VI CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



CHAPTER Y.— Eggs ... ... ... ... 40 



Eggs all the Tear round — Warmth essential to laying — Forcing 

 Eggs — Soft Shells — Shape and Colour of Eggs — The Air-bag — 

 Preserving Eggs — Keeping and Choosing Eggs for setting — Sex of 

 Eggs — Packing Setting-eggs for travelling. 



CHAPTEE VI.— The Sittixg Hen ... ... ... ... 48 



Evil of restraining a Hen from sitting — Checking the Desire — A 

 separate House and Run — Nests for sitting in — Damping Eggs 

 — Filling for Nests — Choosing their own Nests — Choosing a Hen 

 for sitting — Number and Age of Eggs — Food and Exercise — Ab- 

 sence from the Nest — Examining the Eggs — Setting two Hens on 

 the same day — Time of Incubation — The "tapping" sound — 

 Breaking the Shell— Emerging from the Shell — Assisting the 

 Chicken— Artificial Mothers — Artificial Incubation. 



CHAPTER VII.— Rearing and Fattening Fowls ... ... 63 



The Chicken's first Food — Cooping the Brood — Basket and Wooden 

 Coops — Feeding Chickens — Age for Fattening — Barn-door Fat- 

 tening — Fattening-Houses — Fattening-Coops — Food— " Cram- 

 ming " — Capons and Poulardes — Killing Poultry — Plucking and 

 packing Fowls — Preserving Feathers. 



CHAPTER VIII.— Stock, Breeding, and Crossing ... ... 75 



Well-bred Fowls — Choice of Breed— Signs of Age — Breeding in- 

 and-in — Number of Hens to one Cock — Choice of a Cock — To 

 prevent Cocks from fighting — Choice of a Hen — Improved Breeds 

 — Origin of Breeds— Crossing — Choice of Breeding Stock — 

 Keeping a Breed pure. 



CHAPTER IX.— Poultry Shows ... ... ... ... 83 



The first Show — The first Birmingham Show — Influence of Shows 

 — Exhibition Rules — Hatching for Summer and Winter Shows — 

 Weight — Exhibition Fowls sitting — Matching Fowls — Imparting 

 lustre to the Plumage — Washing Fowls — Hampers — Travelling 

 — Treatment on Return— Washing the Hampers and Linings — 

 Exhibition Points— Technical Terms. 



