Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 July 1880 — Poultry Vermin. [ARTICLE]

Poultry Vermin.

There are many recipes for driving vsnain away from poultry and houses The inventors of these are shrewd i they know that people are naturally indolent in berth body and mind; that they never guard against invasion, bul wait until the enemy is upon them, and then bny np all the new-fongled nostrums, kill all the lice, and half kill all the hens and chickens, and at once begin to do some tall crowing. Ail poultry vermin delight in moist or damp places: in fiact, they can’t live anywhere else. That's the principle. Now what does it suggest? Why, the suggestion la obvious; don’t have any damp places’ and that means a dry chicken noose, a dry earth floor, a dry roof, no manure allowed to accumulate on the floor or under the perches, because that is always damp, and absorbs dampness from the air. Build two chicken houses, one in a low, damp, ill ventilated place, and the other on a high, dry, sonny, airy spot, and let your flock choose; the moat miserable old hen “that ever was” knows better what she wants than the most dignified, dandyish, intellectually refined poultry fonder that the hen fever ever produced. Remember! a water-tight house, a pound or Bandy floor, plenty of sunlight and freeh air, ana your children will have to go to college' to learn the etemology of the hen-house, instead of brushing vermin off of every egg they bring to the housekeeper. To prevent a hen from setting, tie a wisp of straw about half the sise es a wine bettle upon her beck. When she feels the incumbrance, she gets off the nest and runs wildly about, striving in every way to free herself from it. Alter two or three days’ useless straggle, she resigns herself to her fate, and apparently makes up her mind to the inevitable. The win of straw may then be removed, ■nd it will be found that her exertions have so changed the current of her thoughts that she henceforth gives np all idea of setting, and seeks consolation for her wounded feelings in diligently laying eggs. ' - -

The lark goes singing toward heavsn; but if she fltepa the motion of her winn then straightway ahe folk. So it n with him who prays not Prayer is the movement of the wings of ths soul; it bears heavenward, but without prayer he sinks in the filth of earthly ImpTiVna