64 
AMERTOAI^ AaEIOULTIIRIST. 
[Februaet, 
it passes on, and rubber being a non-conduetor of 
heat, little of it esoapes after the air enters the 
brooder. Observe that if the coil at its free end is 
not lower than at its entrance into the brooder, 
warm air would pass the other way, and cool instead 
of warm the coops. Such a brooder can be con¬ 
structed cheaply, and if a large boiler be used to 
furnish the heat, tlie number of coils can be in¬ 
creased to warm several brooders at once. 
Poultry House—Cost $43.96. 
SECOND prize; by II. A. KUHN, ATLANTA, GA. 
My Poultry House is used for keeping twenty-five 
to thirty grown fowls. "For breeding 1 run a parti¬ 
tion through the center and keep eight to fifteen 
in each apartment, according to the breed. In this 
latitude it is seldom so cold that they cannot re¬ 
main in the open air some part of the day. In cold 
windy weather they only run in the front yard, 
where they keep quite comfortable, as it is closely 
planked on all sides except on the soutli, which 
has lattice or woven wire.—The structure is six¬ 
teen feet square, facing the south. No posts are 
used. Scantling cut of proper length are laid on 
the ground in shape. A couple of planks are nail¬ 
ed on each end and raised into position when the 
longer or side scantlings are set in place. The planks 
or boards are then all nailed on, and the rafters 
are next added. These are notched to fit over both 
the scantling or plate, and the outfeide plank. This 
house was built of all heart yellow pine, and re¬ 
quired about two hundred and fifty feet of scant¬ 
ling and twelve hundred feet of plank. It was 
built in two day’s time by two men at one dol¬ 
lar and seventy-five cents per day wages, or seven 
dollars for the work. The windows swing open as in 
fig. 1. By adding another room this house would 
hold fifty fowls. Figs. 2 and 3 show the interior. 
and a half each ; one door, 3 by 7 feet, costing 
two dollars. Labor and nails, ten dollars. The 
total cost is forty-three dollars and ninety-six cents. 
Prairie Tree Planting—A Suggestion. 
Along most of the streams, large and small, in 
Kansas and Nebraska, are patches of a rich black 
loam which bear no grass, but are covered during 
the growing season with a dense mass of weeds. 
These places are flooded in high water, and are us¬ 
ually difficult to cultivate satisfactorily. It is not 
generally known that such places can be turned 
into timber plantations with no expense except 
planting the trees, and keeping the fire out after¬ 
wards. Select seedling trees from three 
to five feet high, and plant them four to 
six feet apart. They should be so 
large as not to be too deejily over¬ 
shadowed by weeds the first year ; but 
they will hold their own and come out 
right, even when not half as high as 
the tallest weeds. Such land has no 
stiff sod, and but little grass. If they 
have been deeply flooded the first sea¬ 
son, when the water subsides see that 
they have not been covered by drift, 
either earth or dry weeds. The kinds 
of trees most suitable for this are : Box 
Elder, Ash, Elm, Cottonwood, Soft 
Maple, and Catalpa. Walnuts would 
thrive, but it is sometimes difficult to 
transplant them. It is said that nuts planted in 
such places will grow and do well, but the writer 
has had no experience with them ; the other trees 
above mentioned, he has tried successfully. 
Indian Corn—Its Value in the Ration. 
Some English writers seem disposed to decry 
maize as being very poor food for beasts and poul¬ 
try. There is danger of their leading their follow- 
Fig. 3.— SECTIONAL VIEW OF POULTRY HOUSE. 
Materials and Cost.— Of one inch thick 
boards : 1,000 feet one foot wide for sides, roof, 
nests, etc.; 12 base boards, 6 inches wide and 16 
feet long; 10 boards, 3 inches wide and 16 feet 
•d: ^4 
Fuji; tox; 
^QnfcJClTQrco&l|Gr&v51 
Fig. 2,—PLAN OF POULTRY HOUSE. 
long for boxes and roof strips, etc.; 6 boards, 4 
inches wide and 10 feet long, for window casings ; 
7'scantlings, 2 by 4 inches, 18 feet long ; 17 pieces 
scantlings, 2 by 3 inches, 16 feet long, for studs, 
etc.; 4 windows, 4 by 5 feet, costing two dollars 
ers to lose the advantage of a most excellent and 
cheap article as a portion of a complete ration. In¬ 
dian corn is not only valuable food for horses, cat¬ 
tle, sheep, swine and poultry, but for man, and the 
writer sincerely hopes the time may never come 
when it shall not form an important portion of his 
own daily bread. The fact is, Americans do not 
eat enough corn for their own good, and eat far 
too much fine wheat flour in one form or another. 
Corn is so rich in oil that we may say corn- 
bread is ready buttered ; it is, however, very di¬ 
gestible, and in cold weather this oiliness is a most 
valuable factor, as it seiwes to keep up the heat of 
the body more directly than starch and similar 
substances.—With oats and barley it may form 
one-third of the grain ration of hard worked draft 
horses, and will keep their coats glossy and be in 
every way a benefit, certainly worth more than its 
weight in oats. Fed alone or in larger proportion, 
it has a tendency to make horses sweat easily, and, 
it is said, to become quickly exhausted. It is not 
safe to feed it as freely as oats or barley, as there 
is danger of impaction and colic—just as there 
would be if wheat were so fed. No doubt it is best 
fed ground with oats, and the proportions already 
indicated are probably the most satisfactory, the 
meal being fed upon cut hay. 
For cows in milk, corn meal may form with bran 
the exclusive grain ration, and may be fed at the 
rate of one pint of corn meal to each hundred 
pounds of the cow’s live weight. No doubt it will 
be found juso as good in Great Britain as here. It 
gives quality and richness to the milk, color to the 
butter, and abundance to the flow if the cow is a 
good one; but if she is inclined to lay on fat, such 
feeding will cause her to fatten, even though in 
full milk, and if she gets too fat she will go dry. 
For sheep, corn is excellent, but should be fed 
whole and a little at a time. For swine, the uni¬ 
versal experience from Maine to Oregon, and from 
Canada to Mexico, is that it will make more and 
better pork than any other food. For poultry, it 
is in this country the universal grain, but is not al¬ 
ways the best. It is admirable for its fattening 
properties, but for laying hens, and growing fowls, 
it is not well to use too much. “ Corn fed” fowls, 
ducks and geese are firm fleshed and yet tender. 
They bear transportation alive with little shrink¬ 
age. True yellow corn makes yellow butter and 
yellow fat in fowls. English and French taste de¬ 
mands white fleshed poultry with pale lardy fat, 
and so they fatten poultry on rice, and their fancy 
market fowls have about as much flavor as boiled 
rice. The American mar'xet demands yellow- 
fleshed fowls, with fat as yellow as June butter, 
and corn is the food to produce this in all poultry. 
What are Bacteria? 
The newspapers have recently reported that 
cholera and some other diseases have been found 
to be due to “ Bacteria and also that epidemics 
among sheep and fatal diseases among cattle are 
caused by “Bacteria.” The authors of these ac¬ 
counts seem to think that when they have given a 
name to the alleged cause their duty is discharged, 
but those who read ask : “ What are Bacteria ?” 
The dictionaries give no help in answering this 
query, and some of our readers appeal to the Am¬ 
erican Aijriculturist. Bacteria is the plural of 
Bacterium, a name given to a very low form of 
plant life, which is never seen except with the mi¬ 
croscope, as they are only one-twenty-thousandth 
of an inch in diameter. The engraving shows the 
appearance presented by the different forms as seen 
under the microscope. A single hacterium is 
shown at c. A number are most commonly joined 
end to end, as in a and b, to form rod-like bodies. 
They get their name from this peculiarity; the 
Greek name for a rod or a cane, is bactnjs, and thus 
these rod-like forms of microscopic life were 
named Bacteria. Wherever fermentation or decay 
is going on, vast numbers of bacteria are found. It 
is now known that yeast causes fermentation be¬ 
cause it mainly consists of minute microscopic 
plants, somewhat like bacteria. These minute 
yeast-plants, when growing in liquids containing 
starch, sugar and other matters, cause them to un¬ 
dergo the changes known as fermentation. It is 
now claimed that bacteria within the bodies of ani- 
ciillrsacs/ 
BACTERIA, HIGHLY MAGNIFIED. 
mals, including man, in making their grcnvth pro¬ 
duce changes similar to those of fermentation, and 
cause diseases. The spores of bacteria, or repro¬ 
ductive bodies answering to the seeds of flowering 
plants, are carried about in great numbers in the air. 
Those who have forced Hyacinths and other 
“ Dutch Bulbs ” in pots, often throw them away, 
under the impression that they are not worth 
further trouble. If, after the faded flowers are cut 
away, the bulbs are kept watered so long as the 
leaves remain green and healthy, the bulbs may do 
good service yet. When the foliage begins to turn 
yellow, withhold water from the pots, and when the 
