point of economy, a question only between | the different breeds of fowls and ducks. Here, again, much depends upon the produce which is required. If for eggs alone, the Spanish or the Hamburg would be selected, as they are the best layers and seldom sit. In one poultry-yard I know of an average of 240 eggs per hen per year, all being pencilled Hamburgs. Cochin Chinas also lay well and early, but not so many as the two first-named. For the table nothing beats the game-bird for roasting, or the Dorking for boiling; the latter is also as good as the former for roasting. If chickens, poults, or capons are desired, the best bird is a cross of the Bramahpootra or Cochin hen with the game-cock. These lay all the winter, and produce very fine cockerels at six months, and the chickens come early, and are also good, though not so neat as some other breeds, being unshapely at an early age. The hens are very early layers and good sitters, and the chickens very hardy, though they do not lay a great number of eggs; but if this plan is adopted, the resulting cross must not be used for breeding, as its produce will not inherit with any certainty the good qualities of either parent. The Bramahpootra has a much better form for the table than the Cochin, and crosses with the game-bird equally well. Spanish birds are wellflavoured, and though dark-feathered, yet the skin is delicate; but the chickens are not hardy enough to rear with advantage. With regard to ducks, either the true Aylesbury or the Rouen, or a cross between them, are far superior to all others; and one or the other should be selected with great care as the foundation of the breed of these birds. Sometimes, however, the locality has much to do with the selection. Those who have a warm and sheltered situation, with a fine dry soil and an extensive range, will do well to try Spanish or Dorking fowls. But if the space is confined, and the yard cold or at all damp, no fowls will be so likely to succeed as the Cochins or Bramahpootras, which may often be reared with success where other birds would perish. Bramahs, however, will not be confined so easily as Cochins, but will get over a low fence. Game-fowls and Malays are also hardy, but they require liberty. Polands thrive on a dry soil, but will bear a moderate degree of confinement; while Hamburgs are hardy, but will have liberty or die. Geese require a common, and water also, though not to any great extent. Ducks should have water of a shallow character-as, ditches or rivulets. Turkeys and game-fowls can only be reared with success upon a dry and warm soil, with plenty of run and a warm aspect. SUB-SECT. C.-MANAGEMENT OF POULTRY. 1222. Whatever breed of fowls is selected must be provided for carefully, both by proper lodging and by feeding. The chief points required, are-1st, a dry and warm lodging; 2nd, proper vegetable and animal food; 3rd, a supply of lime, pebbles, and dust; 4th, pure air and water; and, 5th, the proper rearing of the young. 1223. THE LODGING FOR ALL FOWLS should be well sheltered from the weather; and if early eggs are desired, it should also be warm, as over a stable, or against a kitchen chimney. It should front the cast or south, so as to catch the morning sun; and it should be ventilated with a window at each end, to be opened or shut at pleasure, so as to keep down the excessive heat of summer. The perches must be arranged according to the fowls to be kept; Cochins and Bramahs requiring a broad ledge only about a foot from the ground, while all others should be raised at least two feet, and should be square, with the corners rounded off. Boxes for nests are to be fixed about two feet from the ground, and in proportion to the number of hens. But, besides the fowl-house, a yard or run of some kind is desirable, unless they are to have the run of a wide, dry, and sandy common, or of an orchard or field; in which case they only require the house for protection at night, though even then a yard is desirable for the rearing of the young broods. When the hen has first hatched she should be put under a proper coop, one side of which is of solid board, and this protects her from the rain and sun, while the other is open and allows of the chickens getting through to pick up small insects, and to take the exercise which is necessary for all young animals. 1224. THE NATURAL FOOD of all poultry consists partly of vegetables and partly of insects; and this is the case whether the bird is a common fowl or a swan, a turkey or a pigeon. When, therefore, fowls are penned up in confined yards, where they cannot obtain any insects at all, and where they are often deprived of all vegetable food, but that contained in the grain upon which they are expected to thrive, the consequence often is that they become unhealthy. In all cases, it is a bad practice to under-feed poultry, and from the very first they should have a liberal supply of good and solid food. The store-hens should be got into laying condition as early as possible; and those intended for killing should be kept in good condition, always ready for the spit, from which state they may readily be made as fat as some tastes require them to be, by a very short con In like finement. The grain should be good sound to be more fat. Many people feed their wheat, or harley, or hominy, or rice-not pullets well, and keep them fat all the tail-wheat or refuse barley. Oatmeal or winter, and then kill them early in the buck-wheat, made into cakes with barley-spring, while full of flesh, and before they meal, is also good; and potatoes, steamed have laid themselves poor. In this way a and mashed up with oatmeal or barley- considerable stock of early eggs is obtained meal, is a capital article of diet. Many when at a high price, and the birds are poultry-keepers boil the grain, whether sold before they are rendered tough by a wheat, oats, maize, barley, or rice; this second year. Cramming is seldom pracpractice is generally adopted in France; tised with advantage for fowls; but for but it does not appear that there is any turkeys it is necessary to produce the great advantage in the plan, except in the amount of flesh and fat which is thought case of maize, which is too hard for most desirable. But even for the former birds in fowls, unless softened by boiling or by some cases, this plan is adopted, especially steeping. In addition to these solid mate- in the neighbourhood of London, where rials, greens of some kind should always be many are thus raised to a high weight by supplied for them to pick at; and where this system in a very short period, aided they are confined to a small range, and by crowding them in small dark pens, by cannot procure insects, a supply of animal which their natural restlessness is prefood must be afforded, or the quantity of vented from having full scope. eggs will be limited in extent. This is manner, ducks are made to assume a great especially needful for the Cochin Chinas, quantity of fat; but as their appetites are whose quiet and indolent habits never almost insatiable, they are never crammed. permit them, even when at large, to obtain | The same kind of food as for fowls soon insects in abundance. Nothing answers makes them as fat as butter, if they are better for this purpose than the refuse confined in the dark for a very short time. bones of a large family, with the meat and gristle attached to them, which the fowls will pick as clean as possible, and enjoy beyond description. When these cannot be procured in sufficient quantity, bullock's liver, or good horse-flesh, or some animal substance or other must be found; and in these days of large and extensive poultryyards, the latter-mentioned article has been most extensively employed by the most successful breeders of prize fowls. In one establishment, I have strong reason to believe, many pounds of horse-flesh per week have been regularly consumed, at a trifling cost which would have been increased twenty-fold by the use of beef or mutton. This is particularly necessary for procuring early eggs, as at that time insects and worms are rarely to be met with. For young chickens, boiled egg, or curd mixed with meal, is the best food. 1226. LIME, PEBBLES, AND DUST are as necessary as corn for fowls; the first of these being in the nature of food for the making of the shells of the eggs. Hence it is that some fowls in confinement lay soft eggs, without shells, because they cannot obtain what they want. It is true that wheat and barley, especially the former, contain a considerable quantity of me, but not enough for the shells of the eggs, and for this purpose slack-lime or old mortar must be afforded them. The latter is the best material, as it contains a proportion of sand, which acts as the natural aid to the triturating powers of the stomach. All fowls, therefore, but especially laying hens which have not their full liberty, should have access to a small heap of old mortar or slack-lime. But, beyond this, they all require pebbles to be taken into their gizzards for the purpose of aiding 1225. THE PROCESS OF FATTENING will these powerful mills in grinding down the greatly depend upon circumstances. Spring-corn upon which they feed; and therefore chickens may be put up as soon as the hen ceases to take care of them. In their pens they should be supplied with fine pebbles, but they do not take them in sufficient quantities, and hence their food must be pultaceous-as, for instance, bread and milk, barley-meal, or oatmeal mixed with potatoes and milk. When they are kept up long, a few grains of pepper will help the digestion. When chickens have the run of a farm-yard and plenty of food, they keep themselves in very good condition for the table, and their flesh is sweet, juicy, and delicately tender; but for the market they are generally required 1 these articles also must be placed within their reach, gravel being the best material for the purpose. Lastly, as fowls are prone to parasites, and are by nature induced to get rid of them by "bathering" in the dust, a supply of this article, in a dry state, should be afforded; for this there is nothing better than coal-ashes, or, better still, fine sand and coal-ashes mixed. 1227. PURE AIR AND WATER need hardly be insisted on, as their advantages are well known to every one. The former is obtained by ventilating the roosting places at night, and by giving as much liberty as possible. The latter is best afforded by a ruiming stream through the yard, however slow the supply may be. Whenever water is laid on, a draining-pipe, in the form of a halfcircle is easily led across the yard, and kept constantly running, with ever so small a stream at one end, and a corresponding waste at the other; provided that it is so arranged that the dirt falling into it may be daily washed out. a good plan to feed them on the nest, since it is a well known fact that there is a great advantage in the periodical cooling of the egg for a short time each day, which causes a contraction of the air-vessel inside the shell, and consequent imbibition of fresh air, which is a kind of respiration daily carried on. Those who hatch chickens artificially, having discovered this law of nature, reduce the temperature a few degrees every day for a stated time with great advantage, and consequent security in hatching. In selecting eggs for setting, take the newest; those above a fortnight or three weeks are not to be depended on, though sometimes they will hatch at the end of double that period. At the end of twenty-one days the chick is ready to break the egg, and, as a rule, the more completely the hen and her brood are left to nature the better. Sometimes, how will fail in its work and die inside the shell. When this is suspected, there can be no harm in breaking a small hole in the shell, not in the membrane lining it. If the proper time is arrived, this membrane will be free from blood, thin, and almost dry; whereas if otherwise, it will appear purple, and show minute blood-vessels ramifying upou it. In the latter case no harm has been done, but patience must be exercised, and perhaps on the next day the chick will deliver itself, or will then be fit to be delivered, by increasing the fracture little by little, and at intervals of two or three hours. If the hen is a quiet mother, and does not seem uneasy, it is better to leave her chickens with her till all are hatched; but sometimes she bustles about in the most officious manner as soon as one comes forth, and if this were allowed to remain she would probably destroy all the others in her restless endeavours to make much of her first bantling. In such a case a warm basket of wool by the fire is the best alternative, where the chickens may be placed as they come out until all are hatched. In the depth of winter or in the cold of spring artificial heat of some kind is required to rear chickens, and this is afforded in the 1228. THE REARING OF YOUNG POULTRY begins with the obtaining of fertilized eggs; to effect which to advantage, the cock sl. uld not be mated with more than five or six hens, though, for edible eggs, he may be allowed ten or twelve. Where a breed is to be kept up or improved, one to three is the proper number; but for all ordinary purposes the above proportion is not too great. Where a large head of poultry is maintained at liberty, there is some difficulty in reconciling the cocks to one another; but if the new comers are intro-ever, assistance is required, or the chick duced at the moulting season they will be allowed to rest in quiet till the season of laying, and in the meantime have acquired the right of possession over the dunghill as well as generally over a certain number of hens. It is, however, better in all yards to shut up each cock separately at night with the hens to which he is allotted; in that way they generally keep distinct, and no undesirable crosses are effected. An old cock generally becomes vicious, both to his own hens and to his rivals and their respective trains; when this is the case he should be dismissed as a general nuisance. When a hen is about to sit she shows her desire by ruffling her feathers and "clucking," wandering about in an uneasy manner, and sitting upon any eggs she can find, or, failing them, upon the nearest approach to them within her reach. Well-fed Dorkings are the earliest and best sitters, and will often rear a hatch in November, which, if taken care of and kept warm through the winter, are worth 8s. or 9s. a couple in February. Most hens, however, do not sit till April, May, or June, when chickens are easily reared without risk. In selecting a good sitter, she should be of large size, well feathered, and with short legs. The num-cottages of the poor by allowing them to ber of eggs which she can cover will vary, according to her size, from ten to fifteen. Some people set two hens together, and when the chickens come forth give them to one mother, reserving the other for a second hatch; and this answers well enough in the warm weather of summer; but in the spring and winter the heat of the mother's body is as much required by the chickens after they are hatched as while in the shell. Hens should be fed directly they leave the nest, but it is not live in the same room with them; but in the gentleman's poultry-yard this plan must be imitated either by allotting a pen placed at the back of a kitchen-chimney, or a stable-boiler or stove, or else by a warın stove specially devoted to the purpose, which, when there are many chickens, wif soon pay for its fuel by the saving of the chickens. If the chickens look healthy, and their plumage of down soon dries and spreads out in a regular manner, all is well, especially if they run about strongly. Do |