FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 277 



are kept, the breaking up of sitting liens will be frequently necessary. Tliis is 

 best done by shutting the hen away from the nest, in sight of the other hens. 

 A little pen made of pickets or lath, with shelter from storms, will answer 

 the purpose admirably. Pins driven into the ground about four inches apart 

 will prevent the sitting attitude and more quickly banish tlie sitting fever. 



Aukwin Duties. 



These are pleasant, for now the March chickens are tender and luscious, and 

 the injunction "kill and eat" will not be hard to follow. By New Years I 

 would have killed all the cockerels, except one or two of the finest, to be used for 

 breeding the next season. Our cockerels hatched last March weighed 8 pounds 

 in October. At 18 months they would have weighed 11 pounds. Hence, to 

 keep them beyond 10 months is not the part of wisdom. After January 1, kill 

 for the table such of the old hens and pullets as are not up to the standard. In 

 no case is it best to keep a fowl beyond two years. 



In summer and autumn eggs are often very plenty and yet hardly worth 

 marketing. Such may be kept by burying in salt, or by coating with olive oil 

 in which a little beeswax or paraffine had beeu melted. A better method, and 

 one that will keep eggs so that even a Frenchman will find it hard to tell them 

 from fresh eggs, is to place them in a fluid prepared as follows : To a gallon 

 of boiling water add a quart of fresh lime. Stir for some time, and when cold 

 strain it and add one-fourth pound salt and one ounce of ci'eam of tartar. 

 Fresh eggs, put at once — the day when laid — into this liquid and kept sub- 

 merged till winter, will readily pass as fresh eggs. The pains taken keeps 

 them fresh. 



Care in Breeding. 



In breeding poultry, as in breeding cattle, sheep, pigs or bees, we should 

 have in our mind an ideal animal, and only breed from such of our stock as 

 approach the most nearly to our ideal. In this way we not only improve our 

 stock, but our business becomes a fine art. We are thus led to observe closelj', 

 to think as we work, and we find a rich pleasure in our business. 



It is the opinion of some of our best breeders that the impure mating of a 

 hen, if but for once, renders her forever afterward a cross. This view is urged 

 by Wright, our greatest authority on poultry culture, by Burnham, one of the 

 first of our American writers and breeders, and receives assent from Dr. Miles 

 in his valuable work on " Stock Breeding." Felch, on the contrary, whose 

 strain of light Brahmas is unsurpassed, contends, after years of experience, 

 that there is no ground for the opinion. Being somewhat incredulous, I insti- 

 tuted the past spring the following experiment : My pure light Brahmas and 

 brown Leghorns had run together all winter. The first of February I removed 

 my light Brahma cocks, and in three weeks put 15 brown Leghorn eggs under 

 a sitting hen. I repeated this at intervals of seven days for four weeks, when 

 I removed my Leghorn cocks and returned the Brahmas. Three weeks after 

 this I set 15 Brahma eggs, a week later 15 more, and so on till as before I had 

 four hens engaged in the work of incubation. The first brood in each case fur- 

 nished two or three chickens whose purity there was some slight reason to 

 doubt. The others, and there were over 50 of the light Brahmas, show not the 

 least mark of impurity. But, says one, it will creep out; just give it time. 

 Most certainly I shall do so. I shall keep the Brahmas and breed from them, 

 and if it does crop out I shall see it, and will as certainly report. 



