MOLDS, SMUTS, AND BACTERIA 119 



which curing the weather largely controls. Even a 

 good farmer is subject to having spoiled hay, straw, 

 grain, etc. Not so often as his more careless and inef- 

 ficient neighbor, to be sure, but every agriculturist is 

 much dependent on weather conditions : he never con- 

 trols them, although he may learn to dodge some of 

 their vagaries. And, even after grain is garnered and 

 threshed, it sometimes molds and heats in the granaries. 



The poultryman is dependent on the farmer, the 

 miller, the grain dealer, many times. If brought up in 

 town, he may know absolutely nothing about all this 

 early history of his straw and grain; nothing of the pos- 

 sibilities of lurking death in the litter or the grain which 

 he buys. And, because he, too, is under the dominion 

 of Nature's laws, the bran or corn meal which he buys 

 may heat and mold in his own bins, without his suspicion 

 of anything wrong. The born farmer learns these 

 tricks of circumstances as he grows from boyhood to 

 manhood ; the townsman without country background 

 may be an utter ignoramus, having not one idea about 

 hundreds of things which are as the alphabet to one 

 brought up under farm conditions. Points about milling, 

 storage, handling, fanning, sifting grain and mill stuffs, 

 must be learned by the poultryman who comes from city 

 conditions item by item. And, in the meantime, we can 

 only say to him : " You must be sure to buy only sound, 

 bright grains and first-class mill products, and to avoid 

 dusty litter." 



One of the poultry periodicals published, a few years 

 ago, a question from one of its subscribers, which 

 startled even the M. D. at the head of the Department, 

 seasoned by years of answering questions pertaining tq 



