1122 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
September 11, 1915. 
Poultry in the Orchard 
One of our readers in Virginia says 
that he has SO acres of apples and is 
planning to put his Leghorn hens in col¬ 
ony houses out among the trees, lie is 
afraid that these birds will injure the 
fruit by pecking it on the ground, and 
also by flying up into the tree where the 
fruit is growing. lie hesitates therefore, 
to put these birds out into the orchard at 
this season. In your judgment would 
there be any danger of serious loss of the 
fruit when hens are kept in this way? 
I cannot keep hens in any considerable 
numbers in the orchard and get first qual¬ 
ity fruit. There is too much nitrogen 
which causes an enormous wood growth, 
very heavy foliage and very poor fruit. 
If I had 80 acres of orchard I would 
keep the hens out of it and look around 
for some cheap land, for the hens, where 
they could do no harm. I expect to 
build some laying houses in an orchard, 
hut shall expect to sacrifice the orchard. 
Mine is a small orchard and will not in¬ 
volve the loss that would come in an 
80-acre combination. 
Connecticut. fred’k m. peasley. 
This inquirer will be wise to put his 
Leghorn colony houses in his orchard. 
The benefit to the trees will far outweigh 
any injury they may do. I have some 
friends who are growing a large apple 
orchard of 10,000 trees on Grand Isle in 
Lake Champlain, and they have now 
2.000 White Leghorns running in that or¬ 
chard. There are 500 old apple trees on 
the place, and 800 barrels of fine fruit 
were sold from it last year. liens were 
kept in the orchard last year, and the 
number largely increased this year. The 
fruit that drops on the ground is gen¬ 
erally bruised and not marketable except 
for cider or dried fruit; tall market 
apples are supposed to be hand-picked. 
The fruit that the hens would pick would 
be mostly unmarketable anyway. In my 
opinion the destruction of grubs, mag¬ 
gots. worms, etc., by the hens, not to 
mention the value of the fertilizer, would 
pay many times over for the fruit de¬ 
stroyed. GEO. A. COSGROVE. 
I have made inquiries in regard to 
poultry doing any damage among fruit, 
when houses are placed in an orchard. 
The fruit men all advise not to set the 
colony house too close to any one tree, 
also do not put poultry in an orchard 
until the trees are three or four years 
old; after that they consider the poultry 
does good instead of harm. It is very 
seldom that a hen will ever damage any 
fruit on the tree. a. nr. tollard. 
. Delaware Agricultural College. 
The combination of tree fruit grow¬ 
ing and poultry raising with a view to 
egg production is, to my mind, one. of 
the very best combinations of farming. 
Briefly stated, the principal advantages 
of this combination are that there is a 
splendid distribution of labor throughout 
the year. Much of the work of handling 
the tree fruit plantation in the North 
can be done at times during the day and 
at certain seasons of the year, when it 
will not conflict seriously with opera¬ 
tions on a poultry farm. The great stress 
of work on an egg farm comes during the 
Spring season,, when the heaviest egg 
yield is secured! and when it is necessary 
to hatch and rear the young stock to re¬ 
plenish the flock. The slackest season 
on a poultry farm is generally in late 
Summer and Fall, at which time the 
large amount of work connected with the 
harvesting of fruit occurs. The fact that 
a variety of tree fruits may be harvested 
during the period covering several months 
of the year, enables the poultryman to 
handle the poultry and fruit harvest to¬ 
gether with infinitely less stress of work 
than is the case where small fruits or 
early vegetables are grown. 
The fact that tree fruits are less in¬ 
jured by poultry than are small fruits or 
vegetables is a decided advantage in 
growing fruit as a combination with 
poultry. It is true that frequently hens 
will injure fruit on the trees and also 
on the ground. This, however, we have 
found has not been a very serious handi¬ 
cap, particularly where the roosting ar¬ 
rangements are made so comfortable for 
the hens that they are induced to occupy 
the buildings instead of the trees. Most 
of the trouble with hens destroying fruit, 
we have found, has occurred where the 
fowls roost in the trees, in which event 
they eat the fruit to some extent, soil a 
good deal more, and frequently break the 
branches that are heavily loaded. The 
difficulty, however, is not insurmount¬ 
able. Cool roosting quarters made free 
from parasites are the best remedy. 
Trees offer shade and protection, which 
is an exceedingly important factor on a 
poultry farm, even in the North. The 
fowls also serve as scavengers in destroy¬ 
ing many insects, but will not, in any 
case, take the place of thorough regular 
spraying. The contribution of fertility 
to a fruit orchard frequently represents 
the differences between profit and loss, on 
a fruit plantation. The danger that is 
likely to arise in poultry combinations, is 
that the poultry units will be so congest¬ 
ed that the hens are not properly distrib¬ 
uted throughout the orchards, and as a 
result, a portion of the orchard will re¬ 
ceive too much fertility of nitrogenous 
nature and other portions will not re¬ 
ceive enough. A colony house system, 
well distributed so that the fowls will 
have abundant range without the neces¬ 
sity for interior fencing, is the best com¬ 
bination. I do not know of a better one. 
This, of course, is assuming that the 
person possesses the rare qualifications of 
being a good fruit grower and a success¬ 
ful poul ryman, and that this combina¬ 
tion exists on the farm and it presuppo¬ 
ses that the market, soil and climatic 
conditions are all favorable, both for 
fruit and for poultry. 
[l’ROF.1 J. E. RICE. 
A year ago I would have said without 
much hesitation that a flock of chickens 
distributed in colony houses through an 
orchard could not do any damage to the 
trees. In the meantime my own flock 
of chickens, housed some little distance 
from the orchard, have taken to going 
among the trees and picking the apples, 
actually flying up into the trees and dig¬ 
ging into the fruit, apparently after the 
seeds. I should say that chickens might 
be housed in orchards year after year 
without doing any damage, but if they 
ever got started they could be very trou¬ 
blesome in a short time. The damage 
is not likely to amount to much while 
the apples are green, but when they come 
toward the ripening time the chickens 
seem to like them. C. J. TYSON. 
Pennsylvania. 
Urinary Difficulty. 
I have a horse that has had kidney 
trouble since last Fall. He feels well 
and in good spirit, but _ sometimes his 
urine looks like blood, is scanty, and 
seems painful. F. w. 
New York. 
A stone or gravel in the bladder prob¬ 
ably causes the symptoms described and 
it will be necessary to have an operation 
performed by a graduate veterinarian. 
The presence of a stone or gravel may be 
determined by an examination of the 
bladder by way of the rectum. Medicinal 
treatment will do no good. A. s. A. 
Pining Cow. 
I have a fine cow about five years old 
that became fresh about the first of 
April. She was in fine order when she 
came in and had been dry about three 
months; since that time she has grad¬ 
ually lost flesh until she has become 
quite thin. She eats heartily of every¬ 
thing; grazes all day with the other 
cows, chews her cud. but never gets satis¬ 
fied as a cow should do running on good 
clover. I have been giving her some salt, 
charcoal and a pinch of soda in her bran 
and chop, but it seems to do no good. 
She got the same way last year and it 
was some time before she recovered from 
it. I am afraid to use her milk, have 
her milked once a day and feed it to fhe 
pigs and let the calf run with her at 
night. The calf keeps fat and seems 
to do well. Let me know’ what to do 
for her. A. R. 
Virginia. 
The first step should be to have this 
cow tested with tuberculin, as the 
symptoms described strongly suggest tu¬ 
berculosis as the disease present. The 
disease is incurable and contagious. If 
she proves to be free from tuberculosis 
try feeding her a dry meal, grain and hay 
ration, in place of clover. The green 
feed may be too relaxing and milk stimu¬ 
lating to allow of condition being main¬ 
tained. A. s. A. 
Scours. 
1. I have a. young heifer which I pur¬ 
chased and wish to raise. The heifer is 
two years old. has been fresh about five 
weeks. She was very thin, in fact when 
I got her she could hardly get up and 
since she calved is looking better but has 
the diarrhoea. Can you tell me what I 
can give her for it? I am giving her 
cottonseed meal at present but do not 
seem to do much good. She is always 
chewing on old rusty cans or iron. 2. 
I also have a horse which I purchased a 
short time ago; he was not afraid of 
autos for a day or two. What did they 
give? I bought him from a horse jockey, 
he is a fine horse only for that one fault. 
Will such medicine be harmful? 
New York. G. P. 
1. We strongly suspect that the heifer 
has Johne’s disease (chronic bacterial 
dysentery) which is contagious and in¬ 
curable. ' Isolate the heifer at once and 
clean up, disinfect and whitewash the 
stable which she has used, including the 
floor and gutter. To determine if Johne’s 
disease is present it would be necessary 
to have samples of the feces and pinch- 
ings of mucous membrane from the rec¬ 
tum microscopically examined by a train¬ 
ed pathologist. See if you can arrange 
to have this done at the agricultural ex¬ 
periment station of your State. Mean¬ 
while give the heifer three times daily a 
heaping tablespoonful of a mixture of 
two parts of prepared chalk and one part 
each of powdered alum, catechu and sub¬ 
nitrate of bismuth. 2. We cannot say 
what drug was used by the jockey but its 
effects no doubt will prove harmless. 
Better trade him back to the same “ex¬ 
pert.” a. s. A. 
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