106 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



from a dozen to thirty, perhaps a little while in chicken-time 

 more. How did he do it? By having a regular daily system 

 of cleanliness and of feeding these fowls. In the autumn, 

 some Saturday, when school did not keep, he drew with a 

 horse a certain amount of gravel, which he put in a round 

 pile like a haycock ; and that fresh, fine gravel was con- 

 stantly kept on the ground floor, in which the hens might 

 wallow. The walls and ceiling of this little hennery were 

 kept white-washed. A little powdered sulphur was used to 

 keep away the lice. A board platform or floor was erected 

 under the roosts, up from the ground : this floor was kept 

 sprinlded with ashes or sand ; and each Saturday these plat- 

 forms were completely cleared of the droppings, which were 

 saved in barrels. 



Ground oyster-shells were constantly kept before these 

 fowls; a little chopped cabbage-leaves or turnip-tops were 

 often thrown in. And then these fowls were fed on a variety 

 of food at regular times. A warm breakfast of scalded In- 

 dian-meal and shorts, and often, in cold weather, seasoned 

 with a little pulverized cayenne-pepper, with a good meal of 

 whole grain, such as damaged wheat, oats, or corn in the 

 afternoon ; a little chopped meat or scraps, say twice a week, 

 with a pan or little tub of fresh water in one corner ; and 

 with this treatment these hens were cackling in their warm 

 house, supplied with sun all the forenoon. And, when he 

 carried the afternoon meal after school, twenty-five seem- 

 ingly happy hens would present him with fifteen, eighteen, 

 twenty, and sometimes twenty-one or twenty-two nice fresh 

 eggs ; while the mercury was often down to, and sometimes 

 ten degrees below, zero. 



Several neighbors, each of whom kept more fowls than 

 this boy, and fed more feed in proportion to their number 

 than he, but with no regular system whatever, did not pro- 

 duce an egg during the winter, not one, and were glad to 

 purchase fresh eggs of this young man, and wondered why 

 his hens were so much better than theirs. It seemed to take 

 but little of this boy's time, — a few minutes in the morning 

 for their warm breakfast, and about as long after school to 

 carry their grain, and bring in the eggs, and on Saturday an 

 hour or two to clean up and to regulate things. In comput- 

 ing the net profits of these few fowls we have not taken into 



