• HAMPSHIRE COUNTY 



FARMERS' MONTHLY 



Vol. IX. 



NORTHAMPTON, MASS., APRIL, 1921 



No. 1 



PROGRESS OF 



DISEASE CONTROL 



Poultrymen in Nineteen lowns to 

 Follow Program 



During March, one hundred and twenty 

 poultrymen joined the ranks of those who 

 l)ropose to put only healthy pullets in 

 their laying houses next fall. This 

 makes a total of one hundred ninety-eight 

 who have agreed to carry on disease 

 control work this year. These men plan 

 to get over 100,000 chicks this spring. 

 Prof. W. C. Monahan, Extension Poultry 

 Specialist and the County Agent are to 

 give those who agreed to carry out this 

 ^•ork every possible assistance. 



It will be of interest to those keeping 

 poultry to know how many in their town 

 are to carry on Disease Control work this 

 year. The following table shows the 

 number of people signing up as well as 

 the number of chicks. 

 Town No. Signing No. of Chicks 



Amherst 34 17,975 



Belchertown 26 24,600 



Chesterfield 3 1,025 



Cummington 5 1,650 



Enfield 6 4,800 



Easthampton 1 100 



Granby 7 4,000 



Greenwich 7 13,700 



Huntington, 10 2,700 



Middlefield 4 800 



Northampton 4 1,700 



Pelham 21 5,300 



Pre.scott 6 1,150 



Southampton 10 5,100 



Ware 19 6,100 



Westhampton 4 1,700 



South Hadley 18 8,100 



Williamsburg, 11 6,100 



Worthington 2 500 



GROW GOOD CLOVER LEG WEAKNESS IN CHICKS 



Total 198 107,100 



The latter part of March the County 

 Agent started visiting those who are to 

 carry out Disease Control work this year. 

 The majority of those visited have al- 

 ready disinfected their brooder houses 

 with corrosive sublimate solution. In 

 fact, everyone visited so far is doing a 

 thorough job of cleaning up. 



Tobacco Dust Supply Obtained 

 On many plants, intestinal worms are 

 causing low egg production and death 

 Continued on p.-ige 10, column 1 



Neglect of l;ssentials Results in Crop 

 Failures 



Twenty-five years and more ago, I 

 used to hunt woodchucks, red squirrels 

 and that kind of trash with a lad of my 

 own age named Pete Brown. Pete had 

 an old Belgian .22 calibre rifle that I 

 verily believe, would not throw one bullet 

 out of five into a three foot circle at a 

 hundred feet but nevertheless he kept 

 blazing away, shooting box after box of 

 cartridges and hitting what he aimed at 

 only by accident and that infrequently. 

 Yet he kept .spending his money for cart- 

 ridges because he did really want to kill 

 some game. 



I know a lot of farmers who are follow- 

 ing Pete's system, essentially, in growing 

 clover. Their land is no more fit to grow 

 clover than Pete's rifle was to hit what 

 he aimed at and they know it just as 

 well as Pete knew that his rifle was no 

 good; yet they "keep blazing away," 

 figuratively speaking, wasting dollars and 

 dollars on clover .seed on the off' chance 

 that they might hit it occasionally and 

 get a crop. Some system! 



The soil requirements of clover are 

 fairly well known. Why not meet those 

 requirements as fully as possible and 

 succeed with clover with some regularity 

 instead of ignoring them and failing with 

 even more regularity? 



These requirements ax-e: 



1. Absence of excessive soil acidity. 



2. Presence of plenty of phosphoric 



acid. 

 .'!. Presence of plenty of potash. 



4. Good seed bed and general cultural 



conditions. 



5. Good seed. 



Meet these re(|uirenients and succeed 

 most of the time. Fail to meet them as 

 a whole, or any one of them, and fail 

 most of the time. 



Obviously any "rule of thumb" treat- 

 ment must be a misfit in some cases but 

 it is a fact that the great bulk of Massa- 

 chusetts soils which are too strongly acid 

 to grow red clover respond very satisfac- 

 tfti'ily to the following treatment per 

 acre : 



1 ton of limestone. 

 500 pounds acid phosphate. 

 Continued on page 10. column 1 



Better to Avoid Causes Than to Use 

 Remedies 



The common causes of leg weakness 

 in chickens during the brooding period 

 are: 



I. Deficient Mineral Content in the 

 Ration 



Last year a commonly used commercial 

 mash evidenced an actual deficiency of 

 mineral ingredients. Everywhere unless 

 supplemented with suitable minerals, its 

 use was accompanied by leg weakness 

 and losses. Called to their attention the 

 manufacturers changed the formula 

 adding bone meal and lime. Trouble 

 stopped. Sometimes home mixed rations 

 are deficient. Every ma.sh for growing 

 chicks should contain at least 2 per cent 

 bone meal or of a mixture of such readily 

 available minerals as bone meal, agri- 

 cultural lime, fine oyster-.shell, acid phos- 

 phate and wood ashes. Milk is also a 

 mineral supplement. 



II. Lack of Vitamins 



Experimental work indicates that 

 chickens, to make rapid growth, require 

 i-elatively large amounts of vitamins A, 

 B and D. 



A, is the fat-soluble vitamin found in 

 milk, egg yolk, green feed, yellow corn 

 and cod liver oil. Much of the advantage 

 genei'ally recognized in supplementing 

 chick rations with milk and green feed 

 is probably due to their vitamin content. 

 Milk, however, has other virtues and 

 green feeds supply a desirable bulk. In- 

 fertile eggs and blood rings, crushed un- 

 cooked and mixed in mash make a valua- 

 ble feed, particularly when laid by flocks 

 free from Bacillary White Diarrhoea. 

 Cod liver oil is the most concentrated 

 source of vitamin A and it also contains 

 the antirachitic vitamin D. The cost of 

 crude or Norwegian C. L. O. is not pro- 

 hibitive being approximately $2 a gallon 

 at retail drug stores. Therefore, when 

 milk is not fed in abundance and green 

 feed is scarce, cod liver oil can be used 

 to good advantage. When leg weakness 

 actually occurs, cod liver oil is the first 

 remedy to resort to. The oil is most con- 

 veniently fed, in my experience, when 

 rubbed into dry mash using one quart 

 of cod liver oil to 100 pounds mash. 

 (Continued on page 12, column 1 



