142 
DISEASES OF POULTRY. — SALT# 
DISEASES OF POULTRY. 
Being a subscriber to the Agriculturist; and see¬ 
ing- a great many articles on the breeding, rearing, 
and diseases of poultry, I thought I would relate 
an experiment I made on a fowl of the Poland 
breed, if you saw fit to publish it for the benefit of 
those who may have fowls afflicted in the same 
way. 
I noticed one of my hens drooping for two or 
three days, and when I went to feed the fowls, she 
would not eat. I therefore concluded something 
must be wrong. I took her up and found her crop 
perfectly full. I then came to the conclusion that 
she was crop-bound, and she might get over it in a 
day or two ; but she continued to get worse, and 
was now in the last stage of existence. I now 
made an incision through the breast, into the crop, 
of an inch long, when I found the passage from 
the crop to the gizzard completely stopped up. I 
removed that, took two stitches in the crop, kept 
the hen in a warm place for a w'eek, fed her on 
warm, light food, and she is now as well as any 
fowl I have. This happened about three weeks 
ago. H. T. Lloyd 
New York, No. 3 Prince st., Feb. 4,1846. 
We knew an instance of a valuable hen being in 
the same predicament as the above, from swallow¬ 
ing a large piece of India rubber. She was cured 
by making an incision in her crop, and taking it 
out. There is no danger whatever in performing 
this operation, provided the incision is immedi¬ 
ately sowed up, and the fowl properly cared for 
till well. Fowls, both young and old, are very 
apt to overstuff their crops, especially when they 
get their food irregularly, and we have no doubt 
that many more deaths arise from this cause than 
is generally supposed. 
SALT. 
Its value as a fertilizer—its supposed efficacy for 
the Potato disease. 
The value of salt for agricultural purposes has 
long been known both in Europe and in this coun¬ 
try, and why it has not been more generally used is 
beyond my comprehension. More than one hun¬ 
dred and fifty years ago, Sir Hugh Platt, an eminent 
writer of the day, speaks very decidedly of the 
benefits which might be derived from the practice 
of sprinkling salt upon land, and calls it “ the 
svjeetest, and cheapest, and the most philosophical ma¬ 
terial of all others.” He relates the case of a man, 
who in passing over a creek on the sea-shore, suf¬ 
fered his sack of seed-corn to fall into the water, 
and that it lay there until it was low tide, when, 
being unable to purchase more seed, he sowed that 
which had lain in the salt water, and when the har¬ 
vest time arrived, he reaped a crop far superior to 
any in the neighborhood. The writer adds, how¬ 
ever, that it was supposed the corn (grain) would 
not fructify in that manner, unless it actually fell 
inro the sea by chance ; and, therefore, neither this 
m>:i, nor any of his neighbors, ever ventured to 
make any further pse of salt water ! [So much for 
superstition! Ed.] 
That salt is an excellent manure, experience, the 
most satisfactory of all evidences, clearly proves 
It is stated in an English publication, that “ a far¬ 
mer in the county of Sussex, some years since, had 
a field, one part of which was very wet and rushy, 
and that the grass produced upon it was of so sour 
and unpleasant a kind, that the cattle would not 
graze upon it; he tried several methods to improve 
it but to little purpose } at last hearing of the bene¬ 
fits of salt as a manure, he determined to try that; 
for which purpose he procured a quantity of rock 
salt, which, in a random way, without any regard 
to the precise quantity* he threw uprn the rushy 
ground, fencing it off from the othe; part of the 
field, the effect of which was a total disappearance 
of every kind of vegetation. In a short time, how- • 
ever, it produced the largest quantity of mushrooms 
ever seen upon an equal space of ground in the 
country. These, in the spring following, were suc¬ 
ceeded by the most plentiful and luxuriant crops of 
grass, far exceeding the other part of the field in 
richness of verdure and quickness of growth ; the 
cattle were remarkably fond of it, and though the 
salt was laid on it twenty years before, this part is 
still superior to the rest of the field.” 
From the information which I have been able to 
collect, I am inclined to believe that salt, when 
sparingly applied, is valuable as a fertilizer, and 
useful in killing the grub and wire worm, which 
often injure, and sometimes even destroy, whole 
crops; and it has been found by experiments the 
past season, that the scab or disease which has 
proved so disastrous to the potato crop in all sec¬ 
tions of the country, has not been found upon land 
that had a proper dressing of salt. 
Judge Hamilton, of Scoharie, informed the writer, 
that he had found great advantage from using salt 
on his potato ground last spring. After plowing, 
he caused four bushels of salt to be sown on the 
furrow, upon one acre of the field, and harrowed in. 
Potatoes were then planted. Part of the field was 
not salted. Although the season was remarkably 
dry, the salted acre was observed to maintain a 
green vigorous appearance, while the other part of 
the field looked sickly and stunted. On lifting them 
in the fall, those potatoes, where salt was applied, 
were of good size, smooth skin, sound, and of good 
quality, and yielded a fair crop, while of those on the 
unsalted part of the field, although the soil was fully 
•equal to that of the salted portion, the yield was 
considerably less, potatoes small, and much eaten 
by worms. His neighbor had a field of potatoes 
on the opposite side of the road, soil similar to his 
own, who planted them in the usual way; the con¬ 
sequence was, his crop was small in size, inferior in 
quality, and most of them rotted soon after digging 
—they were diseased. 
Doctor Bogart, who has charge of the Sailors* 
Snug Harbor, on Staten Island, informed me that 
he applied four bushels of salt to one acre of his 
potato ground, last spring, and thinks he derived 
great benefit from it. Though the crop was not a 
large one, the potatoes on the salted portion were 
of much better size, skin smooth, and free from dis¬ 
ease. The vines were more vigorous, remained 
green, while those on land of the same quality ad¬ 
joining, which was not salted, shrivelled and died 
prematurely; the potatoes small and soggy, and 
produced less. 
C W. Johnson, a distinguished agricultural 
