1812.] On Poultry Yard.^» - 
X<9 the Editor of the Monthly Magazine, 
SIR 
CORRESPONDENT, II—. in your 
number for last May, p. 322, mak¬ 
ing some observations upon a former 
essay of mine oii poultry, desires to be 
informed, (since in dry, sandy, and cal¬ 
careous, districts, little of disease is known 
among poultry,) whether a poultry yard 
might not be so constructed as to com¬ 
bine all the advantages of such a soil, 
ty laying upon it a stratum of sand, 
grave], or other dry earth, of a sufficient 
thickness, by raising it in the centre, and 
letting it slope niFin the sides: I answer, 
that, upon a wet and poaching soil, I 
have taken such measures with success, 
raising the poultry walks with chalk and 
gravel, and also the feeding and other 
houses, with the same dry and salubrious 
materials ; steps absolutely necesssary to 
making the most of feathered stock, upon 
clay soils. 
My present stock of poultry is very 
diminutive, compared with its former ex¬ 
tent; but it is a subject on whicli my 
memoranda furnish me with much 
more than I have hitherto communi¬ 
cated, and which may perhaps form the 
matter of some future essay. I will just 
remark, that, many years ago, I made the 
experiment of hatching after the Egyp¬ 
tian mode, by artificial heat, both from 
fire and dung, but without any warrant¬ 
able success, as to the numbers reared. 
It is practicable enough to hatch the 
eggs; the grand dirScuity is in rearing 
the chickens, and in the construction 
of an artificial mother of sufficient 
warmth, particularly by night ; a diffi¬ 
culty, I am convineed from many trials, 
utterly insuperable in our, perhaps in 
in any northern, climate. An equal ditfi- 
culty I have found to attend the success¬ 
ful rearing of silk-worms t you may breed 
them in plenty, and our climate agrees 
perfectly with them, but you cannot feed 
them. No vegetable, hitherto discover¬ 
ed, will agree with silk-worms, but the 
leaf of the mulberry, which, in our cli- 
iTiate, does not come early enough for 
them ; whatever food you give them in 
the interim, is almost poison to them. 
Another correspondent, ficion, in the 
last number, p. 106, desires to be inform¬ 
ed on the nature, means of prevention, 
and cure, of the American blight in ap¬ 
ple trees. I will tell him, in few words, 
all that the observation of many years 
has told me. The American blight is 
jauch of the nature and consequence of 
•American Blighty Ki\ 
other blights, and would be, with the 
greatest certainty, either preveitted or 
cured, by tying up in aTag, during part of 
the spring and summer montlis, all north¬ 
east winds; and if, during our late great 
inffuence in the Baltic, your correspon¬ 
dent has secured a connection of the 
kind in Lapland, I would advise him ta 
procure from thence, for the next occa¬ 
sion, the delinquent wind, securely bot¬ 
tled, corked,and saga-hermelicaliy sealed. 
Seriouslyknow of no sufficient rea¬ 
son why this peculiar forni of blight 
should be styled American, since it is 
probably indigenous to both countries; 
and, if my recollection be correct, was 
described by our old w'riters, long before 
its suoposed introduction from America, 
not only as affecting apple, but in some 
seasons forest, trees. The same also ia 
Hanover, and other parts of Germany. 
At any rate, it obeys the usual law^s of 
blight, and is never visible in perfectly 
genial seasons, W’hen west and south-west 
winds,with warm weather, and occasional 
showers, predominate throughout. 
It does seem somewhat strange, that 
harsh, cold, and ungenial, weather, so. 
contrary to nature’s general influence and 
plan, should brood and bring fortii any 
species of animal life —that eggs should 
be hatched by cold, instead of iieat I 
Yet this is .a law of nature, or, rather, au 
exception to its general Jaws, with re¬ 
spect to the blight-insects, the eggs of 
which are hatched upon foliage blighted, 
that is blasted or withered, either by cold 
or heat, either by the severe action of 
cold winds or of the electric fluid. 
A leaf in its perfect health, and with¬ 
out the least shadow or trace of ova^ or 
insect, by the best glass, shall, from a 
turn of the wind, easterly and northerly, 
receive an instantaneous blight, and in a 
few hours appear covered with mucor^ 
or mould, either the nidm of ova or eggs, 
or the eggs themselves: a few days 
thenceforth shall produce the aphides^ 
Or blight-insects, proper to the plant; 
these insects wait^ some weeks probably, 
until they acquire wings, and then take 
their flight. 
Omnia ab ovo, all things from the egg; 
but where do these blight-eggs lie so con¬ 
veniently perdue, and ready to pop upon 
us, or, rather, upon the plants, at a mo¬ 
ment’s warning, and at the stern com¬ 
mand of rude Boreas, and the parching 
and shrivelling east-wind? ]t must be, 
surely, too long a voyage for their little 
egg-ships, although sailing with the wind 
3 Z 2 right 
