130 
AMEEIC AN AGRICULTURIST 
ON FEEDING POULTRY. 
We take the following article on feeding from 
the Poultry Chronicle. What the writer says 
in respect to Indian corn and rice, may answer 
for England, but long experience in this coun¬ 
try proves them to be among the best kinds of 
feed we can give to our poultry. 
In August, one year, we shut up a lot of hens 
to fat, in a roomy stable with a plank floor. 
We gave them nothing but Indian corn for their 
food, and as much of it as they pleased to eat. 
We also gave them clean, fresh water in abun¬ 
dance daily, and fresh gravel. In three weeks 
we killed the lot, and saving that they were a 
little too fat, we never eat better poultry. The 
hens were full of eggs. Had they been kept 
one week longer, we think they would have laid 
abundantly; still, for fatting and laying, we 
would prefer to let the hens run at large. The 
meat is leaner, more juicy and tender for it. 
Indian corn is better cracked than fed whole; 
and it is very well to mix oats, barley, buck¬ 
wheat, and sunflower seed with it. Rye, wheat, 
and rice are very good, but generally more ex¬ 
pensive with us than the other kinds of grain 
mentioned. We like the idea as suggested by 
the writer of scattering the grain well over the 
ground, so that it will take some time for the 
fowls to pick it up, and they cannot then gorge 
themselves to their injury. 
If you go to a physician to consult him for a 
disordered stomach, he inquires your habits, and 
particularly your diet, and manner of eating. 
From defects in these, he finds the origin of 
your disease, and for its cure he inculcates a 
new and better system. When men lived in a 
state of nature, ailments were less numerous; 
and so it is with poultry. In a natural state, 
they have few diseases; with us they have 
many, because we have forced them into an un¬ 
natural state of life. We would then trace 
them to bad feeding, and would also, by plain 
suggestions, point out a cure. 
Pheasants, wild fowl, and poultry, where 
they are wild, as in India, are always healthy, 
and the scars and seams, well known to all those 
who are in the habit of plucking them, testify 
to the condition that enables them to recover 
from the most serious wounds. Our feeding, 
then, should most resemble that of wild bird, if 
we would seek the same result both in condition 
and feather. We should also seek to give the 
same food as the bird would find if left to its 
own resources. 
The faults of modern feeding are, giving 
meat—feeding out of vessels of any descrip¬ 
tion—throwing down large heaps of food, irre¬ 
gularly—and too often the substitution of any 
thing that is cheap for that which is whole¬ 
some. 
Meat is an unnatural food for poultry. It was 
extensively given during the Cochin mania, in 
order to make weight; and many are the buyers 
who have paid from ten to twenty pounds each 
for very heavy hens, so unnaturally fatted by 
this process, that they could never lay a perfect 
egg, and numbers died in the attempt. A fowl 
is not provided with digestive organs for meat. 
In a state of nature, fowls run over a great 
extent of ground before they get a crop-full. 
They pick up food grain by grain, and with it 
small pieces of dirt, blades of grass, and other 
things, that all help digestion. What, then, can 
be said of the various feeders in use? Placed 
before the fowls filled with barley, the birds do 
in five minutes that which should be the work 
of two hours; they eat a greedy fill, and suffer¬ 
ing from unnatural repletion, they have recourse 
to drink. The corn swells in the crop, and the 
sufferers, instead of walking cheerfully about, 
hide in corners, and squat about to the detri¬ 
ment of their health. This applies to the 
equally bad practice of throwing down the food 
in heaps. 
Irregularity.—In a natural state at break of 
day, all birds are in search of food, and they 
find it. What an evil it is, then, for them to 
be fed one day at seven, next day at nine, and 
sometimes not till mid-day. A still greater evil 
is, to endeavor to make up for previous neglect 
by an extra quantity. 
Among the improper food given to fowls we 
include two rather popular articles, viz., Indian 
corn and rice. We can only add, we have tried 
both; the former makes fowls extremely fat, 
but it makes no flesh. We consider the latter 
worthless, as we have tried it to our cost; and 
we have no hesitation in saying, no good is ever 
done either in condition or feather, when the 
birds are fed with it. 
Having disposed of our complaints, we will 
now endeavor to point out a better plan for gen¬ 
eral feeding, not with a view to fatting or extra 
condition, but to keep a yard in really good 
plight. 
They must be out at daybreak, and should 
be fed directly with oatmeal slaked, and thrown 
down to them. Let it be so mixed, that when 
cast down, it will crumble. As soon as they 
cease to run after it, leave off feeding. At mid¬ 
day, give some whole corn, wheat is best, but 
throw it as far, and scatter it as much as you 
can—throw' it among the grass; you will see 
the fowls spreading about in a natural way, and 
seeking the stray grains. In the afternoon, 
feed again as in the morning. Our system then 
is, regular feeding three times per day, and no 
food, save what they can find, at any other 
time. It will cost no more than the systems we 
have blamed, and the condition of the fowls will 
amply compensate for the little extra trouble. 
H. R. 
-- 
NITRATE OF SODA. 
The following remarks on this fertilizer, are 
extracted from an address by Dr. Anderson, be¬ 
fore the Highland Agricultural Society. 
I presume all my audience are aware that by 
the use of no more than 42 lbs. per acre, Mr. 
Pusey obtained an increase of 7 bushels of bar¬ 
ley, or more than four times the value of the 
manure. I need scarcely say that the experi¬ 
ence of many farmers in this neighborhood has 
clearly established the value of nitrate of soda 
as a top-dressing for grass lands; in general, 
however, it has been employed in larger quan¬ 
tity, (1J to 2 cwt. per acre), and the application 
of two-thirds cwt. by Mr. Main is, so far as I 
know, the smallest recorded except Mr. Pusey’s. 
In a subsequent paper, on the natural law by 
which cubic nitre acts as a manure, Mr. Pusey 
enters on more difficult ground. In regard to 
it, I may observe in the first place, that a very 
curious misapprehension seems to have existed 
as to the views entertained by chemists regard¬ 
ing the source of the value of nitrate of soda, 
and it has been asserted that they still consid¬ 
ered it uncertain whether that manure acted by 
virtue of its nitric acid or its soda. I think it 
right distinctly to contradict this statement. 
The strict retainers of the Giessen School of 
Chemistry may possibly still entertain such 
doubts, but I apprehend, that if Mr. Pusey had 
put the question to any agricultural chemist, he 
would have received for reply that it was most 
unequivocally due to the nitric acid, and not to 
the soda. It has, however, always been con¬ 
sidered doubtful whether the nitric acid is as¬ 
similated directly by the plant or is first con¬ 
verted into ammonia, which we know it very 
readily is; that, however, is an entirely differ¬ 
ent question on which experiment has not as 
yet thrown the slightest gleam of light, and 
which will probably continue long undecided. 
As far as the question of the constituent on 
which the value of nitrate of soda depends is 
concerned, it must be considered as having been 
entirely set at rest 10 years since, by the ex¬ 
periments of Kuhlman, who showed that nitrate 
of lime produced the same effects; and the ex¬ 
periment paper, though sufficiently interesting 
in other respects, was quite unnecessary. As 
the result of the experiments contained in his 
papers, Mr. Pusey has deduced as a natural law, 
that “ substances strengthen vegetation, mainly 
by their contents of nitrogen.” But in this 
there is nothing new ; it is exactly what chem¬ 
ists have over and over again asserted, except 
that they have not gone by any means so far ; 
and while attributing a preeminence to nitrogen, 
have not failed to point out the importance of 
other substances. But when we come to con¬ 
sider the matter in all its details, there are other 
points not referred to by Mr. Pusey, which de¬ 
serve attention. The experiments of Kuhlman 
were made for the purpose of contrasting the 
value of nitrogen in different forms, and the 
substances used were sulphate and muriate of 
ammonia, nitrate of soda, Peruvian guano, and 
the gelatine of bones. The result was, that for 
every 100 lbs. of nitrogen contained in the ma¬ 
nure, there was obtained an increased produce 
in round numbers of 300 lbs. of hay with the 
salts of ammonia, of 500 lbs. with nitrate of 
soda, while with Peruvian guano there was in 
one case an increase of about 9500, and in 
another of no less than 16,000 lbs. of hay for 
the same quantity of nitrogen. The gelatine 
gave nearly the same increase as the ammonia 
salts. These results are still more striking 
when we observe the effect on the subsequent 
crops; for with the salts of ammonia and nitrate 
of soda, the effect was not only entirely exhausted 
on the first crops, but that immediately following 
was actually diminished, while with Peruvian 
guano and gelatine, the increase was spread 
over several years. Nor is there any thing un¬ 
intelligible in this result; guano gives to the 
soil much more than nitrogen, it supplies phos¬ 
phoric acid and the alkalies, and hence, theoreti¬ 
cally, ought to produce a higher effect. Such 
are the results of Kuhlman’s experiments. 
They support fully Mr. Pusey’s opinion as to 
the value of nitrate of soda, but they are totally 
at variance with that law which Mr. Pusey tells 
us we may now adopt with unhesitating cer¬ 
tainty, namely, that substances strengthen vege¬ 
tation mainly by their contents of nitrogen ; for 
we perceive that nitrate of soda surpasses sul¬ 
phate of ammonia in the ratio of 5 to 3, while it 
their action was merely dependent on their ni¬ 
trogen, they ought to produce the same effect. 
Further, a quantity of guano produces in one 
experiment three, and in another five times the 
effect of sulphate of ammonia, a difference which 
can only be attributed to the other constituents 
of the guano. I have mentioned these experi¬ 
ments,not with the view of throwing any doubts 
on the advantages derived from the use of ni¬ 
trate of soda, for on that point there can be no 
question, but rather as a caution against the too 
hasty adoption of that law, which Mr. Pusey 
says we may now assume with unhesitating 
certainty, and to show that there are many 
points regarding its use on which we still re¬ 
quire experimental evidence. So far from sup¬ 
porting Mr. Pusey’s law, those experiments 
rather point towards a view which at a monthly 
meeting of the society, some two or three years 
since, I suggested as deserving experimental in¬ 
quiry, but which, much to my regret, has not 
yet been taken up. I believe the facts at pre¬ 
sent known tend to show that, while nitrate of 
soda exerts a marked influence upon the growth 
of the great family of graminaceous plants, it is 
nearly or altogether without effect upon roots 
and clover, and I suggested that just as there 
are two classes of animals, carnivorous and her¬ 
bivorous, so there might possibly be two classes 
of plants capable of deriving their nitrogenous 
constituents from different sources, one assimi¬ 
lating it chiefly or only from ammonia, the 
other possessing in addition the power of elabo¬ 
rating it from nitric acid. This view derives 
some support from the recent experiments of 
Wolff, which have shown that the nitrates 
which act powerfully upon barley are almost 
without effect upon tares. It must be under¬ 
stood, however, that I throw out this merely as 
