What is an “artificial mother” or chicken brooder? Please tell us what it looks like and how to use it?
An Old Subscriber.
Answer.—There are two or three illustrations and descriptions of chicken brooders, but they are all essentially the same thing. Of course the nearer it comes to being a good substitute for the hen mother the better it will be. Make a box about three or four feet square and five or six inches deep, with a board top and a sheet-iron, or, still better, a zinc bottom. Some tack a lamb skin, drooping nearly to the bottom, to the top of this box and do not use artificial heat; but the generally approved plan is to use one lamp and tin flue like those used in the artificial incubator, hitherto described, for warming a brooder of this size. Bore several small auger holes through the top as escape flues for the heat; or, still better, arrange three or four tin escape pipes of an inch diameter, as was done in the “heater” of the incubator, dropping them down to within a couple of inches of the bottom of the box. Next cut a strip from some old blanket, or other coarse, soft woolen stuff, and tack it around the lower edge of the box so that it will hang down about four inches all round. Slash this at intervals of three or four inches, so that the chicks can push through it. Now set blocks two inches thick under two corners and three inches thick under the other two corners, and your brooder is ready for use. Keep the temperature up to 80 or 90 deg. Keep the box thoroughly clean, and move it from one dry place to another every day or so. Dust the chicks occasionally with sulphur or pyrethrum, to keep off vermin, and smear their feathers here and there with paraffine. On one side of the brooder there should be a “run” for the chicks to exercise in, which may be a box covered with laths on top and sides, but with space next the ground to allow them to run out. For protection against rats at night cover the whole brooder with a close box perforated with small auger-holes for ventilation.
RELIGIOUS STATISTICS OF CHICAGO.
Rockford, Ill.
What is the present number of churches in Chicago? Does the increase of churches and church membership keep pace with the increase of population?
Mrs. W.
Answer..—Mr. E. F. Cragin, one of the officers of the Congregational Club of this city, has given some attention to this subject, and at the last meeting of the club presented the following figures, based on the census and the number of churches and church members, computed from the best data at hand:
| Year. | Churches and Missions. | Year. | Population. | Ratio of Members to Pop. |
| 1840 | 6 | 1840 | 4,479 | 1 to 747 |
| 1851 | 28 | 1850 | 28,269 | 1 to 1,009 |
| 1862 | 84 | 1860 | 109,260 | 1 to 1,301 |
| 1870 | 187 | 1870 | 298,977 | 1 to 1,599 |
| 1880 | 242 | 1880 | 503,185 | 1 to 2,079 |