Connecticut western news., 1879-07-16
FARM AND GARDEN.
A HEN STORY.

 months of this year 2,3l3 eggs-an average of 55 3-42 to each. From my flock of 28 hens, during the same period I gathered 1,769 eggs-an average Of 63 5-28 to each. I also was troubled with egg-eating in January and Feb ruary, when the cold made it necessary to keep the fowls in confinement. My hens are mostly three-quarter and pure Brown Leghorns. Feed, six quarts of shorts in the morning, mixed with the best liquid I happened to have at the time-lnilk, pot liquor or pure water. At night, three quarts cracked corn, dry. While confined, few handfuls of chop ped apples or mangolds were given, and two or three times month half dozen red peppers scalded in the water, and mixed, peppers and all, with the shorts. Burnt bones, oyster shells, etc., at all times.-Helen y. Bailey, Merrimack Co.,, N 4.
 IS RoOT-FEEDING PROFITABLE?
 While numerous experiments have been made on the cultivation of root crops, it is singular that so few feeding experiments have been tried with roots. MT. Sanborn, Farm Superintendent at the New Hampshire Agricultural Col lege, gives us his experience of the last two years in feeding roots to steers. The trial was continued through the winter and spring; the pair of steers fed on hay and turnips consumed 63 bushels of turnips, and 716 pounds less of hay than the pair fed on hay alone, and gained 4S pounds more in weight.
 Calling the value of the hay saved, at $12 ton, $4.29, and of the excess of beef produced $2.O1, total of $630, MT. Sanborn thus estimates the feeding value of the roots at 10 cents bushel. When both lots were afterward fed alike on hay alone, and in the pasture in the summer, the lot that had been fed with turnips and hay in the winter lost all its surplus gain, and in this case we would have only the saving of hay to set off against the turnips, and feeding value of 6.8 cents per bushel. The first estimate, which may be considered as the fairer one, comes near that given by MT. Harry Lewis, that bushel of roots is worth as many cents as hay is worth dollars per ton.
 Similar experiments in the second season gave feeding value of 9 cents per bushel for turnips. A writer some years ago asserted that steers and heifers fed freely on roots from October to May for two seasons will be as large and for ward as after three seasons without roots, but he gave no results of experi- ments in proof of the statement. The subject is an important one, on which we apparently need more light. It is no small trouble to raise root crops, and till we know more accurately what is their actual feeding value, we can hardly tell whether the crop is profitable one to raise under all circumstances.
 DISEASE IN POULTRY.
 A serious disease is prevalent among poultry. It seems to be akin to the prevalent disease among swine. On ex. animation of several dead fowls belong ing to neighbors and one of my own, ] find the same appearance in all-the
 bowels black and gangrenous; the liver
 soft, disintegrated, and filled with black
 spots, which under the microscope show
 masses of broken-up cells with dark
 blood globules. It is true enteric ol
 intestinal fever, originating from gastric
 or bilious Arrangement, as in the ty
 phoid fever in horses or cattle, ant swine. Generally the dead fowls ar' exceedingly fat about the intestines, al though not plump as to the genera
 structure. The symptoms are yellow ishness of the comb, wattles, and skil about the eyes; dullness and disinclina tion to move; difficulty in swallowing great heat about the throat, land costive ness; followed or varied by profuse green frothy, or black, fetid discharges. Tn
 disease is true blood disorder, and, il all probability, results from overfeedin! and forcing for the production of eggs just as the typhoid fever of swine i caused by too much corn; and that 0 cattle by excess of suoculent pasture, o 3 indigestible dry herbage. A remed 8 has been found in blue mass, in hali :: grain doses, given three or four times followed by plenty of sulphur in tn
 food. In some cases relief has bee . found, and the disease stopped, by giv ing hyposulphate of soda freely, on l dram for each dozen fowls, either dis 3 solved in drinking water, or in soft food ? such as meal mush. The latter treat ment, with liberal reduction in tn s rations, has stopped the disease in m : yards.