igo/.] DISCUSSION. 43 



living underneath the house on the ground. Usually there 

 will be two or three scrappy little cockerels that will sit in 

 the doorway, and keep them all out, and they will go under the 

 house and sleep there. We let them do that until about the 

 first of September. Now one of the surprising things about 

 these outdoor chickens is that their feathers will shed water 

 just like a duck. And chickens grown in a fresh air house 

 will never get as wet in a rain as chickens that are kept 

 closed up tight. I had an example of that during this last bad 

 storm that we had in Massachusetts. We had a lot of birds 

 that had been allowed to run out in a field. We did not feel 

 like shutting them up. I save labor all I can. I do all the 

 work with my own chickens that I can. I do not give them 

 any too much time. Those birds, during that last rain, were 

 out scratching around while the neighbors' hens were under 

 cover, and aside from a few wet feathers vou would hardlv 

 know that they had been out in a rain. We let out a few birds 

 that we had in a closed house, and they had not been out in that 

 rain more than two or three hours before they looked like 

 drowned rats, and their feathers were all rumpled up, and 

 they looked as uncomfortable as wet hens usually do. 



Well, perhaps you think I am not giving you much about 

 poultry diseases. The less I talk about poultry diseases the 

 better I Hke it, and I think you will too, but Air. Graham tells 

 me that you have had an epidemic in this section of chickenpox. 

 Now chickenpox is said to be purely a germ disease. As a 

 matter of fact it comes from certain parasitic spores. When- 

 ever you get a spell of damp weather of long duration, in which 

 all fungus growth increases, you are apt to have it. When 

 everj'thing gets mouldy, and toadstools and mushrooms spring 

 up around, you can figure that all fungus is going to grow, 

 and in such a season you will get more or less chickenpox. If 

 you use musty and mildewed grain, even though your chickens 

 are in very good health, if they happen to be fed with some- 

 thing of that kind, you will be apt to get the chickenpox started. 



