1883.] POULTRY RAISING. 49 



The latter tribe are not yet sufficiently acclimated to lay con- 

 stantly when the weather is very cold, and the combs and wattles 

 suffer from frost. We expect to see ere long these difficulties over- 

 come and American Leghorns free from all fault. The Plymouth 

 Rock is approaching perfection, and as it continues to be bred on 

 the Darwinian plan of "survival of the fittest," we shall perhaps 

 find in them the best breed for the majority of farmers. We have 

 one Brown Leghorn hen several years old that lays continually, 

 except when moulting, and we regret that we have not been able 

 to keep a record of the number of her eggs. 



The most remarkable hen of our flock is " Old Fluff," whose age 

 is so great there is no account of the day of her hatching. She 

 is of the Houdan family, and is known to be fifteen years old, and 

 she may be thirty or forty; yet every season she hides her nest 

 and raises a good brood, having no sympathy whatever with any 

 of the new-fangled notions that hens should live and lay in the 

 hen-house, but prefers the good old-fashioned way of stealing her 

 nest in some corner of the barn, and bringing up her children in 

 the barnyard in the improving society of the oxen, cows, and 

 calves, with an occasional visit to the pig-pen for a dish of gossip 

 over the swill-trough ; and when the cold winter winds howl, and 

 the snow blows and drifts into every crack, she sits sleepily on the 

 hay-mow and dreams of her early days on Haut-Boy Hill, when 



" In the barn the tenant cock 

 Close to Partlet perched on high, 

 Briskly crows — the Shepherd's clock — 

 Jocund that the morning's nigh." 



There are difficulties in keeping poultry accounts that are not 

 eajsily surmounted. For instance, we wish to know how many 

 eggs each hen will average for the year. If we should keep all 

 the hens one year it would be a simple problem, but we kill one or 

 more from the flock every month, and perhaps send to market 

 some in June and some in July; some are occupied in the sitting- 

 room, and some are caring for their young. How shall we arrive 

 at a just average ? We have sometimes wished to keep our fifty 

 hens from January to January, but such a plan is not practicable. 



We often see in the papers such reports as this: "No account 

 was taken of the eggs and chickens used in the family." Do you 

 call this keeping accurate statistics ? Some paper clips the follow - 

 4 



