Sept. 2, lOOi.) 
Supplement to ihe ^^Tropicat AgricuUurisi.^^ 
men not only farm themselves, but they hold the 
farmers in the highest respect. 
Our late beloved Queen A^ictoria was a most 
successful farmer, and so also is King Edward 
the Seventh. Thus no boy or girl need be asliamed 
to say my father is a farme,r because being 
a farmer means to belong to a profession 
which requires as much learning as age, and a 
great deal more than to be a soldier or 
a school-master or a clergyman. Well, I have 
gone a little oS the subject, but still you have 
quite enough to remember in this lesson, so I 
shall now give you the usual questions to answer. 
Questions on Les&on J^. 
1. Why may the farmer not obtain a good crop 
from everything that he sows or plant ? 
2. What have plants to fight against ? 
3. How do they overcome their enemies ? 
4! State some of the enemies the farmer has to 
overcome ? . r , 
5. What name is given to a time of long conti- 
nued weather ? 
6. Which state of weather causes most loss to a 
farmer— long dry seasons or very wet ones ? 
7. State your reasons for thinking so ? 
8* Why is a Queensland farmer more fortunate 
to the seasons than, say, a German or Scotch 
farmer? ^ . , . 
9. What happens if a farmer is careless in 
selecting seed ? . j o 
10. How would you select maize seed ^ 
11! Why shomd you be proud to be called a 
fanner's son or a Aa.\xg\\iex?— Queensland Agri- 
cultural Journal. 
INTERNAL PARASITES OF POULTRY. 
The internal parasites ot poultry are numerous, 
but only two serious diseases are caused by such 
agents. The chief internal parasites are worms, 
but an' often fatal complaint in fowls is due any 
how in part to minute single-celled animals known 
as Protozoa. The most important vermiceous disease 
is gapes. Gapes is a disease caused by a nematode 
or round worm which take up its abode in the 
bronchial tubes. It is called scientifically 
Syngamus trachealis. Thegape-worm is also known 
as the Red-worm and Forked-worm. Not only 
fowls and turkeys, but pheasants, sparrows, linnets, 
starlings, rooks, partridges, martins, swifts, and 
wood-peckers are also invaded by this parasite. 
The disease is caused by the worms taking up 
their abode in the air-passages and there irritating 
the mucous membrane, causing inflammation. 
These pests, if present in large numbers, also block 
up the trachea and stop the passage of air to the 
lungs. In both ways the birds may succumb. 
The gape-worm is nearly always found in copula 
inside the host, the small male-worm being 
perm a nently attached to the female towards her 
head end, the two worms making a fork, 
hence its name the Forked-worm. In colour 
the gape-worm is red, often bright red ; in 
length the female may reach tour-fifths ol an 
inch the male seldom more than one-htth. 
There is great variation in size, some females 
being onlyi one-fourth of an inch long. As 
a rule, a number of worms may be found 
together in a fowl's trachea, often as many as 
twenty crowding in particular parts of the tube. 
The symptoms of gapes are a curious listless 
gaping of the mouth, a whizzing cough, a 
stretching forward of the neck and the frequent 
appearance of frothy saliva in tlie mouth and 
sometimes in the nostrils. AViien the female 
worm becomes mature and full of eggs, she and 
the attached male are expectorated by the bird. 
These worms lie about the ground, and sooner or 
later burst by cadaeric decay, when the minute 
eggs not l-2oth of an inch in length are spread 
over the ground or in the water. Each worm 
contains a great number of eggs. It will be thus 
seen that land may soon be contaminated by a 
few birds suffering from the disease. 
The eggs hatch in damp ])laces and in water 
into small white embryos. I3oth eggs and em- 
bryos on entering a chick develop direct into the 
gapeworm. 
Experiments have shown that birds fed with 
ova and embryos of S. trachealis will develop 
gapes, and thus no second host, such as we find 
in the tapeworms, is necessary. Although a 
second host is not necessary, numbers of the eggs 
and embryos are swallowed by earthworms, and 
doubtless fowls very often contract gapes when 
eating these useful annelida, which thus act as 
carriers. 
It is chiefly in chicks and turkey poults that 
gapes causes the greatest mortality, altliough old 
birds are sometimes attacked. The birds obtain 
the embryos especially from polluted water and 
from damp ground, but also through the agency 
of earthworms. That wild birds play some part 
in its dissemination is also extremely probable, 
Prevention and Remedies. 
Any bird showing signs of the disease should be 
isolated. Chicks should not be kept with the stock 
birds. Fresh breeding ground should be used if 
possible every year. The Ivorst outbreaks are 
always on overstocked land. Water vessels should 
be kept scrupulously clean, and only pure water 
given to the birds. The drinking troughs are best 
cleansed by being put in boiling water and well 
scalded. The worms may be partly removed from 
the trachea by means of a feather dipped in oil of 
cloves or eucalyptus oil pushed down the windpipe 
and turned round and round, but not those lower 
down the bronchi. A fumigating box, in which 
several birds can be placed at once, is useful ; 
either Camlin powder or finely-ground chalk and 
camphor blown into the box will loosen the worms, 
which the birds expectorate during the violent fits 
of coughing the powder produces. 
It is most essential that all chicks vchich die 
from gapes should be burnt or otherwise destroyed. 
If the birds are kept in small runs, the run should 
be purified, after an outbreak, either with gas-lime 
or watered with a 1-per cent, solution of sulphuric 
acid. 
White Intestinal Worms. 
Although death is not frequent from intestinal 
worms, of which both round worms (Nematodes) 
and flat worms (Cestodes) are present, yet debility 
is very often caused by two species of Nematodes 
— the W hite Intestinal Worms {Heterakis papillosa 
