Best Com prefer a hie. 137 



and themselves disposed of thoroughly fat 

 for the table in February, about which 

 period their laying will be finished. In 

 February, 1792, we had a fine shew of 

 white and coloured pullets, most wonder- 

 fully improved in size, although w^e had not 

 for years changed our stock, and so exces- 

 sively fat from the run of the barn-yard, 

 that they opened more like Michaelmas 

 geese than chickens. , 



Instead of giving ordinary and tail 

 CORN to my fattening and breeding poul- 

 try, I have always found it most advan- 

 tageous, to allow the heaviest and best, 

 putting the confined fowls upon a level 

 with those fed at the barn-door, where they 

 have their share of the weightiest and finest 

 corn. This high feeding shews itself not 

 only in the size and flesh of the fowls, but 

 in the size, weight, and substantial good- 

 ness of their eggs, which in those valuable 

 particulars w^ill prove far superior to the 

 eggs of fowls fed upon ordinary corn or 

 washy potatoes; two eggs of the former 

 going farther in domestic use than three of 

 the latter. The water also given to fat- 



