AMERICAN AGRIOURTTJRIST, 
47 
the blink of my lantern falls on your cattle, in the 
open field, under the lee of a stack yard. They 
shiver on the frozen earth, the bleak wind carry¬ 
ing off the heat, faster than they can generate it 
by me jargest consumption of food they can 
make. Every muscle quivers, every bone shakes 
under the penetrating blast. And you, good easy 
nan, are by your cheerful fire reading Moses and 
Solomon, and thanking God for protection from 
the inclement season. Does not Solomon say 
that “ a righteous man regardeth the life of his 
beast.” And yet you do not care a fig for Solo¬ 
mon in your treatment of your dumb cattle. 
But this miserable custom is as wasteful as it is 
cruel. Hay is a part of the farmer’s wealth, and 
it becomes him to use it, in the most economical 
manner. The cattle, fed under the open skies 
during the Winter, will consume full a third more 
than they would in a comfortable stable. Here, 
then, is a leak of ten or twelve dollars per annum 
for every animal so cruelly treated. Besides this, 
a large part of the manure is wasted, making 
nearly as much more to be added to the leaks oi 
your farm. This, certainly, is not very thrifty, 
for a gentleman of the old school, who lives in a 
plain house, pays as he goes, and never has any¬ 
thing, but what he ;ar tHard! If you can afford 
to throw away twenty dollars of the profit, that 
every good farmer ought to make on a cow, you 
are a much richer man than you pass for. Dio¬ 
genes cannot afford such prodigal waste. 
He would recommend to you, and to all other 
extravagant farmers, to stop the leaks. 
-—.— ——•» - 
Poultry—The Chittagong Crossed with 
Dorkings—The Diseased Fowls of 
Rock Island, Ill—Young Turkeys. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist: 
I was much pleased to find in the last number of 
your exce'llent paper several articles upon poultry. 
Farmers have been humbugged so much by dif¬ 
ferent kinds of fowls, many of them worthless, 
that they do not give that attention that they 
should to this kind of stock which can, 1 think, be 
made more profitable than any other. 
Having had much experience in the poultry 
line, I can not wholly agree with your Rhinebeck 
correspondent. There are, as you know, several 
kinds of brown Shanghais, besides the black and 
the grey or more properly named Chittagong. 
Some of the Kown Shanghais are good if careful¬ 
ly bred, but the Chittagong (grey Shanghais) 1 
think the best pure blooded fowl for the farmers. 
I have known cocks of this kind to weigh ten lbs. 
at seven months old. Their flesh is much better 
than the other kinds ; they are better layers (one 
hen of this breed layed 152 eggs in 155 days); their 
eggs are as large as the Shanghais ; and they are 
smaller eaters than the common dunghill fowl. 
Yet after all, I think a cross of the pure blood¬ 
ed Chittagong and the pure blooded White Dork¬ 
ings (say the kind imported by Dr. Wight of 
Mass.) is the most profitable fowl for the farmer 
The Dorkings being a very full breasted fowl sup¬ 
ply a deficiency in the other kind, making a 
much better proportioned fowl and coming to ma¬ 
turity sooner, which renders them more profitable 
fior marketing early chickens. The Dorkings be¬ 
ing profuse layers do not injure the other breed 
by the cross. 
With regard to the Rock Island chickens, I 
think they must have had access to salt This 
will dry up the crop and prevent their eating 
They droop, lose all strength in their legs, and 
finally die, if not cured. The besl remedy for this 
that T know of, is boiled milk, swpntened. forced 
down theii throats, this will soften the crop and < 
restore life. E. D. 
FROM ANOTHER CORRESPONDENT. 
Jas. C. Jackson, of New-Gastle Co., Del., 
writes: “Your Rock-Island correspondent may 
save his chickens by grinding his corn coarsely, 
or rather by breaking the kernels into only five or 
six pieces each. At least such is our experience 
Two years since, we lost a large number of fowls 
by just such a disease as he describes, and we 
have since fed with the corn prepared as above, 
with good results.” 
ANOTHER. 
A subscriber at Bridgeport, writes, that ne had 
a fowl similarly affected to those at Rock-Island; 
and that a friend visiting with them, suggested 
that there was an extra coating upon the tongue 
which kept the chicken from eating. On exami¬ 
nation this was found to be the case ; the coating 
or skin was removed, and the chicken recovered 
immediately. 
AND ANOTHER. 
A young subscriber 15 years of age, residing at 
Davenport township, Iowa—just over the Missis¬ 
sippi river from Rock Island, Illinois—who says he 
has been chief of the poultry department since 
seven years of age, writes: I would recom¬ 
mend Rock Islander to mix black pepper (how 
much,) with corn meal and feed his chickens when 
they show signs of the disease he mentions. He 
may be obliged to force them to eat it, but once 
feeding greatly revives them, so that they will eat 
readily afterward. Always keep fine gravel for 
them to use, and a bed of ashes with a little lime 
in the coop for them to wallow in. Let the hen 
and chickens out about an hour every evening, 
after they once become habited to the coop, and 
you will find your chickens will do better for it. 
They should be fed fresh meat chopped up fine 
once or twice a week, or, which is as good, worms, 
which can be always found in the bam yard by 
spading up the ground. After they have attained 
the age of three weeks they should be turned out 
of their coop, at least one half of the day. 
I have had among chickens a great deal of the 
disease referred to, and have found the above 
treatment to oe the best remedy. I have 
sometimes wet my meal in a solution of Ep¬ 
som salts and given it to them, which has a similar 
effect, to the pepper ; but not so good. You 
confine poultry so they cannot run at large, and 
they will soon show symptoms of the disease. 1 
have often noticed in market stands where they 
keep those tor sale which have been cooped up 
two or three weeks, that they contract disease and 
get very poor, although they have plenty of grain 
and drink ; it is for want of gravel to use, in their 
coops, for when they have no gravel they lose all 
relish for food of any kind. Davenport. 
MORE OF THEM, 
We have any quantity of other letters on the 
same topic, but beyond the above, first at hand, 
we cannot make room for more on this topic now, 
save for the one following. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist: 
The difficulties which have beset your Rock 
Island correspondent, in poultry raising, might 
probably be overcome, if he would feed his chick¬ 
ens for a few weeks with sour milk , with which he 
might mix wheat bread crumbs or wheat meal. 
Raw Indian meal is not suitable for chickens; it 
is a fruitful cause of pip and other diseases to 
which chickens are subject. Since its use was dis¬ 
continued in this vicinity, far better success has 
attended the efforts of poultry-rearers. Indian 
meal, w'-md up with water and hated, is hv some 
considered tolerably good to crumb into sour milk, 
but not by any means as good as wheat meai. 
We feed young turkeys, also, with sour milk, 
keeping the mother-tumey in a capacious crop un¬ 
til the grass is cut. This prevents thr young 
brood from running in the wet grass and getting 
chilled. As soon as the grass is cut, they are of 
sufficient size to feed upon the grasshoppers, and 
the coop is dispensed with. We hatchrd, last 
Spring, forty-one turkeys, and lost only op*— and 
that one would doubtless have survived until 
Thanksgiving week had sh.e not had the-misfor¬ 
tune to incur the ill-will of little Malice Afore¬ 
thought, who cast at her one of those hard com¬ 
pliments so numerous in the Granite S> ate. 
Marlboro N. H., Jan. 4th, 1858. 
What is the Matter with the Turkeys? 
“ We have seen very few really good turkeys 
this year,” said we, the other day, to ? large 
poultry dealer at the market. “ What m the 
trouble 1” 
“ Trouble enough. I’ve been scolding at the 
farmers for a month past, for bringing such lean, 
half-grown things to market at all ; and aft the 
answer I get out of them is, ‘ They are the best 
we have, and you must take these, or none.- ” 
On examination, we find the truth to be, th*t, as 
the last Spring was late, cold, and wet, the tur¬ 
keys laid late, hatched few chickens, and onring 
the wet Summer brought up a much less than the 
usual quantity of young. A turkey must get its 
growth, or nearly so, before it will take on »esh. 
The pullets are tolerably fat and plump, but (ess 
juicy and sweet than usual; but the gobblers are 
decidedly lean, dry, and stringy. They wilt not 
be really good till March, and must have good 
feeding for that. As grain is plenty and cheap, 
we advise our farmers who have many turKeys 
not now in proper condition, to winter them till 
they are really good ; then bring them to mareet, 
and they will get a good price for them. 
Don’t feed them on raw corn, either, alt the 
time. Give them a change—such as buckwheat, 
oats, and barley, if you have it; and then cook it 
thoroughly, with small potatoes—if you have 
them—carrots, beets, rutabagas, or parsnips, if 
the prices of the roots are cheap enough to afford 
it. A deal of flesh-making material is used up in 
masticating, through the operations of the cron, 
so much hard provender as is usually given to 
poultry, while cooking does all that severe work 
for them, and they feed much easier with sneh 
help. It is said, that charcoal aids the fattening 
process in turkeys, greatly. We have not tried it 
thoroughly, but have heard so many well authen¬ 
ticated facts related about it, that we are inclined 
to think it. may be so. 
We believe in Turkeys, decidedly—particulars 
on Thanksgiving. Christmas, and New Year’s. 
We raise them, too, as good as any body, 
and a great deal better than some. Get a hen 
turkey fat in the Fall, and it costs no more to 
winter than it does a pullet chicken. They 
saunter about the place so meekly and modestly, 
while the gobblers strut and fume about so voci¬ 
ferously—just like some men we have seen 
A Poor Endorser —A worthy but poor minis¬ 
ter requested a loan of fifty dollars from the cash¬ 
ier of a bank; and in the note requesting the fa¬ 
vor, he said that if the cashier would oblige him, 
he would “pay him in ten days, on the faith of 
Abraham ” The cashier returned word that by 
rules of the bank, the endorser of a note must re 
c.idp in the StatP 
