§36 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
®1j t f oultrj |ar&. 
EXPERIENCE WITH F0WL8. 
In our present state of ignorance with re¬ 
gard to the cause or cure of the different dis¬ 
eases to which fowls are subject, no one can 
assume to be an absolute authority, or to lay 
down rules for treatment, that will be effective 
in all cases. It is only by comparing notes 
and experimenting that the truth can be ar¬ 
rived at with any degree of certainty. It is rea¬ 
sonable to believe, that fowls which have tree 
range, plenty of food, an abundance of pure 
water, and can choose their own roosting 
places, are healthier than those which are kept 
in confinement. Indeed, most writers on the 
subject ascribe the diseases of fowls to con¬ 
finement in unhealthy quarters, waut of clean¬ 
liness, impure, or an insufficient supply of 
water, or overfeeding and want of exercise. 
That each of the aforesaid conditions, is a 
fruitful cause of disease, caunot be denied. 
That some of the diseases of fowls are con¬ 
tagions, is equally certain. But, while fowls 
running at large, that have moderate atten¬ 
tion bestowed on their wants, are entirely 
exempt from the unfavorable condition to 
which fowls in confinement are subjected, it 
cannot be said that thev are exempt from any 
of the diseases of their kind : though my own 
experience has convinced me they are less 
liable to them. 
My fowls have been inbred exclusively for 
the past seven years, and at this time are as 
strong, hardy and healthy, I am satisfied, as it 
is possible for fowls to be. Though some 
writers who are considered authorities, assert 
that gapes are caused by fowls drinking im¬ 
pure water, mine, which for the past seven 
years have had an abundant never-failing sup¬ 
ply of pure spring water, still have an oc¬ 
casional case ot gapes amongst them. I find 
that a small lump of gum camphor, or half a 
teaspoonful of sweet oil, with three drops of 
tuipentine in it, is an excellent remedy for the 
gapes, when administered to the affected fowl. 
I think it a mistake to put medicine in the 
drinking w'ater of the flock ; the healthy ones 
do not need it, it is distasteful to all of them, 
aud they will suffer rather than drink it. 
There have been few cases of ronp amongst my 
fowls for several years. When one is affected, 
I promptly separate it from the rest. I have 
tried many things for the roup, and find that 
frequently washiug the head with tepid water, 
and administering internally a dose of oil and 
turpentine, once a day, are the most effective 
treatment. I early made acquaintance with the 
disease called scruffy or scaly legs. I believe it 
to be contagious, aud to have been introduced, 
though perhaps I am mistaken, by the larger 
Asiatics. I gained my first experience with it 
by obtaining a number of Light Brahma hens 
to cross with my Games. Shortly afterwards 
the disease appeared among the Games, and 
though I tried every remedy I could hear or 
read of, it remained an eyesore and a nuisance, 
until I discarded the Brahmas, and decapita¬ 
ted every Game fowl that showed the slightest 
traces of it, since which time the disease has 
not reappeared. 
For my knowledge of corns or bumble feet, 
I am indebted also to the agency of the 
Brahmas. The disease appeared amongst them 
and their crosses. I can offer no explanation 
as to the causes which produce it; yet, I fancy 
It is perhaps, to some extent, hereditary. I 
found no remedy for this disease except the ax. 
I killed all that were afflicted, so that they 
might breed no more of their kind. Formerly 
I lost many fowls from a disease that is not 
named, so far as I know. The fowls stood or 
moped around as if sleepy, and finally died. 
Upon examination I found the crop much dis¬ 
tended and very hard. My mode of treatment is: 
take a sharp, pointed pair of scissors, cut open 
the crop sufficiently to insert the fioger, empty 
it aud rinse thoroughly with tepid water; then 
sew up the opening with needle and thread; if 
the patient is not too l ar gone when taken in 
hand, the operation is very often successful. 
Of cholera—aud by the way ; are not people in 
the habit of calling every disease which they 
do not understand, and which is especially 
fatal to fowls, cholera?—I know very little. In 
an experience of fifteen years, my fowls have 
only once had a visitation of the malady. After 
keeping them for several years cooped in a 
small yard in town, they were removed to the 
country and “ turned loose.” Soon afterwards 
they took the cholera (or at least the neighbors 
said it was cholera). “Physicians were in 
vain," and about three-fourths of them died. 
Their exceptional good health since then, I 
ascribe more to the perfect liberty they have 
enjoyed, than to any other cause. A proposi¬ 
tion that will be found to hold good in all 
cases, I think, is, that in order to counteract the 
evil effects ot confinement and to strengthen 
the constitution, frequent crossbreeding is ab¬ 
solutely necessary with fowls, and that, on the 
other hand, those running at liberty can be in- 
bred for many years without injurious results. 
Without claiming to be infallible, I have given 
the results of my own observation and exper¬ 
ience in the management of fowls. If I have 
written nothing new, still what I have written 
cannot be. to no purpose, if only because it 
adds the weight of corroborative testimony to 
what is already known. J. K. 
-» «- ♦- 
THE POULTRY INTEREST. 
A. M. HALSTED. 
Only a few years since, the terra “chicken 
fancier” was used in derision by the breeders 
and “fanciers" of horses and horned cattle ; 
but the fancy has steadily increased and 
spread, so that now no agricultural exhibition 
is complete without its poultry department, 
and, further, it is the only one of the live stock 
interests which pretends to hold special shows 
exclusive! y of stock pertaining to that fancy. 
Many estimates have been made of the value 
of the poultry raised and marketed in the 
United States, but they can only be approxi¬ 
mate to the actual value. 
According to the last census, in 1870, there 
were 44.000,000 people in Uncle Sam’s domain. 
At this time, nine years later, it is safe to com¬ 
pute the number at 48,000,000. It is estimated 
that the average number in each family is four 
persons, which will give us 12,000,000 families. 
Taking the rich with the poor, each family 
will consume twenty-five dollars’ worth of 
poultry during the year. This will make the 
value of the poultry consumed in the United 
States amount to the neat little figure of $300,- 
000,000 per year. 
Now add to this the value of the eggs used. 
It has been computed that each family will 
consume an average of two dozen eggs per 
week, which, at 20 cents per dozen (an aver¬ 
age price, taking the year through), would 
make, say $20 per year, or $240,000,000 worth 
of eggs yearly; in all, $540,000,000 for the 
poultry and eggs consumed in the United 
States alone. These figures do not include the 
yearly sales of both fowls and eggs for breed¬ 
ing purposes, nor the amount of breeding 
stock necessary to produce the annual supply. 
The breeders of poultry may be divided into 
two general classes: the breeders of pure-bred 
fowls—“fancy fowls,” as they are termed—and 
the market poulterers. The former raise 
poultry, some for pleasure, others for profit, 
exercising as ranch care in selecting their 
breeding stock as the largest breeders of 
horned cattle. In fact, it requires more study 
and judgment to raise prize-winning fowls 
than to breed premium Short-horns. Of this 
class, there are over five thousand in c*« 
United States, some of them keeping only one, 
others keeping five or six varieties, and some 
having twenty, thirty, and even more kinds. 
A low average will be two varieties to each 
person, or 20 birds, which will make 100,000 
fowls. These are valued at all prices, from $5 
per pair to $100 or more, the average bektg 
$10 per pair, which will give $500,000 as the 
value of the stock kept for breeding purposes. 
From these estimates we may assume that each 
of these 5,000 breeders raises at least 50 chick¬ 
ens, which are sold to farmers, mechanics and 
others, for the improvement of their stock, at 
$5 each; these will amount to $1,250,000. 
Then in eggs for hatching, at least euough 
sittings are sold to make $250,000 more, mak¬ 
ing a gross amount of about $2,000,000 in this 
branch of the industry. 
The figures above given are much below the 
actual amounts, but are large enough to show 
the extent and value of the “Fancy Poultry" 
interest. With such an exhibit as this, the 
importance of the poultry industry cannot be 
ignored; the term “poultry fancier” becomes 
as well recognized as that of “ Short-horn 
breeder" or “breeder of South-Down sheep,” 
and is really of more general application. In 
all our large towns and cities are scores—per¬ 
haps hundreds—of gentlemen of means and 
education who have their country residences, 
aud on them yards of some variety of “fancy” 
poultry, which are the pride and hobby of their 
owners. Thousands who have neither the 
time, taste nor accommodation for horses and 
cattle, find ample exercise for their fancy in 
poultry, and the spread of the fancy bids fair 
to soon exceed that for any other kind of live 
stock. 
Jjoriniltttral. 
CULTIVATION OF FLOWERS. 
It is not generally known among the great 
mass of flower growers, that many rare plants 
will bloom so profusely aB to ruin the plant as 
well as to lessen the size of the flowers. Espe¬ 
cially is it so with a Doable Fuschia which I 
keep out-of-doors in warm weather, sometimes 
in the open ground, sometimes iu pots in half 
shade. They grow so hardy in this way as to 
astonish many persons who see them. I often 
hear exclamations like this: “ Why! Is that 
a Fuschia ? Mine grows so tall and slender, 
and has only five or six blooms at a time, while 
yours, only about four months old, has some 
thirty blooms and others nearly out. And so 
bushy, too!” This reference to the youthful¬ 
ness of my plant made me measure its circum¬ 
ference, which proves to be forty inches or 
more. I have robbed it of some thirty or forty 
buds, and it has yet enough left to make 
it lovely, the branches hanging gracefully, 
without any frame or other support but their 
own strength. I am every year astonished to 
see so many persons trying to grow such flow¬ 
ers in-doors, during the summer season, often 
keeping them in a darkened room, thereby 
shutting off the very life of the plants—sun¬ 
light. Nor do they need the glare of the sun, 
but just enough to make the plants vigorous. 
A true lover of flowers will soon learn how 
much light and air the plants need. There are 
a few vines — such as the Wandering Jew, 
or Tradeseantia, of different varieties—which 
do better, perhaps, without sunshine. We have 
a kind of German or Parlor Ivy, here in Min¬ 
nesota, which is often grown in many houses 
without sun, but there is no beauty like a 
small one I have out-of-doors, which has made 
rapid strides for thrift during the past few 
weeks, about half-shaded. Plants and vines 
want good air for health and beauty, sunshine 
or not. 
Plants by Mall. 
If plants are received by mail, which you 
wish to put in the open ground, you may shel¬ 
ter them benefieialiy by putting a box—minus 
cover or bottom—around them, and during the 
suuoy part of the day, keeping a wet cloth of 
some coarse material, over the box, taking it 
off at night, and then removing it by degrees 
Blowly in the daytime, letting the box remain 
till the plants are growing well. I spoke of 
this in the Rural, some three years since, but 
perhaps will be excused for repeating it as 
above. It is a matter of regret that so many 
plants die for want of care. Some are kept 
too dry, and others with water standing iu the 
pot; others, still, in too small pots. 
Starling from Slips. 
A pleasant kind of labor with flowers, is 
this. There is, however, an erroneous idea 
about large slips being necessary. Small oueB 
are far more sure of growing. I have started 
some Geraniums and Roses, with slips not 
over an inch and a half in length. It is a good 
way to put glass over them if you give them 
air once or twice a day, but glass is not neces¬ 
sary. One may succeed well without it, even 
with common soil, if the}' are kept in shade 
till they begin to grow, which generally indi¬ 
cates the formation of roots, but not always. 
All transplanted plants or slips do best when 
the roots grow first. I have sometimes 
started slips in the open ground by putting 
huzel brush with leaves on, around them suf¬ 
ficient to let the air through, and keep the sun 
out until they struck rootB. 
Minnesota. Aunt Jennie. 
Jukstrial 
AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION IN ENG¬ 
LAND. 
Every statement relating to agricultural dis¬ 
tress in England must be read with some allow¬ 
ance for exaggeration. I have experienced 
several of these periods of low prices and bad 
harvests. Meat still sells at a good price aud 
all the best farmers turn all their low-priced 
produce into meat, wool aud dairy produce, 
which is none of it so low, comparatively, as 
grain. It is only the tenants who have not 
capital enough to keep the best meat-producing 
animals who are suffering. 
It is indeed, a great blessing that “ the British 
farmer is not permitted to follow the system 
in agriculture which seems to him the most 
advantageous for his own interests, but must 
conform to the regulations which the landlord 
deems most conducive to his own benefit, etc.” 
It is this which has saved British soil from run¬ 
ning down as the land has in the United States. 
If the English farmers had not extended root 
culture and used other produce, too, to enrich 
the soil, the fact of the tenants there growing 
more than double the yield of wheat and bar¬ 
ley, would not have occurred, for the farms 
would have been run down the same as they 
are here. 
When a good season comes, the land in Eng¬ 
land will bring forth double the number of 
bushels per acre grown in America, and her 
rich old pastures and her millions of acres of 
roots, will produce beef, mutton, wool, etc., in 
the former abundance, while the farmers in the 
United States will wear themselves out on their 
worn-out soil, and the virgin soil in the West 
will be despoiled by the Vandals who spare 
none of the lovely grazing lands which have 
fattened the buffaloes aud deer for centuries. 
There is no instance of aay leading English 
farmers complaining of fox hunting as a griev¬ 
ance. If there is ever any sensation attempted 
of that sort, it iB always by some merchant 
tradesman; perhaps a tailor who has made a 
few thousands and rents a farm, which, as he 
knows nothing about farming, soon gets into 
difficulties which are ascribed to any but the 
true cause. Farmers who have plenty of good 
live stock cannot be doing amiss at the price 
beef and mutton are selling at; for I have 
farmed and made money easily when prices 
were much lower, aud the farmer spoken of in 
the Rural, who rented 600 acres, unhappily 
was not bound to any system of rotation 
hence the cause of his ill success. Just read 
some of the accounts of his management: He 
had only 140 breeding ewes and could not have 
grown proper roots, or the lambs would not 
have died in the autumn. It appears he has 
made .£800 ($4,000) per year profit for nine 
years previous to the three last; so that, sup¬ 
posing all to be true, he mjist still be a great 
gainer from this 600-acre farm; for a tenant 
farmer could live well enough on half the sum 
he made, and according to that he ought to 
have $12,000 and the interest after his three 
years’ losses. Depend upon it, this man had a 
first-rate farm, and not being restricted, he 
taxed the farm pretty hard during these nine 
years of flush times ; for if he had consumed 
most of his produce on the farm, he would 
have derived his iucome chiefly from meat and 
wool, and as meat and wool have not gone 
down much, I can’t see how his iucome can be 
so seriously affected. It is strange, but true, 
that American gentlemen should find fault 
with English customs of rotation and restric¬ 
tions, which they must kuow have kept the 
land in the highest state of fertility ; while the 
soil of the Eastern States has all been brought 
to Buch a low condition, that some of the 
States as large as England, do not produce 
one-tenth as much grass, one-twentieth as 
much cattle, one-hundredth of the number of 
sheep, or one bushel of wheat for a thousand 
grown there, and it might be said not one 
pound of wool for 500 pounds grown in Eng¬ 
land. At the present mom* nt, there are, on an 
average, ten applicatio ns for every farm at 
liberty to be rented, and although there has 
been an increase iu the bankruptcy cases iu 
farming, the same as there has in the mercan¬ 
tile classes, yet there are more than a thousand 
failures in trade for every one in agriculture. 
With regard to fox-hunting, almost all the 
large farmers enjoy the chase as much as the 
aristocracy, and most of them breed young 
horses which they ride for a season or two, 
and theu sell for a good round sum which pays 
them well for raising them. Should any little- 
farmers receive injury to their crops or fences, 
or any of their wives lose poultry from the dep¬ 
redation of foxes, the owner of the hounds, or 
sometimes gentlemen who hunt with the 
hounds, will pay for the loss sustained imme¬ 
diately they hear of it. Farmers feeling above 
receiving money, will be sure to have a hand¬ 
some present of game or venison, as an 
acknowledgment of having allowed a litter of 
cubs to be raised undisturbed ou their farms. 
Here there is space only for a few brief re¬ 
marks on the above communication. It is 
readily conceded that in all cases of public- 
excitement there is a natural tendency to ex¬ 
aggeration in reference to the subject that 
has aroused general interest. With regard to 
the present agricultural distress In England, 
how'ever. nothing that has yet been said ou 
the matter in American papers approaches in 
strength the language constantly employed 
with regard to it by public speakers, agricul¬ 
tural and political papers aud cautious statisti¬ 
cal writers in Great Britain. “Terrible crisis” 
“ deplorable agricultural prostration” “ ruin¬ 
ous losses” “ unprecedented disaster” are a 
few' specimens of the expressions which char¬ 
acterize it in one of a bundle of English agri¬ 
cultural papers beside us. It is certainly wise 
to guard againBt exaggeration; but often 
there is more wisdom in guarding against 
depreciation. 
The success which attended the skill and 
foresight of our friend during former periods 
of agricultural depression in Eugland, makes 
us rejoice that these admirable qualities have 
since been transferred to the aid of American 
agriculture ; while at the same time it is just 
permissible to doubt that they would be 
equally profitable in the present condition of 
farming across the water; for it is couceded 
on all hands there that at no time within the 
memory of any one now living, has that con¬ 
dition been so gloomy, and even our corres¬ 
pondent will admit that his efforts were never 
embarrassed by such keen competition with 
foreign agricultural products as that which 
now robs the British farmer of courage and 
shekels. 
The landlords’ restrictions upon the tenant- 
farmers’ liberty of action, of which our friend, 
3,000 mileB away, approves as the chief safe¬ 
guard of the fertility of the British soil, farm¬ 
ers on the spot are now vigorously combatting. 
Witbiu the last couple of months not a week 
has passed in which English agricultural pa¬ 
pers have not recorded the protests of farmers’ 
clubs, farmers’ associations, Chambers of Ag¬ 
riculture and promiuent individual agricultur¬ 
ists against the damuge duue by these " bene¬ 
ficial” regulations. Dr. J. B. Lawes, surely 
no insignificant authority, has long been advo- 
