps. This mash is kept before the fowls all the time. The investigations demonstrat- ed conclusively that where fresh gar- bage is properly fed a fair egg crop results, while economical and rapid gains in growth are secured by the judicious use of table refuse in the ration. Where the garbage is plenti- ful and rather watery it is advisable to mix in enough supplementary mash to give the mixture a desirable con- sistency. If the table scraps contain much fruit and vegetable peelings, more mash should be added, while if the garbage consists chiefly of potato peelings, bread, and meat less mash should be used. Care should be exer- cised to drain off soapy water or ex- cess liquid from the garbage. A poultry farm in the District of Columbia, which handles about 1,000 | fowls reports excellent results from the use of well-selected garbage. This material is hauled twice a day and fed to the birds about ten o’clock in the morning and again during the middle of the afternoon so that the table.scraps are fed fresh only two or , three hours after they are discarded from the kitchen. The feeding meth- od of this poultryman is to scatter the garbdge on the grass range in such quantities that the fowls will clean up all the refuse. He rotates these feed- ing spots in such a way that no con- tamination results. The outstanding feature of the success of this poultry~ man is centralized in his painstaking selection of the rarbage and the elim- ination of all objectionable material. ——Read the “Watchman.” .
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers