48 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ July 14, 1881. 
on straw, but unless the birds be delicale we hardly approve of 
this. Nothing takes the stamina out of a healthy bird so much as 
long confinement in a house; and although no evil results may at 
once appear, the effects will probably show themselves in the 
ensuing breeding season in unfertile eggs and weakly chickens. 
If the necessary amount of shade can be secured by any other 
means we never pen up our birds to moult, but allow them as 
much liberty as possible on every fine day. 
A correspondent last week, in speaking of rats as poultry 
pests, recommends their extermination as a remedy. That is all 
very well in theory, but can only be carried out in practice in ex¬ 
ceptional circumstances. One’s neighbours are by no means 
always so particular in respect to exterminating these gentry as 
one could wish, and with a thriving colony next door dwelling 
undisturbed it is useless to rely for safety upon exterminating 
occasional visitors. We once were so badly overrun that the rats 
actually ate their way through the woodwork of an artificial 
mother and killed all our early chickens. We then determined 
to put no further trust in wood, and constructed a rat-proof sleep¬ 
ing place for our young chickens as follows. We obtained a sheet 
of thin iron 6 feet long by 3 feet wide. The outer edge of this, 
to the extent of inch, we bent up at right angles to the rest of 
the sheet and nailed to a wooden framework made of 14-inch 
square scantling. This made a sort of tray, which held just a 
sufficient depth of dry earth for the chicks to lie and run about 
on. We next constructed a sort of bottomless cage of similar 
scantling and three-quarter-inch-mesh galvanised wire. This cage 
was 2 feet in height, and being so constructed as to fit exactly 
upon the framework of the iron tray, measured 5 feet 9 inches in 
length and 2 feet 9 inches in width. A stout pair of hinges at 
the back and a hook and eye at the front completed the arrange¬ 
ment. A hook in the back wall and a thick cord attached to the 
front of the cage afford the means of keeping it open in the day¬ 
time. The artificial mother is placed inside this cage, and once 
it has been fastened up for the night the fancier can rest assured 
that no rats will reach his chickens. 
Another method of baffling the rats is to raise the chickens’ 
sleeping house on iron bars or stoneware pipes a couple of feet 
from the ground, taking care to keep it sufficiently far from the 
wall not to allow the rats to get a means of access and attack in 
that direction. In order to eat their way through woodwork rats 
require some convenient place from which to work, which this 
arrangement prevents. A sloping plank with boarded sides and 
wired top affords a means of access to the chickens, which they 
soon learn to use. This must of course be taken down at night 
and the entrance closed. 
Where the houses are of stout wood, and so placed as to be 
accessible on all sides, we have found that rats may be entirely 
excluded by simply digging a narrow trench 1 foot deep all round 
each house, putting down three-quarter-inch galvanised wire 
netting 1 foot in width in the trench, nailing the top of the wire 
to the woodwork of the house, and filling-in the trench with fine 
sand or gravel. We do not say that this plan is infallible, but we 
have never, after several years’ experience, known a rat to make 
his way into a house so secured. 
POULTRY AND PIGEONS IN SUMMER. 
It is a common mistake to think that poultry require no atten¬ 
tion at this time of year. The days are long, the weather may 
be expected to be fine, and cold rain and winds, their great 
enemies in winter, absent; therefore it is thought no ill can befall 
them. This unfortunately is an error. There are many diseases 
which indirectly result from heat, and somehow we have always 
found the summer complaints of poultry far more difficult to deal 
with, and far more quick in their progress, than those which 
attack them during the colder months. As a timely warning we 
will enumerate some of them and some of their causes. 
To begin with. All the evils which result from overcrowding 
must now specially be guarded against. Water quickly becomes 
foul if exposed to the sun, and we see at the bottom of neglected 
pans a nasty green gTowth. They should constantly be scoured 
out and a few drops of Condy’s fluid put in the water. The 
ground, too, when there is little rain to wash it, quickly becomes 
tainted, and even good large grass runs if constantly occupied 
become the same. If it is attempted to keep poultry (though 
we always deprecate this) in small gravel yards, their surface 
must be constantly turned and watered with a weak solution of 
carbolic acid. Grass yards are more easily kept sweet if constantly 
mown ; the growing grass seems to absorb impurities. In spite 
of such precautions we have lately lost a number of chickens 
simply from putting them into large grass yards which had been 
too long inhabited by adult birds and so tainted. Again, in hot 
weather the air as well as the water and earth is very easily 
vitiated. If poultry houses are situated where it is unsafe to 
leave the doors open at night it is a good plan to have temporary 
wire doors opening inwards placed inside the wooden doors ; we 
have some such, and they enable us without fear of vermin to 
leave the houses well ventilated at night. All half-grown birds 
should now be taken away from coops and put in houses, and the 
coops of small chickens must never be entirely shut up at night. 
All soft food soon becomes sour ; the greatest care must be taken 
to mix no more than is at once required. Sour food is a frequent 
cause of diarrhoea, which in very young chickens is at this time 
of year an almost incurable malady, and (such is our experience) 
highly infectious. We have lost several valuable chickens by it 
from putting them among rank grass ; in such places grit is often 
absent, and they eat coarse and indigestible herbage, internal 
inflammation comes on, they fade to skeletons, and die. 
Ducks will hardly bear any cooping now. Those who have 
large enclosed wire runs, with or without houses, will find it best 
to turn the ducklings and their mothers or foster-mothers loosq in 
them, and not to coop them at all. Young Turkeys should by 
this time have complete liberty and no longer be cooped ; it is 
wonderful how fast they grow when once they begin to perch. 
For Pigeons very similar precautions must be taken ; their lofts 
and houses well ventilated, their nests kept scrupulously clean, 
and the ground of their aviaries frequently sprinkled with dis¬ 
infecting fluid. Their baths, too, should be filled with fresh water 
three times a day. Many people are ignorant of the fact that 
Pigeons like and require in summer a considerable amount of 
green food. It is a good plan to plant a large Lettuce or Cabbage 
now and then in their aviary, and to see how rapidly they devour 
all but the toughest part of the stalk. 
We have at times spoken of canker as almost incurable among 
youDg Pigeons, and ought therefore to relate a decided cure of it, 
which we have lately made, and its method. A pair of Blue 
Fantails, bred, it should be said, from two nearly related birds, at 
about a month old showed every external sign of it—viz., rough¬ 
ness of feathers, panting, and mopishness, and became quite light; 
examination proved their throats to be, as we expected, full of 
canker. We simply scraped it out every day with a quill, and 
gave them each one of Hammock’s pills. At first we had. no real 
hope of effecting a cure, but the Pigeons continued to eat, and 
gradually became heavier in hand. After about a week we ob¬ 
served that the canker returned much less rapidly, and then only 
one speck appeared daily in the corner of the mouth of each ; 
this we always scraped away till the surrounding skin bled, and 
now after three weeks’ treatment they are fat, have no more pills, 
and only the faintest traces of canker, We believe them to be 
really cured.—C. 
METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 
CAMDEN SQUARE,LONDON. 
Lat. 51° 32'40" N.; Long.0° 8'0" W.; Altitude.lll feet. 
DATE. 
9 A.M. 
IN THE DAY. 
Rain. 
1881. 
July. 
Barome- 
! ter at 32° 
1 and Sea 
1 Level 
Hygrome¬ 
ter. 
Direction 
of Wind.. 
I Temp, of 
Soil at 
1 1 foot. 
Shade Tem¬ 
perature. 
Radiation 
Temperature. 
Dry. 
Wet. 
Max. 
Min. 
In 
sun. 
On 
grass. 
Inches. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
In. 
Sun. 3 
30.121 
70.2 
56.8 
S.W. 
64.0 
82.3 
67.2 
13223 
52.3 
_ 
Mon. 4 
30.215 
72.3 
65.2 
S.W. 
65.1 
89.2 
62.8 
13.3.1 
59.0 
Tnes. 5 
30.127 
76.8 
68.4 
N. 
67.0 
92.7 
62.2 
137.2 
57.4 
0.548 
Wed. 6 
20.047 
64.7 
62.5 
S.W. 
67.7 
75.4 
62.1 
89.4 
63.2 
0.193 
Thurs. 7 
30.080 
£9.8 
51.7 
N.W. 
64.2 
66.3 
48.8 
104.0 
45.8 
— 
Friday 8 
30.00f, 
60.9 
55.4 
S.W. 
62.0 
04 0 
51.2 
89.3 
47.8 
0.086 
Satur. 9 
30.007 
63.6 
58.5 
S.E. 
60.7 
72.4 
47.0 
120.2 
45.2 
0.010 
Means. 
30.029 
66.9 
39.8 
64.4 
77.5 
55.9 
115.1 
53.0 
0.837 
REMARKS. 
3rd.—Very fine, warm, breezy day. 
4th.—Very warm, bright, and fine. 
5th.—Very hot oppressive day; temperature higher than on any day since 1868. 
Lightning in south-west 10 VM., and violent thunderstorm from mid¬ 
night till 3 a.m. on the 6th. 
6th.—-Very close, with slight rain and thunder in early morning; heavy rain 
for short time 11 A.M ; fine, breezy, and cooler in afternoon and evening. 
7th.—Cool overcast morning ; fine bright afternoon and evening. 
8th.—Cloudy and cool, thunder 1.15 p.m. ; showery afternoon and evening. 
9th.—Fog in early morning, dull at first; fine bright day ; overcast evening. 
Temperature very much above the average notwithstanding the coolness of 
the 7th, but the week not quite so hot as that ending June 4th.—G. J. Stmons. 
