260 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



Question. Would you cook turnips for ducks ? 



Dr. TwiTCiiELL. Yes, sir ; cook and mash. If you want 

 information about ducks, there has been a paper published 

 from Mr. Rankin, in which he has taken up the question of 

 feeding ducks very scientifically. He has scored a success 

 that has not been obtained by any other man that I know of 

 in America. 



Mr. Saneord. I have known several to make a complete 

 failure in the poultry business, on account of vermin that 

 infested their fowls. I have known people who kept their 

 poultry out of doors until cold weather. I would like to 

 know whether, in the opinion of the lecturer, it is possible 

 to keep say a hundred hens together in a house through the 

 year, and keep off these mites. 



Dr. TwiTCHELL. These mites are the hardest creatures 

 to get rid of that we have. They do not cost us anything 

 when they come, and they stay by us after they have eaten up 

 all the profits. It is a good plan to colonize poultry. I use 

 a little building, four by eight feet long, with three and one- 

 half feet posts. I nail two cross-pieces to the posts, and then 

 clapboard over the side and roof, leaving the front open, 

 letting the two cross-pieces run out so that two men can 

 take the little house up and carry it wherever they please. 

 I keep from ten to twenty hens in a house, and move it 

 once or twice a week, thus giving them a chance to range 

 the fields. That gives me an opportunity to clear out my 

 hen-house and thoroughly fumigate it by burning sulphur. 

 Then, with the free use of kerosene, I have not been troubled 

 with these little mites. I know no better way of getting 

 rid of them than by thoroughly fumigating with sulphur, 

 and the use of kerosene freely about the roosts, and white- 

 washing. I would have everything in the poultry house 

 movable, so that I can take out everything inside, leaving 

 the bare walls, thus getting a good opportunity to get rid of 

 the pests. 



Question. I would like to ask the gentleman's opinion 

 as to the use of incubators. 



Dr. TwiTCHELL. An old gentleman in Maine was once 

 elected as a representative to the Legislature. He was 

 not a man of great intelligence, and they took him because 



