182 PROFITS IK POULTRY. 



good sense at the bottom of it, but a more active rorm 

 of iron is desirable. The English poultrymen are much 

 in favor of "Douglas's Mixture." This is made by put- 

 ting eight ounces of sulphate of iron (also called cop- 

 peras, or green vitriol) into a jng (never use a metallic 

 vessel) with two gallons of water, and adding one ounce 

 of sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol). This is to be put 

 into the drinking-water in the proportion of a tea-spoon- 

 ful to a pint, and is found to be a most useful tonic 

 whenever such is needed. So soon as the disease breaks 

 out among the poultry, this should be given to the well 

 to enable them to resist it, together with more nutri- 

 tious and easily digestible food. 



One writer on the subject states that he made a satu- 

 rated solution of alum, and whenever a bird was at- 

 tacked, gave it two or three tea-spoonfuls, repeating the 

 dose the next day. He mixed their feed, Indian meal, 

 with alum-water for a week. Since adopting this he 

 has lost no fowls. Another writes that in each day's 

 feed of cooked Indian meal, for a dozen fowls, he added 

 a table-spoonful of Cayenne pepper, gunpowder, and 

 turpentine, feeding this every other day for a week. 

 From what we have heard of chicken-cholera, it ap- 

 pears to be a protest against improper feeding and 

 housing rather than any well-defined disease. Fowls 

 are often in poor condition on account of the vermin 

 they are obliged to support, or they may be in impaired 

 health from continuous feeding on corn alone. When 

 in this weakened state, a sudden change in the weather 

 may induce diarrhea, or a cold, which attacks the flock 

 so generally that the disease appears to be epidemic. 

 And being generally and rapidly fatal, it is called " chol- 

 era," and the owner of such a flock at once writes us for 

 a remedy for " chicken-cholera." A recent letter, from 

 a friend in Massachusetts, is the type of many others 

 received of late. This informed us that some of the 



