l8 POULTRY DISEASES AND THEIR TREATMENT. 



III. THE LAND. 



One of the most important considerations in poultry sanita- 

 tion 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 3 year rotation is entirely feasible and serves its 

 purpose well. Such a system of cropping would be something 

 as follows: First year, chickens; second year, a hoed crop, 

 like beets, cabbage, mangels or corn, the ground to be seeded 

 down to timothy and clover after the crop is taken ofiE; third 

 year, in grass ; fourth year, chickens again. Other cropping sys- 

 tems to serve the same purpose can easily be devised. 



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 plowing and harrowing thoroughly annually, 

 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 

 they are running is far from pure. So long as the grass can be 

 kept growing strongly and vigorously there is small fear of foul 

 ground, as the growth absorbs the manure ; it is when the grass 

 becomes worn away that the chief danger arises. The manure 

 constantly falling upon the same small area, and there being 

 nothing to use it up, the land is bound in a short space of time 

 to become so permeated as to be thoroughly unfit for fowls. 

 The question is very often asked in connection with this subject 

 as to how many fowls a certain sized piece of land will accom- 

 modate the whole year through. Occasionally one may see in 



