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Feeding Poultry by Machinery

By Franklin Horton

ATTENING poultry by machinery is a new industry in the United States, but already several hundred persons are engaged in it and more than $900,000 has been invested in fattening plants. The system is called "cramming." It was originated in France, where the growers of poultry still make a practice of taking small funnels with rubber

FEEDING HEN BY MACHINERY.

mouths, filling them with semi-liquid food, and forcing the wet meal down the fowl's throat after inserting the tube in its beak. The fat capons and other poultry of France won an enviable place, and the process was transplanted to England.

A Sussex man recently invented a machine for forcing the food down the throats of chickens, and this apparatus has been introduced in America. The accompanying illustration shows an Ameri

A tube is forced down the bird's throat. The machine is operated by treadle.

can-made machine as employed in twentyfour fattening establishments in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri. A sheet metal receptacle which will hold four gallons of food is fastened upon three legs, one of which is attached to a wheel so that the appliance may be moved easily. Running from this is a rubber nozzle a foot long, tapering from the size of a man's thumb at the top to that of his little finger at the bottom. A lever is connected with the can at the top in such a way that when a treadle is depressed the food is forced through this rubber nozzle.

When the operator wishes to feed a fowl, he grasps it by the legs, opens its bill, and thrusts the rubber tube down the throat until the nozzle has reached almost to the crop. Then he holds his hand over the crop and presses the treadle until the crop is filled with food, determining this by feeling.

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For the first week the chickens are fed a mixture of corn meal, oat meal, and milk, but this is given in the troughs. At the end of seven days the fowls begin to lose their appetite and the cramming machine is brought into use. The men fill the big bowls with the meal mixture, thin enough so it may be forced through the nozzles readily. They feed the stock twice a day for two weeks more and kill them after they have been machine fed twenty-eight times. twenty-eight times. Machinery also is used in preparing these fowls for market. after they are fattened. In each of the larger plants a moving overhead trolley carries the fowl in front of a score of men, each of whom does only a certain. part of the work, one removing the wing feathers, another the tail feathers, etc., until the dressing is completed.

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EATTLE is digging up the sea bottom to create more land for herself. She is growing and needs all the elbow room she can get. Incidentally, better water

ways are being created.

The work, as conducted, was made possible by a bill passed in the legislature in 1893, authorizing any person or company to excavate water ways through tide and shore lands, and with the material so excavated to fill tide and shore lands in front of incorporated cities. The bill gives to the person or company performing the work a first lien on all such lands as they may fill, for the cost of the work, plus fifteen per cent profit. It also authorizes streets and public places to be filled and bulkheads to be constructed, and the cost thereof, plus fifteen per cent to be added to the lien on the land benefited.

It was immediately after the passage of this law that the Seattle and Lake Washington Waterway Company was organized, and it secured contracts with the State in 1893, '94 and '95. This contract

provided for the excavation of practically all the Seattle tidelands at the head of Elliott bay. The total volume of the fill is estimated at 30,000,000 cubic yards. As only about one-third of this is obtainable by dredging, it was estimated that the original canal plan would supply the

rest.

Dredging was begun at a depth of thirty-five feet below low water at the entrance of the East Waterway in July, 1895, and this depth has been maintained. for a width of 700 feet and for a distance of 5,600 feet. Dredging was continued until June, 1897, and during this period an area of sixty-two acres was filled to grade, requiring 1,433,000 cubic yards of material. In August, 1900, dredging in the East Waterway was resumed.

The present interesting feature of the work is in connection with the operation of the dredges. By this means a double purpose is served. More land is being added to the city, while waterways are deepened. The dual importance of the work immediately becomes manifest.

While the early contract provides for creating 1,500 acres of tidelands, ap

proximately 400 acres have been created. up to the present time.

This work has largely been done by means of the hydraulic dredges, the "Portland" and "Tacoma." These dredges are being operated in what is known as the East Waterway. Leading to the land from each dredge is 2,000 feet of twentyinch dredge pipe. From the dredges the pipes are conducted to the land on pontoons, this being made necessary because of the changing tides. At times the current makes the long line squirm about like a mammoth serpent, as flexibility is provided for at the joining of the pipes. From the land the lines are conducted further on to the point where the making of land is in progress. From the end of each line is a continual stream of muck that has been pumped up from the bottom of the bay, and forced along this distance of 2,000 feet. It is the settling of this that results in more land.

The dredges will suck up and put ashore from 5,000 to 8,000 cubic yards of material in twenty-four hours. Up to the present year this work was largely done by the dredge "Seattle," but in March it was taken from the work and sent to San Francisco. The new dredge "Tacoma" was launched early in the year, and put on the work in April. The "Portland"

started work in June, and both dredges have been working continuously ever since. This has greatly increased the land-making possibilities of the company, although it is estimated that in two years the dredge work in the waterway will have been completed. As the material from that source is insufficient, the company will have to make provision elsewhere for carrying on the operations.

The work has been divided into sections or districts. Bulkheads of piles and plank have been used to enclose these districts, allowing them to be brought to grade quickly, as it is unnecessary to place any material outside the lines of any particular district. In constructing the fill with these bulkheads, a wide sluice is built of planks at a point where the waste will run into the next district to be filled. At the inner end of the sluice the planking of the bulkhead is kept enough above the level of the fill to provide a settling basin, to prevent as much as possible the escape of material with the waste water.

The material, when reaching the place of deposit, is readily spread by the use of shear boards. Muck rakes are used to assist in this work.

The filling has been done in such a manner that the land might only be filled

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as it is needed for business purposes. As has been noted, the land is subjected to a lien, and when sold by the state, the buyer secures it with the understanding that he has certain obligations to meet. Very often the land is bought purely as a speculation. When a tract of land has been made, a certificate is issued by the state engineer to the land commissioner. The state then issues a certificate to the company, which is the same as a mortgage against the land. But in order to save the purchaser as much as possible any interest charges on this mortgage,

HYDRAULIC DREDGE AT WORK.

the company has tried to fill in land only. as it was needed.

While this work is of a very important character, providing for the expansion of business, it is being conducted quietly. The two hydraulic dredges lie a distance out in the bay, and while clouds of smoke may be seen rolling from their respective stacks there is no great hullabaloo. In fact, they are more quiet than the smallest Sound tug.

The great work is partially of a submarine character. At the rear of each dredge are mammoth screws, which are continually stirring up the muck at the bottom of the bay. At the same time forceful pumps are at work sucking in this heterogeneous mass of ancient glacier deposit, and spitting it into the pipes. And these pumps are by no means particular about the morsels that are thus distributed. The appetites of the pumps have their limitations, as they never bite off a bigger piece than they are able to dispose of without trouble.

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