212 DISEASES OF SWINE AND OTHER ANIMALS. 



Next, I have none but healthy birds to breed from, and am very particidar to keep 

 their quarters perfectly clean. I have luy hen-house cleaned once a week during 

 summer, and once in every ten days during the -winter season. I remove the contents 

 and have them stored under cover for use as a fertilizer for my crops. I use quick- 

 lime and wood-ashes as disinfectants, and charcoal as an absorbent. The result is 

 clean houses and healthy fowls. 



I jiay close attention to their food. Too much corn makes them fat and indolent. 

 Once or twice a day is as often as they should have grain. They should be provided 

 Avith grass lots for grazing, as the amount of this kind of food they will consume Avould 

 astonish any one who has not given the subject attention. Pure water and jilenty of 

 it is indispensable. Sick birds should at once be separated from the well ones, but 

 the best jilan is to cut olf their heads and bury them. 



I am iiartial to dark-colored fowls, as I am of the opinion that they are more hardy 

 than the light-colored ones. I am careful not to overstock my llock, and breed only 

 from those that are peaceable, and as a result have no games or ill-natured fowls. 



Mr. Y. C Lavmore, Yalley Head, De Kalb county, says : 



My observations and experience with farm stock extends to a period of near forty 

 years. In the care of horses I am particidar to give them good grazing and sound 

 feed. In winter I give them good shelter and feed both hay and grain. I also give 

 them salt and ashes, slaked lime, and co^iperas or saltpeter. During the summer 

 months I keep the nits cleanly scraped oil' from their limbs and bodies. I practice 

 about the same treatment with cattle, and in addition use sulphiu', rosin, and turpen- 

 tine in the summer and fall to keep oft' the ticks. I use the same preparation to re- 

 move lice from my hogs. When disease is in the neighborhood I give them salt and 

 ashes, and sometimes turpentine. My hogs have been visited but once with cholera, 

 and then they had it very bad. I tried everything I could hear of, but to no purpose 

 until I separated them into three difterent lots. I put the well ones into a field by 

 themselves, those that looked feeble into another, and the eick ones I turned into 

 a meadow through which a stream passed. I drove them through this creek once 

 or twice a day. I burned all the dead carcasses, old beds, and even the woods where 

 they had been running in the mast. I had about two hundred head, and many of 

 them died, but they commenced to imi^rove soon after I commenced this treatment, 

 and soon the disease disappeared. 



Mr. E. Tucker, Marion, Perry county, says : 



Hog-cholera seems to prevail throughout the United States, and j)erhaps more hogs 

 die from the efiects of this disease than from all other causes combined. I have been 

 using preventives for years, and when I attend strictly to this duty I hardly ever lose 

 a hog by cholera or any other disease. I use copperas, lime, ashes, charcoal, sulphur, 

 and tar. The most of these articles are good for worms and keep the hog in a healthy 

 condition. Cholera makes its appearance in various forms, and in many cases, I 

 think, what Ave call cholera is caused principally by worms. 



In this latitude Ave haA'e a disease called murrain among cattle, which, perhaps, is 

 more destructive than any other to this class of domestic animals. It usually makes 

 its appearance in the spring of the year. Wo have what is knowTi as both the diy 

 and bloody murrain. As preventiA'es we use salt and sulphur freely, and keep tar in 

 the feeding-troughi. Wlien a severe case makes its appearance it is hard to cure, 

 though soap and oil have been used in cases of dry murrain with some success. 



Bhnd staggers seem to be the prevailing disease among horses and mules. A horse 

 properly fed on sound corn and hay, with lime, Avood-ashes, tar, and sulphur constantly 

 in their troughs, Avill ncA'er ha\-e the blind staggers. Bots and colic also kill a good 

 many horses. Oil and chloroform will generally effect a speedy ciu-e in such cases. 



Dr. George T. McWhorter, Chickasaw, Colbert county, says : 



In connection with my report of the hog-disease, wliich prcA'ailed so fatally hero 

 during the past season, I desire to call your attention to reports from Van Wert and 

 Prcblo counties, Ohio, Iroquois county, Ohio, .and- Lauderdale county, Alabama, 

 found in the Keport of the Commissioner of Agriculture for 1876, page 108. I am con- 

 A'inced that the "new disease" mentioned by correspondents from these counties is 

 the same that prevailed here, and that it is caused by the worm, specimens of Avhich 

 I sent you. You Avill obserA^e that all call attention to the lung trouble, some stating 

 that the lungs Avere the only parts affected. By careful examination I found, as stated 

 in my rei)ort, the lungs, liver, stomach, and bowels infested l)y these Avorms, but in 

 every case the lung tissue had suffered most, in some cases being entirely broken down. 



I suspect also that nuich of the pneumonia (page 109, same report) rei)orted from 

 Kentucky, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, and Kansas is due to the same cause. The trouble 

 is so much more i)atent in the lungs tluni elsewhere tliat it might reasonably bo over- 

 looked in other situations. You will renieml)er that the worms taken from the lungs 

 were much larger than those from tlie bowel,s, I attribute this to the inferred fact 



