230 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



brought in, communicable disease, and the other is the long 

 usage of a house by poultry. I think if you take poultry 

 which is free from communicable disease and arrange it so 

 that you do not buy any, or bring any unhealthy poultry in 

 with disease which can be spread, if you keep it reasonably 

 clean you will have no trouble. I think this, though, that the 

 longer the time a farmer keeps hens under those conditions, 

 he does not always keep the place as it should be as to 

 cleanHness, and disease is apt to get in, and when disease 

 does get in he is apt to lose them in a hurry. Without great 

 care to guard against communicable diseases, where fowls 

 are kept in identically the same house, and on the same 

 ground for a considerable length of time, you cannot be sure 

 of perfectly healthy birds, and that is the reason that I regard 

 the incubator and the brooder as the salvation of the chicken 

 industry. It does not carry any communicable disease. 



Now, I want to speak a moment on that point that the 

 gentleman brought up, the matter of health. Some of our 

 most successful poultrymen have gone into the business on 

 account of their health, and, being good business men, have 

 made it a success. We know of women also who have re- 

 gained their health through the care of poultry, through hav- 

 ing this stimulus outside of their day's work, and through 

 the opportunity it gives them to breathe some fresh air. 



The gentleman also brought up another feature, the tur- 

 key industry. I debated some time whether I should lengthen 

 out my paper by presenting anything but the hen. In addi- 

 tion to the hen, however, on every farm where they can be 

 kept it is a good plan to have some ducks or geese or turkeys. 

 Every farmer should have a few. 



In the United States Agricultural Report of the Rhode 

 Island Station there will be an article on the " Blackhead in 

 Turkeys." It seems to me that all of you who are trying to 

 raise turkeys, or who are going to raise turkeys, should at 

 least see the article, no matter whether you approve of it or 



