FOWLS FOR LAYERS AKD SITTERS. Ill 



hens that had been employed much of the time the pre- 

 ceding summer in batching two or three broods. The 

 prevention of laying, by hatching and rearing, causes 

 birds thus occupied to lay earlier the next season. By a 

 little management, there is no difficulty in procuring 

 plenty of offers to sit from February to June. One-half 

 the sitting stock is kept until two years old, and of the 

 pullets of the sitting class raised yearly, some are hatched 

 in February and March, and some in the first week in 

 September, the better to secure sitting at various times 

 in the year. Except in winter, the sitters should not 

 be fed with a view to encourage laying, but the aim 

 should be to keep them on as moderate an allowance as 

 possible, and not have them become poor. Their specific 

 purpose is incubation, and they should be made to do as 

 much of this" as possible. By uniting broods, when a 

 hen has hatched one nestful of eggs she may be given 

 another immediately, and, if managed rightly, she will 

 not be injured by sitting a double term. Each hen 

 must hatch two broods per year, at least, and some will 

 hatch three. In this way, the stock of five hundred 

 sitters will produce ten thousand chickens yearly, or an 

 average of twenty apiece. 



