122 THE BEGINNER IN POULTRY 



These bacteria are vegetable growths, and they are of 

 two kinds : noxious, and the reverse. At least, many 

 claim that only the real disease germs are noxious, in 

 milk. There is nothing better for poultry, both old and 

 young, than good milk ; but where milk is given as a 

 drink, in hot weather, special care is necessary. There 

 is nothing else, I think, that will become filthy and evil- 

 smelling as quickly as a milk fountain that is not regu- 

 larly cleansed, unless it be the ground about it, where 

 the birds drip the liquid. The vessels should be made 

 as clean as for the table, twice a day, in hot weather. 

 The ground should be spaded at once, if it becomes foul, 

 and a broad fountain base to catch leakage or drip is a 

 wise precautionary supply. An old pie-plate will do the 

 work, if nothing else be available. 



Although it is contended that there are several forms 

 of "white diarrhoea," the one discovered by Professor 

 Rettger, working with the Connecticut Experiment Sta- 

 tion, may possibly deserve more than usual notice by chick 

 raisers, because the source is affirmed to be the mother hen. 

 The Station work in 1910 — the data being published in 

 April, 191 1 — covered one set of comparative experi- 

 ments, in which 200 chicks, hatched together, but part 

 purposely infected with white diarrhoea, were used. It 

 showed both the virulence of the disease and the vigor 

 of uninfected chicks. All were incubator chicks. 

 Division was into three infected lots, and three check lots, 

 uninfected. One lot was infected from a chick that had 

 died from white diarrhoea ; one from an infected hen ; 

 one from the yolk of a fresh egg. Two of these cul- 

 tures had been carried over from the previous year. By 

 the fifth day, 14 in one lot were already dead. At the 



