1895 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
679 
der, Late Puritan, Monroe Seedling and White Star. 
“ What have you to say about the manner of cutting 
the seed ? ” 
“ The Peerless Jr. should be cut to two-eye pieces ; 
the Freeman to one eye ; Early White Prize, Early 
Six Weeks, Polaris, Early Ohio, Early Puritan, Ohio 
Jr.. New Queen, Crown Jewel, Early Sunrise, Early 
Harvest, Early Maine, Carman No. 1, Early Norther, 
Early Rose. Ilurpee’s Extra Early, and Summit to two 
eyes; World’s Fair to one eye; Victor Rose, Light¬ 
ning Express, Brownell's Winner, I’rizetaker, Gov. 
Rusk, Reeve’s Rose, Houlton Rose, Rural Blush, Money 
Maker, Great Divide, Carman No. 3, Clay Rose, Rural 
New-Yorker No. 2, Maggie Murphy, American Wonder, 
Late Puritan, Monroe Seedling and White Star to two 
eyes to a piece, and the Irish Daisy to but one 
eye.” _ h. w. c. 
THE PESTS OF THE HENHOUSE. 
INSECTS THAT EAT TRIED CHICKEN. 
If The R. N.-Y. can pive us the life history of hen lice (mites) 
we can fight them more intelligently. Do they propagate on the 
hens, or on the perches ? How long does it take the eggs to 
hatch, etc. ? o. w. mapes. 
The Work of the Hen Louse. 
At least 10 different kinds of minute animals are 
known to occur upon the skin of hens, either to suck 
their blood or to feed upon the scurf of the skin, or 
on the feathers. These animals are members of quite 
widely different classes of the animal kingdom. Seven 
of them are wingless insects belonging to the order 
Mallophaga—the Bird lice. The other three are not 
true insects, but are mites which belong to the 
same class of animals as the spiders. The Hen 
lice have biting mouth-parts with which they 
feed upon the feathers and scurf from the skin 
of their host. The mites have long, sharp mouth- 
parts with which they pierce the skin and suck 
out the blood. 
Usually only one of the seven hen lice is at all 
common. This is the slender, light straw-yellow 
colored creature, scarcely one-twenty-fourth of 
an inch long, that runs with such celerity among 
the feathers, and often out upon one’s hand when 
a fowl is picked up and closely examined. One 
of these lice is shown magnified 20 times at 
Fig. 215. It is known by the name of Menopon 
pallidum, and probably causes more annoyance 
to poultry than all of the other six species com¬ 
bined. An illustration of it was published as 
early as 1080, and it has been described and dis¬ 
cussed hundreds of times since in both scientific 
and popular literature ; yet absolutely nothing 
seems to have been recorded of its life history. 
We know nothing about the eggs or its periods 
of breeding. Apparently its whole life is passed 
on the body of the host, and unlike the mites, it 
remains on the fowls all the time, both day and 
night; it passes readily to, and breeds upon, other 
birds also, and may sometimes temporarily bother 
horses in stalls near henhouses. It feeds only 
on the scales of the skin and the feathers, and, 
probably, most of the resulting injury to the 
fowls is caused by the constant irritation which 
worries them. The eggs of some of the Bird 
lice are glued to the feathers, and open with a 
curious circular lid or cap at the free end ; prob¬ 
ably the eggs of the hen louse are laid in a sim¬ 
ilar manner, and will prove equally interesting 
objects. It would seem an easy matter to inclose 
a lot of the lice in a small vial with a feather, 
and thus get them to lay their eggs, and, pos¬ 
sibly, watch their future development. One would 
need a microscope and be endowed with much pa¬ 
tience, but one would be constantly treading paths 
yet untrod in this great world of science, and what is 
more interesting than to see and describe (by a picture 
if possible) something that no one ever saw before? 
Will not some one interested in Nature’s smaller 
creatures, adopt this long-neglected hen louse for a 
time, and give us an account of the many interesting 
things that careful, constant observation of its habits 
cannot fail to bring forth? It is surmised that the 
young lice look very much like their parents. Do they? 
And a dozen other interesting questions might be asked 
The Mighty Red Hen Mite. 
One of the three mites found on hens, produces the 
scabby feet and legs, but the one universally recog¬ 
nized by all poultrymen as the mite of hens, is the 
little red creature scarcely one-fiftieth of an inch in 
length, that inhabits every nook, cranny, angular 
place, and crevice of the hennery. The well-known 
Red spider that works on house plants, is a near rela¬ 
tive of this chicken mite. One of the adult chicken 
mites is shown, magnified 75 times, in Fig. 215 ; it will 
be seen that they have eight legs, while true insects 
have but six. Their mouth parts are adapted for 
piercing the skin and sucking the blood ; it is princi¬ 
pally the blood drawn from the hen that gives the 
red color to the mites. When starved or not gorged 
with blood, the mites are of a light brownish color ; 
they are not easily starved, but can live for days and 
even for months, without a host capable of satisfying 
their sanguinary appetites. 
More seems to have been recorded of the habits and 
history of this mite than of the louse. The mite 
seems to have been first described in 1686 by the same 
one who first figured the chicken louse. The latest 
works on parasitic animals call the mite Dermanyssus 
gallime ; it is often discussed as D. avium. By some, 
it is aptly termed the “ bed-bug” of the hen, because 
of habits similar to those of that oftentimes too 
familiar visitor of man. That is, the chicken mite 
almost invariably attacks its host only at night; a 
few sometimes may be seen on the fowls during the 
day. The mites are very active little creatui’es, and 
easily find their way on to the hens at night, and 
where they are at all numerous, they must be a con¬ 
stant source of wakefulness to the fowls, to say 
nothing of the injurious effects from the constant 
drain on the blood from so many little pumps at work 
pricking and sucking; this injury must result seri¬ 
ously in the case of very young fowls. The mites are 
said to be very prolific. Their minute, elliptical, 
colorless eggs are to be found in masses or scattered 
about their retreats in the cracks and angles where 
they spend the day, possibly in sleeping off the effects 
of the preceding night’s debauch on the blood of 
their innocent victims. 
One of the eggs is shown, enlarged 75 times, at Fig. 
215 ; one would need a lens to discern them. No one 
seems to have observed how soon the eggs hatch, how 
long the mites are in attaining maturity, or how 
many generations there might be during a year. As 
they so quickly overrun a henhouse, there are doubt¬ 
less many generations each year, possibly as many as 
among the plant-lice which often produce two or 
three broods in a month. Curiously the young mites 
which hatch from the eggs, are not eight-legged like 
their parents, but, as is shown in Fig. 215 (magnified 
75 times), they have but six legs ; the fourth pair of 
legs appearing after the later moultings of the skin. 
The young are colorless, but become of a red or 
brownish color after satisfying their appetites with 
blood. They have the same nocturnal habits as their 
parents. This constant habit of secreting themselves 
by day and working only at night, in true “bed-bug” 
style, at once suggests the necessity of extreme care 
to avoid all cracks, crevices, and sheltering places of 
every sort in a hennery, so the pests can find no suit¬ 
able retreats ; at least, keep the perches smooth, or 
even greased or oiled, or, better yet, as some poultry- 
men do, devise some way by which the ends of the 
perches rest in something kept saturated with carbolic 
acid, kerosene oil, or any material that will prevent 
the mites from crossing it and getting into the perches. 
Probably some would then drop from above on to the 
heps, or get op them ip some otherdvay ; but they 
could not be nearly so serious a pest as though they 
were allowed free access to rough perches. Of course, 
this method would in no way affect the chicken lice 
which live on the bodies of the hens all the time. 
Here, at the Experiment Station henneries, they 
keep the fowls quite free from lice by the liberal use 
of insect powder or pyrethrum, and they keep the 
mites in subjection by frequently, perhaps once in 
two or three months, spraying the houses thoroughly 
with a kerosene emulsion, or, with what they find 
more practicable, one of the machines that throws a 
mixture of kerosene and water. The Deming Com¬ 
pany have a knapsack pump with this kerosene at¬ 
tachment, and the Nixon Company have one of the 
attachments on their larger pumps. Both work satis¬ 
factorily for this purpose here in the henneries. 
It is this same hen louse that infests canary birds, 
and dove and pigeon cotes. It may be transmitted to, 
and will work upon, man. horses, and rarely upan 
rabbits, goats, dogs, cats, and cows. They do not find 
conditions favorable to their multiplication on the 
skin of man, however, and thus do not become aecli- 
raatized there. Where they occur on the animals 
mentioned, they are invariably directly traceable to a 
neighboring henhouse, and the removal of this en¬ 
tirely or to a much greater distance, causes them to 
disappear in a few days. m. v. sdingerdand. 
A DISASTROUS FRUIT SEASON IN ILLINOIS. 
I started in this year, with good intentions and 
some work. I sprayed and cultivated, early and often 
for awhile ; but there is not much to write for 
this locality this year but failure —due to the ice 
being too cold on the morning of May 14 and to 
blight. I notice that both these enemies are 
pretty hard to control in the field. Yet the heat 
from large cities does have an effect on the spring 
frosts, and grapes were not so much injured 
for a short distance to the southeast of the cities 
as out in the open country. Neither does cold 
move in an even, solid wave ; but it seems to 
settle in spots, or thread its way in channels, 
owing, perhaps, to the intermingling currents of 
air and the lay of the land. 
There was some little difference in the behavior 
of different varieties of grapes ; but practically, 
they all went—Worden and Rocklington were 
not quite so much injured as Goethe and Per¬ 
kins. Two weeks of remarkably hot weather had 
pushed buds and bloom and fitted most of the 
smaller fruits for the death harvest. 
Pears which had set an abundance of fruit 
were swept by blight during the two hot days 
preceding the freeze, and the little bacteria have 
not rested from multiplying and spreading since. 
They have taken nine-tenths of the crop. Why 
should the blight appear so virulently in all parts 
of the pear orchard on nearly the same day? 
What are its periods of rest and activity ? 
Why, at one time, should it appear as a “ twig 
blight,” and at another time strike the base, 
even, of the tree at the first shot ? Is it possible 
that it has several forms of germs, as has the 
“rot” of the grape? Blight on apples did not 
show until after the freeze. Why is this, for 
apples and pears were intermingled in the or¬ 
chard ? But it finally struck more than half of 
the twigs bearing apples, withering more than 
half of the fruit, a large portion of which had 
been killed by the freeze. Here variety asserted 
itself; late bloomers like Janet, Wythe, etc., were 
not so much injured by the cold. Besides, there 
are some kinds that seem to have an inherent 
power of fruiting, no matter what comes, as 
Ben Davis, Wealthy, the delicious Early Joe, etc. In 
an orchard of several hundred varieties, nine-tenths 
were more or less injured by blight. The knife 
may do for a few trees, or where the disease is not at 
home; but it is nearly useless here where many 
thousands of twigs must be cut and burned daily. 
Sangamon County, Ill. B. B 
EDUCATIONAL FEATURES OF A FAIR. 
The annual fair of the Queens County Agricultural 
Society has come and gone, and from a financial point 
of view, has undoubtedly proved a great success. 
The fine weather was greatly in its favor, and 
the last three days were made enjoyable by the 
showers and cooler weather. If it did not prove of 
benefit to visitors, it was because they failed to' avail 
themselves of many good opportunities. The popu¬ 
larity of the racing was proved by the crowding of 
the grand stand the whole day, where the people 
anxiously watched the jockeying for positions by the 
hour, and the excitement was over ia three or four 
minutes ; then a long wait again, so the time went on 
for the whole five days. If we have trials (?) of 
speed, why cannot they be had on schedule time ? 
The fruits and flower*} were never better, ngr in 
