300 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



ing. Statements were received from three-fourths of the ex- 

 hibitors, all very brief, none of them full in all points ; for 

 instance, only one contained anything on the mode of raising, 

 and this was deficient on all other points except breeding. One, 

 a fair specimen of the whole, contained six words and four 

 figures, and probably answered every purpose except the promo- 

 tion of the poultry interest by the diffusion of useful information. 

 Nine said nothing about their modes of feeding. Two fed on 

 corn ; two on corn and meal ; one on corn, meal and oats. The 

 mode of raising chickens of the gentleman to whose statement I 

 referred, is as follows : he feeds them on cracked corn, soaked in 

 skimmed milk, with milk to drink, and lets them run at large. 

 Has raised over a hundred this year without one case of sickness. 

 In summer, his old jowls are kept in a yard most of the time, 

 with food by them constantly. In winter, their food is oats and 

 corn with a few boiled potatoes, with plenty of water. 



The results of this mode of feeding are good as far as health 

 is concerned, and the fowls exhibited by the gentleman showed 

 what could be done by it. I think a change of food would have 

 been well occasionally, and that a substitution of oat-meal or 

 ground oats and barley part of the time, especially at first, would 

 have been better, also some whole barley as soon as the chicks 

 were old enough to eat it. Corn contains more of fat-forming 

 material, and the other grains, of that which goes to make bone 

 and flesh. If size is wanted, it is important that suitable food 

 should be furnished in the first few weeks. Milk is good for 

 drink, and with eggs made into a custard is frequently given. 

 Boiled eggs at first is a very common way of feeding. Cooked 

 meat chopped fine occasionally — growing grass cut short early 

 in the season and mixed with the food, — wheat bread or oat- 

 meal steeped in Scotch ale in severe weather, and for weakly 

 chickens, — sulphate of iron in the drinking water, for the same 

 purpose — camphor gum in the water to prevent gapes,— these 

 things and some others, I have tested and find beneficial. 



The rearing and management of poultry is a fascinating pur- 

 suit. Who, having been engaged in it any length of time, does 

 not look back with the liveliest emotions to the period when he 

 first took an interest in it ? It may have been a small beginning, 

 the results of which as well as of later endeavors may have been 

 discouraging ; but the attraction still continued, and as he 



