1882. J 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



117 



CONTRIBUTIONS. 



For The I.ascastkh Farmer. 

 GAPES IN POULTRY. 



So much have been sai<l of hite in rcKarJ to 

 the gapes in poultry, and as nothing positive 

 has yet been dcterniinetl on, I feel as though 

 I should say something on the subject, giving 

 my experience. I lind by close observations 

 that they are neither a louse nor do they 

 take them from the ground, nor yet is it con- 

 tagious. It is nothing more, or less than the 

 pip, as it was called when I was a boy, and 

 tliey come from the downy plumage which 

 the chick is covered with when hatched; 

 whilst picking themselves the down is sucked 

 in the windpipe whilst breathing, and if the 

 quill end enters lirst it invariably will work 

 itself down, and it requires but a day or two 

 until it is covered with a red (leshy sul)stance 

 and will move when disturbed, but it con- 

 tains no ovas nor ever will. In time, if not 

 removed it will dissolve and pass away. 



They are generally double, one being a 

 little longer than the other; they are not 

 male and female as some suppose — far from 

 it. If you will examine the down, on all 

 small feathers, you will find them all double, 

 the same as the gape worm. Young ducks 

 do not moult their downy plumage, but on 

 the contrary, it increases in length and in 

 quantity, and adheres more firmly to the skin 

 for the purpose of keeping the boddy dry. 

 Anything of this kind, or hairs from any- 

 thing, placed in a warm and wet place and 

 receiving air, will become living animals. 

 They are very common at this time of the 

 year, where stock go to drink, in the foot- 

 prints, containing water. They differ in size 

 and length, depending on the part of the 

 body from which the hair had fallen. I 

 took the other day from the ditch below my 

 pump a knot of hair that was all alive ; it 

 was just as it had been taken from the comb 

 and wrapped around the finger, and a hairpin 

 stuck through it. I removed the pin, shook 

 them out in a basin of warm water; they ap- 

 peared to enjoy their liberty very much. By 

 drawing one through my finger nails, strip- 

 ping ofi' the red fieshy substance, the Iiairwas 

 then red. Just so with the gape worm. Chicks 

 are more subject to gapes after a few days 

 rainy weather. During this time they are 

 cooped, and having no exercise, they pass the 

 time in picking themselves ; as after the first 

 week they commence mouUing the downy 

 plume. The best remedy is the horse hair to 

 remove them. The best preventive is dry 

 food: wheat and cracked corn; nature's food is 

 dry, let us not change It. A better remedy 

 still is to grease the chicks with lard and salt 

 mixed; this will kill the life of the down and 

 most generally prevent gapes, as grease or 

 salt, or both combined, is death to any thing 

 so delicate, or prevent any accumulation of it 

 after passing into the pipe. I have made the 

 chick my study for several years. My last 

 essay on poultry I gave to the F a umer, 'giving 

 the contents of ap egg and how it is made. 



The Eel question is another puzzle to many 

 and is still talked of through the papers. I 

 will here give my experience in regard to 

 their mode of breeding and where. I am a 

 miller by trade and have lived near a mill 



pond for the past forty-five years. Some say 

 that they descend down the streams until 

 they reach salt water and there spawn, and 

 whilst young ascend again hundreds of miles 

 before tbey reach the head of the last mill 

 pond. Wouldn't it be amusing to see a few 

 hundred of young and old eels from three to 

 twenty inches in length climbing up the 

 breast of a mill pond, say ten to twenty feet 

 high, and so on to^the^next. They in one re- 

 spect are like other ffsh, they breed where 

 they inhabit; their spawn is not round like 

 other fish, they are more the shape of a hen's 

 egg, and they arc laid on sunken brush or any 

 hits of wood under water; take from the same 

 a splinter containing a few spawn, place it in 

 a bucket of hike warm water, and in a few 

 days they will hatch; now drop a few drops of 

 melted grease free from salt, and as it spreads 

 over the surface they will come up and feed 

 upon it; continue this for a few days and you 

 will be surprised to sec how the little wigglers 

 will grow. Knowledge derived from the 

 closet in the way of book learning' in many 

 instances is of but of little use or benefit. 

 Self taught from close observations and ex- 

 perimenting, is knowledge beneficial and it is 

 never forgotten. — Yours^ truly, W. J. P. 



For The Lancaster Farmer. 

 LIME. 



Is Lime a Manure, or only a Stimulant ? 



Much has been published pro and con, on 

 this subject without settling the question 

 either way. I am inclined to the belief that 

 it is a manure as well as a stimulant. 



I well remember coming up from Baltimore 

 to York in the stage, sixty or sixty-two years 

 ago, on passing through what was called the 

 "York county Barrens," to see very little 

 cultivation, and the old fields without fences, 

 or only two or three rails, and no vegetation 

 excejit that the ground was entirely covered 

 with daisies, as with a mantle of snow. 



At a place where the stage stopped to 

 change horses, a man got in the stage and 

 took a seat along side of me. He at once be- 

 gan to "pump" me whore I was going, where 

 I resided, &c. I told him I had been to Bal- 

 timore, and was on my way home to Lancas- 

 ter county. He said 1 was fortunate in living 

 in so rich a county — that in his neighborhood 

 the land was too poor to make a living on it — 

 that they could hardly grow enough on it to 

 keep the family in provision the year round — 

 that if they sowed rye, they could get very 

 little more than the seed — and corn would not 

 produce enough to pay expenses. I said, why 

 do you not manure the ground ? Ah ! that's 

 the difficulty — we have no manure — no gra.ss 

 or feed, hay, &c., to keep stock, so we have 

 to do as well as we, can. 



Now, that "barren locality" produces as 

 heavy crops of corn, wheat, and grass as Lan- 

 caster CO. A few years ago I was again in 

 that locality and I saw better crops of corn 

 than we had that season here — they having 

 had more rain in that section. Clover fields 

 too, so very rank as to lodge all over the 

 field. What has brought about this wonder- 

 ful change ? Lime was the renovator, that 

 like the alchemists of old, turned baser metal 

 into gold, or money into the farmers' pockets! 



The same may be said of ]iarts of Lancas- 

 ter county. I well remember hearing people 



talk of "poor Octoraro. " They said the soil 

 was so poor that Kilderes could not live there 

 — that they had to come over to Manor and 

 Ilempfield townships to get feed to live." It 

 suited these birds very well for breeding pur- 

 poses, as a few formed their nest on 

 the ground, on a bare spot so they could 

 see all around, thus guarding their nests from 

 enemies, as polecats, po.ssums, snakes, &c. — 

 but no feed for their young in that section. I 

 do not now know the locality of this poor 

 spot, but it may have been in parts of 

 Drumore, Fulton, or Martic townships. That 

 country has changed quite as wonderfully as 

 the "Barrens of York co." Land that could 

 be bought sixty years ago for 4 or "(dollars an 

 acre, is now worth probably from 50 to 80 

 dollars, or more, according to imjjrovements. 

 Here too, lime was the forerunner of improve- 

 ment, so this lime is evidently a manurial 

 agent. I well recollect the time when lime 

 was first being applied to land as a fertilizer, 

 some 50 or GO years since. 



A farm less than two miles from me, on 

 the river hills, produced nothing but chestnuts 

 and garlic. An old field had been in corn, as 

 the little hillocks proved, was thrown out as 

 of no further use, no fences, and a public road 

 passing on one side, to cut off a corner people 

 traveled over the field. All the vegetation 

 on it was cinquefoil and running blackberry 

 vines. All the income the family had was 

 from a crop of chestnuts. But when a new 

 owuer took possession, chestnut trees and 

 garlic soon disappeared, the former for rails 

 and the latter of no earthly use. Lime being 

 liberally applied, corn, wheat and even 

 tobacco took their place, and now that old 

 farm has been rejuvenated, and produces as 

 heavy crops of useful vegetation us any in 

 Lancaster county. 



A farm not a hundred miles west of Lan- 

 caster where corn grew to three feet high 

 and rye in spots here and there where cattle 

 had droi)pcd their excrements, grew only in 

 spots (no wheat was sown.) There was also 

 a public house on the farm and teamsters to 

 Pittsburg stayed over to rest and feed, their 

 horses of course dropped considerable manure, 

 yet the farm did not improve until lime was 

 applied, then to see the change that soon be- 

 came apparent was really wonderful. No 

 heavier crops can now be grown anywhere 

 than on that poor farm, poor no longer. Many 

 yet living may remember the poor qual ity 

 of the soil in Chester county sixty years ago 

 where now such heavy crops are grown. All 

 this I think goes to show that lime is a 

 manurial agent of great power as a renovator 

 of the soil. 



Then we had none of the so called improved 

 varieties of fruits, still such as we had, mostly 

 seedlings, bore heavy crops of fruit. Apples 

 every alternate year produced more than 

 could be used, even after making cider, apple- 

 butter, vinegar and the cellar filled for winter 

 use and wagon loads taken to the still-house 

 for "apple-jack" — hogs having their fill for 

 months and many bushels going to waste. 

 Why IS it that our trees are so barren now ? 

 There is a question in my mind as our lands 

 becomes more productive for grass and grain 

 by the use of calcareous manures,has it a con- 

 trary effect on fruit trees ? It appears to me 

 as if it misht be so. 



