HINTS ABOUT MANAGEMENT. 115 



one position, so it may be as easily found during a storm 

 as on a bright day. Plenty of food, such as the fowls can 

 eat, without seeing it, should always be kept in the box. 

 A vessel of milk- warm water should be set in the box 

 each day, but removed before any ice is formed therein. 

 A wire screen, or one made of slats, may be placed un- 

 der the perch, to keep the fowls from walking in the 

 droppings, as it is very essential that they keep their feet 

 dry. When the weather is pleasant, let the chickens 

 out into the fresh air awhile each day, but keep them 

 out of the snow. "Wheat and screenings may well be 

 kept, say an inch deep, all the time at the bottom of 

 the feed-box, whatever other kind of feed may be given 

 extra. 



SELECTING, SELLING, ETC. 



Before a fowl is sold, a lot of the best pullets should 

 be picked out, which, with the pullets kept the pre- 

 vious winter, will make up the regular flock. The two- 

 year-old hens should be sold in the spring, as soon as 

 eggs become cheap; they sell better at that time than at 

 any other. A hen has seen her best laying days when 

 she has completed her second year. If eggs are the chief 

 object in view, the cockerels and surplus pullets should 

 be sold as early as possible. The pullets kept for winter 

 layers should be well fed and brought to maturity as 

 rapidly as possible, and they will begin laying in October; 

 and if they are cared for as herein advised, will lay 

 steadily all winter. 



EGGS IN WINTER. 



Winter is the very time when eggs are worth the 

 most, when hens want to lay as much or more than they 



