H*| 
mi 
stomach, is a sure cure for croup, diphtheria, 
sore throat, pip or scaly tongue, a sore puru¬ 
lent discharge from the eyes. I have cured 
every case of cholera, or the green aud yellow 
discharges, which happened for two or three 
years before I learned how to prevent them, 
with one teaspoon ful of a solution of one 
ounce of hyposulphite of soda in a pint of 
water, and this is the last item oi my list 
of medicines for poultry. 
As a warning against spending money use¬ 
lessly, 1 might refer to the various prepara¬ 
tions and mixtures sold as poultry powders 
and egg-producing food. One of the most 
highly recommended of these was once anal¬ 
yzed and found to consist of wholly useless aud 
very cheap materials, with a little Cayeune 
pepper to give it flavor. All these are useless 
aud Ijbelieve do harm, aud just as the quack 
medicines for infants and older people are to 
be avoided, these should he, with the cost¬ 
ly crushed shells which are at the best indiges¬ 
tible and which are not nearly so good as 
fresh bones broken up with a hammer on a 
block in the yard, and which furnish all 
the lime required, in a digestible form. 
mistake. During the last three years I have 
not had one sick fowl, nor have I lost one 
chick which has been safely batched, and this 
comfortable result has beeu due to the exoi- 
cise of these precautions and the costly exper¬ 
ience of previous losses which 1 could have 
avoided had I learned how. But it takes 
years and years to learn how to do this, and iu 
the mean time some help can lie gained through 
young man aud a student, I became acquaint¬ 
ed with a most wise and effective system iu 
vogue among French physicians, which I 
mention here incidentally, because it might be 
introduced among us with very great advan¬ 
tage; this is, to contract with the family phy¬ 
sician to pay him for preserving the family in 
health for a regular stipulated mouthly fee, 
the payment beiug suspended whenever auy 
of the family is sick, and as long as the sick¬ 
ness continues. The advantage is obvious. 
This would be an excellent thing for all owu- 
ers of live stock to do, to engage veterinary 
surgeons to regularly visit their stables and 
keep the animals iu health aud restore them 
when sick as quickly as possible. Ami this 
system should be practiced iu the poultry yard. 
(Continued from page 399.) 
a day, as an accompaniment. Corn may be 
fed in Winter to laying hens (if the weather is 
yery cold) ; but it should be discarded iu 
Spring and Summer. In the Fall hens usually 
begin to moult, which compels them to have 
food of the richest quality, as the shedding and 
renewing of the feathers is very weakening. 
A proportion of corn may, therefore, be their 
feed in order to protect their naked bodies as 
the season becomes cooler. 
In the morning, early, the hens may be 
given soft food. An excellent mess, and one 
that is very nourishing, is to cook a piece of 
rough beef, or the lights aud livers of steers 
or sheep, until quite done, and if finely chop¬ 
ped so much the better. One part bran, one 
of middlings, and one of ground oats may be 
added, with potatoes, until the mess is thick¬ 
ened. It should be so fed that the hens will he 
rather hungry than full, or they will not take 
exercise. No other food should be given dur- 
or onions 
ing the clay except chopped cabbage 
iu Winter, or grass in Summer. At night 
give plenty of wheat. Cheap messes may be 
made by cooking potatoes or turnips for them. 
If the fowls have plenty of range, a warm 
mess of cooked meat and potatoes will answer 
for them in the morning; but they should 
have all the wheat they ean eat at night. 
Ground hone, lime in any form, and plenty of 
gravel should be provided, iind all the soft 
food should be salted to taste. The art in feed¬ 
ing is to give the hens a variety at all times, 
but not to allow them to become fat. i hey 
must lie made to scratch iu something for the 
whole grains. Such active birds as the Leg¬ 
horns seldom become too fat, which partly ex¬ 
plains why they lay so well; but all the large 
breeds will fatten readily after reaching ma¬ 
turity. Winter feeding demands some corn; 
Spring aud Summer a large proportion of 
bulky food; while Autumn calls for food rich 
in growing material, as there is then a pre¬ 
ponderance of young stock and moulting hens. 
Fowls intended for market should be kept sep¬ 
arate from others, and be allow r ed all the corn 
they will eat. 
GENERAL-PURPOSE FOWL. 
Roomy yards; care of eggs to be set; nu mber 
of cocks; green food. 
Fok a general-purpose fowl I would select 
the Light Brahma for crossing ou the common 
stock, because the offspring is a large, well- 
developed, handsome fowd, very hardy and free 
from disease. Moreover, it fattens readily 
and always brings the highest price in the 
market. Such birds are very docile, aud the 
hens are good layers of large eggs. 
Fence poultry iu rather than let them spoil 
the garden; but don't confine them in small 
pens. Make roomy yards for them and they 
so stated by some writers, by filth, want of 
care, or any other unhealthy condition, except 
this germ of the disease is present. Then it is 
that the above unhealthy conditions greatly 
favor its spreading and increase its mortality. 
The germs are geu(?rally taken in with the 
food or drinking water,aud then find their w - ay 
to all parts of the system, while the disease is 
readily spread by contact with diseased ani¬ 
mals or any of their products. 
The symptoms, like those of most other dis¬ 
eases of poultry, are not altogether satisfac¬ 
tory. There is usually dullness, ruffled 
feathers, droop ing of head aud wings, unsteady 
gait, a greenish-yellow diarrhoea, sometimes 
frothy, and later frequently bloi >dv. The comb 
and wattles become very dark-colored or 
black. The fowls seek the sunshine or crowd 
listlessly together to keep warm. With a clin¬ 
ical thermometer an elevation of two or four 
degrees in temperature (10S°—110'"' F.) is usu¬ 
ally found. Any or nearly all of the above 
symptoms are absent in some cases. But when¬ 
ever the fow r ls are dying rapidly without ap¬ 
parent. cause aud fowl cholera is iti the neigh- 
hood, it may bo suspected, and precautions 
be taken accordingly. 
Treatment is rarely desirable on account of 
the very contagious nature of the disease, 
although a considerable number may recover, 
especially after the disease has prevailed for 
sornu time. 
Its “stamping out” aud prevention are very 
simple and comparatively easy if thorough 
measures are at once adopted and carried out. 
First kill or isolate all diseased fowls, aud burn 
or bury very deeply—at least three feet—all 
dead auimals aud their products. Then thor¬ 
oughly disinfect the Whole interior of the hen 
house aud the runs by washing or freely 
sprinkling with a solution of sulphuric acid— 
acid on© pint, water eight gallons. ’Where the 
fowfls are allowed to run at large, it will l>e 
necessary to confine them to smaller quarters, 
so that the whole may be disinfected. Watch 
the healthy flock carefully, and remove any 
Use the rlisin- 
A HANDY COOP. Fig. 200. (See page 308.) 
thoroughly of all the droppings; aud just at 
sun-down when the fowls are about to go to 
roost. The fine dust is breathed and makes 
the fowls sneeze aud wheeze, and clears out 
their throats aud nostrils, destroys gape 
worms, aud cures any possible irritation ol 
the nasal and bronchial membranes. I con¬ 
sider this “a great popular remedy” worth a 
million boxes of roup pills, catarrh and cholera 
specifies, “eggine,” egg powders, aud all the 
other quack nostrums offered for 50 eeuts a 
pouud, aud very much cheaper. It also keeps 
the scab mite, which produces the unsightly 
scaly leg, at a distance, and chokes off lice, 
fleas and red mites. 
Something, however, may usefully be kept 
in readiness for accidents, and I find a bottle 
of a mixture of raw linseed oil, with one-fourth 
The greatest cause of sickness and death 
among poultry is overfeeding. The common 
practice is to give the fowls all they will eat, 
as if fowls were wiser than hogs and knew 
when they had enough. Fowls and hogs, aud 
even cows and horses, when they can get at a 
meal bin, never know how to stop until they 
are gorged full to the top ol’ the throat, and 
then trouble begins. First, there is indiges¬ 
tion, then fever, then cholera or fever and 
gangrene of the intestines, or inflammation of 
the mucous membrane, which is catarrh or 
roup; or anthrax, which is black comb, aud 
other fatal disorganizations of the muscular 
tissues and the liver. In these cases medicine 
Is of little avail, and the only remedy is a 
sharp little ax, which might justly be fitted iu 
tv.o of the medicine chest as the most 
showing symptoms of disease 
fectant generally three or four times a week 
and daily on the droppings as long as cases of 
the disease continue to occur. A few drops of 
the acid in the drinking water will also act as 
a preventive. Whore the fowls were run¬ 
ning at large when the outbreak occurred, it 
will be safest to keep them confined for three 
or four mouths after the disease has all dis¬ 
appeared, so that the germs that maybe lying 
hidden about the place will have time to die 
out. Fowl cholera, like most other contagious 
diseases, will die out of itself when there are 
no suitable auimals for it to prey upon. 
’ GAPES. 
Another contagious affection of fowls is 
known as gapes, or as it is sometimes called 
“pipe.” It is a disease especially of young 
birds with which it is very fatal, and is due to 
the presence in the trachea -windpipe—and 
bronchi, of the Eyugamus traehealis, a small 
red worm, three to five-eighths of an inch iu 
length and apparently forked near one end. 
The old birds frequently harbor the worms, 
but with them they rarely prove fatal. The 
symptoms are very characteristic. The youug 
bird will occasionally open wide its mouth 
and gape or gasp for breath. Breathing 
gradually becomes more difficult, the animals 
•r'Hure the hens of tin- desire to sit. shut 
j^ip in a small coop, giving plenty of 
Biter and feeding sparingly, though by no 
means starving them. e. h. upson. 
Noble Co,, Indiana. 
THE POULTRY FANCIER’S MEDICINE 
CHEST. 
DR. HENRY STEWART. 
As a rule, I believe in Mr. Macbeth’s idea: 
“Throw physic to the dogs—I’ll none of it,” 
and prefer prevention to the best cure. But 
then, I also believe that the most important 
office of “physic,” or medicine, is to prevent 
diseases, and to know how to do this is the 
great skill and art of the physician. When a 
Jll/RAL A / fyvSOFXJ:/z 
A HANDY COOP. Fig. 201. (See page 303.) 
part of kerosene oil aud a fortieth part of 
creosote, is bundy as a complete remedy for 
scaly leg; and also for all the small vermin, 
when it is liberally applied to the perches, es¬ 
pecially in every crevice where they may hide. 
A solution of one ounce of chlorate of potash 
iu a pint of water, applied with a clean feath¬ 
er or one of the little squirt fillers used for 
stylographic. peus, to the nostrils and throut, a 
little also being sent down the throat to the 
effective remedy for most of the diseases of 
poultry. 
The next great fault is the want of perfect 
cleanliness, which includes pure water, pure 
air, a clean floor, a clean run for the chicks, 
the utter absence of vermin, aud a wholesome 
variety of food. No medicine whatever can 
cure the evil results of this waut, except the 
ax aforesaid, aud the deep burial of the viru¬ 
lent contagion produced by this second grand 
