12 METHODS OF POUI/TRY MANAGEMENT. 



added to give the water a rather deep -wine color. This means 

 for some 4 years past no bird has ever had a drink of water 

 from the time it was hatched which did not contain potassium 

 permanganate, except such water as it got from mud puddles 

 and the like. 



III. TH LAND. 



One of the most important considerations in poultry sani- 

 tation is to keep the ground on which the birds are to live, both 

 as chicks and as adults, from becoming foul and contaminated. 

 This is not a very difficult thing to do if one has enough land 

 and practices a definite and systematic crop rotation in which 

 poultry form one element. On the open range where chicks 

 are raised a four year rotation is operated at the Maine Agri- 

 cultural Experiment Station and serves its purpose well. This 

 system of cropping is as follows : First year, chickens ; second 

 year, a hoed crop, such as beets, cabbage, mangolds or corn; 

 third year, seed down to timothy and clover, using oats or bar- 

 ley as a nurse crop; fourth year, chickens again. Other crop- 

 ping systems to serve the same purpose can easily be devised, 

 i to 2 teaspoons of the stock solution to 10 quarts of water. 

 At the same time one should clean and disinfect the drinking 

 pails and fountains regularly, just as he would if he were not 

 using potassium permanganate. At the Maine Station plant 



To maintain the runs connected with a permanent poultry 

 house, where adult birds are kept, in a sweet and clean condition 

 is a more difficult problem. About the best that one can do 

 here is to arrange alternate sets of runs so that one set may be 

 used one year and the other set the next, purifying the soil so 

 far as may be by annually plowing and harrowing thoroughly 

 and planting exhaustive crops. Failing the possibility of alter- 

 nating in this way, disinfection and frequent plowing are the 

 only resources left. 



The following excellent advice on this subject is given by the 

 English poultry expert Mr. E. T. Brown (Farm Poultry, Vol. 

 18, p. 294) : "Tainted ground is responsible for many of the 

 diseases from which fowls suffer, and yet it is a question that 

 rarely receives the attention it deserves. The chief danger of 

 tainted soil arises when fowls are kept in confinement, but still 

 we often find that even with those at liberty the land over which 



