POULTRY. 549 



and sulphur, mixed. Dust baths should also be furnished, in which they may scratch; com 

 mon soil, road dust, or coal ashes will do for this purpose. If practicable, the hens should 

 be permitted to leave the yard for an hour towards night, thus giving them the benefit of 

 exercise, and scratching in the garden among the grass or fruit trees. While they are enjoy 

 ing this exercise, a portion of the yard should be spaded up, so that they can have access to 

 fresh earth worms and grubs, which they will be busy in finding early the next morning. 

 &quot;When kept in confinement, fowls should also have fresh grass thrown into the yards, since 

 they require considerable green food. The feed should be varied and frequently changed, 

 consisting of corn, oats, buckwheat, wheat, barley, mush, scraps from the table, mashed 

 boiled potatoes, meat scraps, etc. Green food is also relished by them, such as green turnips, 

 beets, cabbage, and occasionally onions chopped fine. The latter are very healthful and are 

 much relished by hens. If fed to them more frequently than once a week or ten days, how 

 ever, it will have a tendency to give the eggs an unpleasant onion flavor. They should 

 always be supplied with ground shells, broken bones, and plenty of gravel. Coal ashes con 

 taining small clinkers may be furnished them, as well as bits of broken plaster. When thus 

 cared for, there will be no lack of eggs during the hot weather, and the results will well repay 

 for the care and labor bestowed. 



Care of Poultry in Winter. Whether a large or small number of eggs be sup 

 plied by the hens in winter, depends on the care they receive. Mr. Alexander Hyde 

 says on this subject: &quot;In the summer, hens that are allowed a free run of the farm can 

 scratch for a living, and generally can pick up enough not only to keep soul and body 

 together, but also to develop new life in their ovaries. Not so when the ground is frozen 

 and covered with snow. Biddy finds scratching at this season a hard business. She now 

 requires more food to keep up animal heat, and to expect eggs from her without furnishing 

 her a comfortable room and suitable material for manufacturing them, is as unreasonable as 

 it was in Pharaoh to exact the regular toll of bricks from the Israelites without furnishing 

 straw with which to burn them. The profit from hens is small if they lay only in summer, 

 and make no returns in winter. 



The complaint of the old woman who said, &quot;My hens are good-for-nothing critters; 

 when eggs are cheap they lay, and when eggs are dear they lay nary a one,&quot; had some foun 

 dation, but the trouble was not with the &quot;critters.&quot; Hens are just as ready to lay in winter 

 as in summer, provided the conditions are all right; and as eggs bring double, if not triple, 

 price during the cold season, the net income may be made as great at this time as in 

 summer. 



The question then returns, what are the conditions that will make hens profitable in 

 winter ? There are only two. The first is a warm, well-lighted, well ventilated, and every 

 way comfortable hennery. The hen is a native of a warm climate, and our cold air and frozen 

 or snow-covered ground are not congenial to her. When compelled to wade in the snow she 

 treads lightly, often holding up one foot to warm it in her feathery muff, and if left to roost 

 upon a tree, she turns her head windward, so that the breeze may not ruffle her feathers, and 

 the careless farmer may think she is comfortable, but frozen toes and combs are often the 

 result, and if any one expects his hens to give their energies to the manufacture of eggs, 

 when they are all required for fighting the frost, he expects too much. The hennery need 

 not be an extensive structure. Much useless fancy work is often expended upon it, as if 

 hens, being beautiful animals, must needs demand a beautiful house ; but they know no differ 

 ence between a shanty and a palace, and will lay just as many eggs in a hemlock box, as in 

 one made of mahogany. . 



Let the rich poultry fanciers spend as much as they please upon biddy s house, but the 

 farmer who has an eye to profit has no occasion to invest much capital in poultry fixtures. 



The most successful hennery I ever saw was in the basement of a shed built on a side hill, 

 VOL. II. 30 



