POULTRY. Ill 



Games, and Haraburgs. We have about twenty White Leg- 

 horns, and know they are excellent hens to lay. Whatever 

 breed you keep, they require proper care and food : the better 

 care and keeping, the larger the returns will be. In setting 

 hens, make the nest of clean straw or hay, dust it with sulphur. 

 Eleven eggs are enough for the hen to sit on. Dust the hen 

 with sulphur : it is as sure a preventive against lice as can be 

 used with safety. Note the time of setting. When the hen 

 has hatched all she will, remove her and the chickens to a 

 dry, warm place. Feed them with bread-crumbs, scalded meal, 

 shorts, and boiled potatoes, for five or six weeks. Dust the 

 coop with sulphur-powder to keep out vermin. Give them 

 milk to drink, and they will grow like weeds. For large lice, 

 that sometimes appear on chickens' heads soon after hatching, 

 apply lard or yellow snuff. The croup, or catarrh, is one of 

 the most destructive diseases that appear in gallinaceous 

 fowls. There is a running at the nose and eyes ; the eyes 

 swell; the whole • head, mouth, and throat become affected. 

 It is a slow, lingering disorder, sometimes continuing for 

 months in the same subject. It is caused by damp, ill- ' 

 ventilated hen-houses, and close confinement. A very good 

 remedy is to keep fowls dry and warm ; wash the head and 

 mouth in soapsuds ; give a few pills made of powdered char- 

 coal and cayenne-pepper. Select a southerly position for the 

 hen-house, that the hens may enjoy the sunshine in cold 

 weather. Have a dry situation. Make the house so that it 

 can be well-ventilated in warm weather, and yet warm in the 

 coldest weather. It should be well lighted, and so arranged 

 that the windows may be taken out to admit the air in 

 summer. Remove the old nests as often as every month. 

 Bury or burn them. Make new nests of clean hay or straw, 

 and sprinkle them with sulphur-powder, and keep the house 

 well whitewashed : make the whitewash very salt, and your 

 hens will not be troubled with lice. 



Want of good warm shelter in cold weather, want of 

 proper kinds of food, want of pure water, excessive use of 

 the male bird, bad management of any kind, will cause- 

 degeneracy. To improve fowls they must be well but not 

 too highly fed, well watered, and managed every way for 

 the promotion of their health and comfort. 



J. R. Presho, Chairman. 



