People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 February 1897 — DAIRY AND POULTRY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

DAIRY AND POULTRY.

INTERESTING CHAPTERS FOR OUR RURAL READERS. How Successful Farmers Operate This Department of the Farm —A Few Hints as to the Care of Live Stock and Poultry. ¥T N a recent issue of ttfce Farmers’ Review I saw an article concerning roup. I thought I would write you on —* the matter and also state the ups and downs I have had with this most dreadful disease. I will answer the person who wrote the article in the Review by saying your house is too warm, or perhaps you keep up your birds two or three days at a time in the coldest weather—then when you let them out the change is too much for them. Or perhaps you have too many in one house. What shall you do? Do not shut the house up tight at night, just enough so the combs will not freeze, a warm winter like this. I have closed both windows and doors but very few nights this winter. I eave one or the other open, but not both, for if they are opposite one another it will cause a draft. But if the wind blows in one window it will not do any damage. For treating the birds now sick, make a mixture, mostly lard with a little carbolic acid and red pepper in it. Grease their heads every day for three or four days, that is, the sick ones. Put a little of this mixture in the roof of the mouth, by means of a small cil can that has a good spring bottom that will throw it up into their heads. Then keep a little carbolic acid in their drinking water. Let them all run together, and all that can see to eat and are able to do so will be well in a week or two. Try it and let me hear if it doesn’t work. Of course, if a bird is so weak it can’t eat, I use the hatchet on those, and burn or bury them, but that is not the case once in twenty with me. Better let your birds be a little chilly at night than so warm they will take cold when out next day. Never shut up birds in a box or small house to’doctor them. The air will get foul and kill them surely. Turn them out, and if they die they would die anyway. Of course, judgment should be used, and the birds should never be turned out of doors in a hard storm or put out into a snowbank. Fowls must have fowl air, and that is fresh air, if you want them 1.0 be healthy. I know that many persons will tell you to shut up your sick fowls when you want to doctor them. But I don’t care what they say. I have been fighting the roup for ten or fifteen years. I think I have used every remedy known. I keep from 100 to 200 birds every year, and I think I have not lost six in two years from roup. Now, I expect some breeder will jump on me and say I am a crank or fool, or that my success is merely luck. Well let them say so; only, friends, try my remedy for roup, and if it be not a success write me up. Come and see my birds or write to some of my neighbors if you think that roup robs me of my sleep. True, I can look back five or six years to the time when this disease was a worry to me, but that time is gone, I hope never to return. I do not charge you anything for these cast iron rules, as some may call them, and I have nothing to sell in the medicine line. But these rules have saved my poultry, and why won’t they do the same for you? You may hear more relating to this later, and knowing that many a poor breeder has lost valuable birds for want of this very information, I am putting him only where I once stood myself. I pen this, trusting it may be of use to many and' not fall by the wayside.

H. C. Hunt.

Delavan, 111,

Home Market for Cheese. It is often said that Canadians are not cheese eaters, says the Sussex (New Brunswick) Co-operative Parmer. They are not as compared with the people of England and it seems to us for two very bad reasons and one good one. To take the last first, the good reason is the cheapness of meats and other foods, and this is not a reason that we as cheesemakers should really mind. There is a reason, though, that calls for urgent attention, and that is the high retail price of cheese. The other day we went to a store to buy seme good cheese, cheese that was bought from the factory at not more than 9 cents per pound, and what do you Imagine the retail price was? Why, nothing less than 14 cents per pound. This heavy margin, which is general among grocers all over Canada, is one bad reason why. cheese is not popular as a food among our people. It is a gross injustice to the farmers of Canada, a bad habit of trade that should be broken as soon as possible, in the interest not only of the consumer and farmer, but even the storekeepers themselves. A strong stricture on this course is that adopted by the grocers in England, who, although today they are paying very close on 11 cents for their cheese, are retailing it at sixpence per pound and realizing more profit from the business than our men who demand an increase in price of over BO per cent. By their course they create and foster a large consumption of cheese, to the great advantage of our dairymen. The Canadian grocer, when asked about his exorbitant price, claims that it is only sufllcient to cover loss in cutting. If this is so it is only a reflection on his poor management and is not a valid reason. We do not wish to see the grocer handling cheese for nothing, but there is neither right nor wisdom in placing cheese out c.f

consumption by an exwtttant retail profit, and our farmers should see than this price is made right, even if it is necessary to start a co-operative dairy store in every town to do it. Hindrances of Turkey Raising. Myrick. in his book on “Turkeys and How to Grow Them,” says: “The chief hindrances and obstacles to turkeygrowing are human and animal thieves, lice and disease. You can always find a market for your dressed turkeys; you can generally make satisfactory arrangements with your neighbors, if your birds trespass upon their land; but all the obstacles may be overcome by patience, perseverance and intelligence. In the more thickly settled portions of the country, thieves are the worst enemies the turkey grower has. In some parts of New England poultry thieving seems to be a profession with some people, as our court records, when a culprit is caught, will show. But these thieves rarely steal in their own neighborhood. They center in some large town or city and go out by night with teams, five, ten, and sometimes twenty miles in their predatory excursions. If your turkeys roost out of doors, it will be necessary to keep one or more dogs to warn you of the approach of the thieves. Of animals, dogs do more mischief than foxes. If you cannot cure your dog of worrying turkeys, shoot him. For other animals, the gun, traps and poison, judiciously used, are effective remedies. Lice, a great annoyance to the poultry keeper, may be exterminated from your flock, if they get possession, but it is easier to keep them away. If the young turkey begins to droop, refuses to eat, and acts depressed, at once examine the head for lice. You many find three or four large brown ones half buried in the flesh. Remove them and rub the head with sweet oil or fresh lard mixed with kerosene. Examine also the ends of the wings. There you may find some large gray lice, which must be treated in like manner. If you know that all insects, from the largest dragon fly to the minutest hen louse, have no lungs like animals, but breathe through countless pores in their skin, then you will know that what will close these pores will cause suffocation. Dust and grease will do this.”

Tuberculin Test in Kngland. From the Dairy World of London we take the following: During the recent congress of the Sanitary Institute in Newcastle, the compulsory use of the tuberculin test, in order to free our dairy herds from tuberculosis was freely advocated. Some very useful information on the subject has arrived from America, which cannot fail to be interesting to those who followed the papers on the subject. A good example is quoted of a large dairy herd belonging to Mr. G. W. Ladd, of Bloomfield. This was inspected early this year, and several animals condemned and got rid of. The whole of the byres and barns were thoroughly disinfected, and everything done to help on the work of eradication. Six months after he demanded and obtained a second test, which showed that every animal in his herd was free from the disease. In the official report issued by the state a number of such cases are reported, and it is stated that in only some 2 per cent of the herds, tested the second time were traces of disease still to be found.

Milk Regularly. An exchange advises that if you milk at 6 o’clock, morning and evening, do so every day as nearly as you can, says Texas Live Stock Journal. If you feed before milking, do so always, for the cow expects it, and is disappointed if she does not get it before being milked, and the chances are that she will not give down freely and fully. When you commence to milk do not stop until you have finished to the last drop. Many cows will withhold their milk in whole or in part if the milker is not ready to take the milk when she is ready to give it. Any unusual excitement at milking will cause the cow, many times, to withhold her milk. Let each milker have his special cows to milk, and never change milkers, unless obliged to do so. If from any cause or neglect a cow is made to shrink her flow of milk, you probably will not get her back again to her normal flow until she has her next calf. Remember, if you excite or ill treat a cow you pay for it at the expense of impoverished milk. ' Have a Feeding Floor. —We have seen corn thrown to hogs in lots so muddy that the ears would sink in the mud and filth and the hogs had to lift out the ears and carry them to some solid place before they could eat. And yet the farmer called this fattening hogs. When asked why he did not put down a fattening floor, he said he could “not afford it.” The fact is he could not afford to waste feed by throwing it into a mud-hole. The saving of corn and energy is a double saving. It takes feed to produce energy, and if part of the feed is expended in producing rooting power, just so much is wasted and by so much is the cost per pound of growth increased. It pays to have clean ground or floors to feed pigs on, where they waste no corn, and eat in quiet and comfort. —Rural World. The Worden Grape.—A black grape so neary identical in bunch, berry, growth, hardiness and productiveness with the Concord that they can scarcely be distinguished from each other, except the Worden may be a few days earlier, and is more tender in the skin and will not handle and ship as well; subject to rot. —Ex. Animal food being prohibited by the Japanese religion, and milk, being an animal product, is never used In Japan. No milking herds or milk-yard are ever seen. The barn-yard fowl is practically unknown. The hired man on the dairy farm Is fcn important factor.