TOBACCO FOE SICK POULTRY.

Colonist, Volume XIII, Issue 1284, 14 January 1870, Page 4

TOBACCO FOE SICK POULTRY.

A correspondent writes as follows: — " Speaking with the wife of a working bailiff who had been a successful raiser of fowls, I asked her what plan she adopted when they were sickly ; she quickly made anawer —' I give them a quid of tobacco.' This reply so acted on my risible faculties that I could not follow up the conversation, but she further stated —' I have adopted the plau with success for ten yeara.' I then inquired why she gave it, and the quantity administered. To which she replied—' I had noticed that, when my husband was mopish and out of sorts, if he took a large quid of tobacco, he soon came round, and the thought occurred to me that it might relieve my fowls, which it always does; so whenever I see any of them sick, I give them a piece of tobacco about as large as from tbe end of my thumb to the first joint.' You can judge of my surprise as a medical man, when I state that I have seen a like quantity destroy life in a human being. Now for the sequel. In the autumn of last year I purchased some prize fowls, and one of them a month since became sickly. I gave the old woman's remedy, a piece of tobacco the size of the first joint of the thumb (i.e., 20 grams). It had a speedy and singular effect upon it; in two minutes there was a little staggering, accompanied by a peculiar twitching of the tail, which gradually became straight with the back, and ultimately trailed on the ground ; in twenty minutes the fowl appeared quite well, and has continued so. This morning my servant, as usual, let the fowls out and gave them some barley, but the dock bird appeared very sickly, and disinclined to eat. tie stood with his mouth slightly opened and wings hanging down ; in fact, what the old woman termed ' out of sorts.' As this state had lasted three or four hours, I looked at his throat, which appeared healthy, and he had nothing in his crop. I then gave him, in the quid, tobacco, i.e., 35 grains. In two or three minutes he appeared very weak, and his tail began to droop slightly ; he then sat down under a tree and remained quiet about five minutes. I then walked to him, when he got up, and in a few minutes commenced picking bodjg corn, and in a quarter cf an hour from the first taking of the tobacco, he appeared quite well, and began to crow most lustily, although he had not made the slightest offort before during the morning, which was very unusual, as he frequently crows well. To see him now, twenty-four hours after the dose of tobacco, performing his accustomed duties, one would scarcely believe that he had taken so potent a remedy. Ido not profess to give the modus operandi, but, as it acts Jike a charm, it is worth Knowing."—J. N., Colchester, in Gardener's Chronicle.