12 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
and flavor by any*process whatever. Still, like a 
Short Horn among cattle, the shanghai among 
fowls may be early matured and well fattened, if 
properly bred in shape and quality. The size of 
its eggs is well, too, if it do not cost too much food 
to get that extra size, and we accord entirely with 
the suggestion that they should be sold by weight, 
instead of by tale, as is the usual practice. Then 
both the seller and the buyer would know what 
they sold and bought, as they do not now, in 
counting them out. 
The furor of the hen fever is past, to be sure, 
not, perhaps, to be revived in the intensity with 
which it pervaded the land three or four years 
ago, but its effects have been profitable. Thou¬ 
sands of people who before that knew no differ¬ 
ence in hens, now know what a good one is, and 
will keep them henceforth, and cultivate them with 
skill and assiduity. Let our poultry fanciers 
send us their opinions and experience. They 
shall have all requisite room. 
Will Poultry Pay ? 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist. 
I wish you would advise me whether a poultry 
yard can be made profitable or not. I am a young 
man, living with my father on a large farm, but 
being in poor health wish a business requiring 
light labor. We are 15 miles from Cleveland, 
where eggs sell in Summer for 10 to 15 cents per 
dozen, and in Winter for 15 to 25 cents per doz¬ 
en. Chickens sell for 121 to 25 cents each, ac¬ 
cording to the season and size of the chickens. 
What profit can be made on each hundred hens, 
and can a person, by keeping 000 or 1,000 fowls, 
make it a profitable business ! How much will it 
take to keep a hep a year, and how much will 
they yield, on an average, in eggs and chickens 1 
What treatise on poultry do you consider best, 
and can I procure it through you 1 S. A. B. 
Chagrin Falls, Ohio. 
Reply. —As a general answer to our young 
friend, we cannot advise him to go into the keep¬ 
ing of hens on a very large scale. We have seen 
several trials of the kind, where five hundred to a 
thousand were kept together, even with large ac¬ 
commodations in the way of building and yards, 
and they turned out, after a few months, total 
failures. There are no creatures in the world so 
prone to originate diseases among themselves as 
poultry. They need pure air all the time. They 
require a change of food, both vegetable and ani¬ 
mal. They must have range for exercise, and 
that almost daily. They must be kept clean in 
their habitations. Dirty quarters breed lice, and 
lice will in a short time destroy the fowls. With 
a good range, as many as one to three hundred 
hens may be kept on a place ; but they must be 
allowed to run at large daily, with plenty of scat¬ 
tered. accommodations to make their nests in. They 
love secrecy, and although gregarious at times, 
they love to be apart in making their nests, sitting 
on their eggs, and bringing up their chickens, and 
such opportunity they must have to be successful 
in either. 
We once Knew a housewife in Southern Ohio, 
who kept three, four, or five-hundred hens—in¬ 
deed she, herself, did not know how many. But 
they had all they wanted of a thousand acre farm 
to range in. They roosted all about the corn 
cribs, under the sheds, and in the barns and wag¬ 
on houses, and on the fruit and other trees, near 
the buildings. They fed at the corn cribs, and at 
the oat bins, and stacks. They laid “ all over,” 
sc. where they nleased, and brought up their chick¬ 
ens at discretion. To be sure, the old lady looked 
aft'' them, but they gave her “ a deal of worry,” 
as she told us ; but as she loved her chickens, she 
endured it. She gathered eggs daily by the bush¬ 
el, in their season, and sold them by the thousand, 
while during all the year “ chicken fixins ” were 
the plentiest food of her table. But had she con¬ 
fined her hens to an acre of ground, with a build¬ 
ing fitted up with roosts, and laying apartments, a 
hundred feet long, by thirty-feet broad, they would 
probably, all have dwindled and died out in less 
than six months. 
As to what a hen will eat in a yrar, that will de¬ 
pend much on whether she be confined, or run at 
large, and what her opportunities for outside for¬ 
age are. Half a gill of corn a day will keep a 
hen very well, and if a good breed, she will lay, 
under fair circumstances, a hundred and thirty 
eggs a year. Some say they will lay more, but 
this is probably a fair average, it depends some¬ 
what on the accommodation, and the food they 
have, and the profit can be only made up on trial. 
There is profit in keeping hens, we know, when 
all things are well provided for them: without 
such provision they are a nuisance. 
There are several poultry books extent—some 
good—some worthless. The best we think, taken 
all together, is Bement’s late work (price Si 25). 
If our young friend concludes to embark in the 
chicken business, the better way is to get his ac¬ 
commodations up in the right way, and begin 
moderately. His own experience after a few 
months will then decide whether it is policy to en¬ 
large his stock or not. 
--» .— n o — -► -- 
The Best Goslings- 
Thanksgiving, Christmas and New-Year’s, with 
all their pleasant associations are past, it is true ; 
and so are their feasts, and their merry-makings ; 
but a few of the fine fat goslings which graced 
and loaded their tables are yet left, and of these 
we have a word or two to say before the last 
year’s flock are all sacrificed. 
Now, a common goose, rambling about the 
streets, highways, and other people’s fields, we 
consider little better than a common nuisance ; 
and none but those who have proper accommoda¬ 
tions for them, both in pasture, and water should 
keep them. But a goose may be bred for 
table purposes, perfect in its kind, and where the 
conveniences exist, with little trouble. The 
fancy breeds, such as the Chinas, Africans and 
Bremens, are shy breeders. They lay too early 
in the season ; their eggs are apt to be chilled, and 
the produce usually are few in number. 
Therefore, we would not recommend them to 
those who wish a fine flock of goslings for the 
table. But take two or three good common geese, 
and put with them a China, African or Bremen 
gander, and you have the material to breed the 
finest young birds imaginable. They couple with 
entire freedom ; the geese lay at their usual sea¬ 
son ; their eggs are just as prolific as if bred to 
the common gander, and the goslings are twice as 
good, and much larger, finer fleshed, and with the 
same food, fatter. We have tried the experiment 
for several years past, and know the fact. The 
fancy bird is of better shape for taking flesh onto 
the carcase, being longer, rounder, and plumper. 
It is next to impossible to cover the breast bone 
of a common goose with flesh, while the other 
will pile it on wonderfully—fat and delicious—and 
the hybrids partake, in that item, of the foreign 
parent. Try it, you that love a tender roasted 
gosling, and you will be convinced of the fact. 
-< <-> » - 
An Irish knight was once disputing with a 
French courtier as to the age and standing of 
their families, when the latter as a finisher to the 
argument, said that his ancestors were in the ark 
with Noah. “ That is nothing,” said the Hiber¬ 
nian, “ for at the deluge my forefathers were 
cruising about in a boat of their own." 
-— -——-► — - 
Povltry Disease at Bock Island, Ill. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist. 
In the Spring, I had hatched out over 150 chick¬ 
ens. I gave each brood a small weather-tight 
house, and a yard 8 by 3 feet. Fed them fresh 
water, wet corn meal, potatoes boiled, bits of 
bread, and such like, with grass and clover. But 
9 out ol 10 died... .This Fall I had hatched some 
75. These I turned out about my lot; they have 
had access to all kinds of vegetables, and have 
been well fed, but with the same result as above. 
The symptoms of the disease are : First day a 
general dullness, and second day they drop their 
wings, hunching up their backs, and die. 
Some of my neighbors said they had lice. I ex¬ 
amined them, and found none, still I greased some 
in the Spring and this Fall thoroughly. I opened 
one after death, and found no worm in his throat. 
I have given them sulphur in their corn meal with 
no effect. The only thing I can discover is, that 
though fat, when dead there is nothing to be 
found in their crops. 
I have tried all kinds of grain, and everything 1 
could gather from poultry books. Please enlight¬ 
en a subscriber, and Rock Islander. 
Remarks. —Our Rock Island friend is certainly 
in bad luck chickenward. If he has consulted the 
poultry bocks, and found no remedy for the strange 
disease he describes—and of which we never 
heard the like before—we know not what to ad¬ 
vise him. In our own poultry-rearing we recol¬ 
lect to have had occasional cases perhaps akin to 
those described, but never beyond a very few, 
and no account was taken of them. Is there not 
some local influence in and about the soil, or 
something which it bears that troubles them! 
It hardly seems probable, however. Although not 
able to relieve our friend of his difficulty, if any 
one of our readers can do so, we will be obliged 
to him, and cheerfully publish the remedy. 
- ■*>-* -->-0--- 
Experience in Potato Culture 
A trial of wild seedlings of South America—Exper 
iments to prevent the Potato rot—Comparative 
value of several varieties. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist 
I noticed in the December Agriculturist an arti 
cle on the Potato Rot. I can give the correspond 
ent of the N. E. Farmer, referred to, the result of 
one experiment in raising Potatoes from South 
American seed. 
In the Spring of last year, (1857), I procured a 
barrel of Potatoes which were grown very many 
miles above Buenos Ayres and not far from the 
confines ofOhili. They were small in size and 
not a superior potato for cooking, as the few we 
tried proved watery. They were planted on new 
lands on the 24th of April in drills 3^ feet by 18 
inches, and manured with compost, at the rate of 
8 cords per acre, part of it spread and plowed 
under, and part put in the drills. The compost 
consisted of horse manure, meadow mud, leached 
ashes, and a little night soil. I find by my journal 
they were up several days in advance of the Dover 
or Danvers seed. On the 10th of August, find a 
memorandum, that the South American Potatoes 
were looking finely, with plenty of seed balls, and 
the stalks healthy but of a lighter green than the 
other vines. From that time to the 25th, we had 
many wet days, and on the 18th found symptoms 
of rot amongst all my potatoes which increased 
