190 MY FARM. 



say, as logically, as ever any old-school dialectician 

 in his metaphysical homilies. 



Nothing could be more r charming than the ar 

 rangement, matured with the co-operation of an 

 ingenious country carpenter, by which my fowls 

 were to lay in one set of boxes, carefully darkened, 

 and to carry on their incubation in another set of 

 boxes, made cheery (against the long confinement), 

 with sky-light ; there were admirable little architec 

 tural galleries through which they were to prome 

 nade in the intervals of these maternal duties adroit 

 disposition of courts, and feeding troughs, so that 

 there should be no ill-advised collision, but it was 

 all in vain. Hens persisted in laying where they 

 should not lay, and in setting, with badly-directed 

 instinct, upon the dreariest of porcelain eggs. The 

 fowls of my Somersetshire neighbor, meantime, at 

 the stone cottage, with nothing more orderly in the 

 way of nests, than a stray lodgment in the haymow, 

 or a castaway basket looped under the rafters of a 

 shed, brought out brood after brood, so full, and 

 fresh, and lusty, as to put my architectural devices to 

 shame. 



At certain times, when the condition of the gul 

 den or crops allow it, I permit my fowls free forage ; 

 and as they stroll off over the lawn and among the 

 shrubberies, it sometimes happens that they come in 



