Poultry as Insecticides. 77 



Twenty-five pullets are placed in each very early in the spring ; 

 or they may be wintered there, with a cock if breeding is de- 

 sired. As soon as one becomes broody, she is furnished 

 with a clutch of eggs, either hen's or duck's, as desired, 

 and when they are hatched she is cooped in or near the house 

 until the younglings are a couple of weeks old, more or less, 

 when they are allowed to run at large. Each night, at egg- 

 gathering time, each lot of old fowls are fed a proper allow- 

 ance of whole corn. This insures their "coming home to 

 roost, 1 ' and makes them so contented and happy that they 

 never mix, even where the houses are not more than 20 rods 

 apart. Of course, the chicks when young are fed oftener and 

 on suitable food. 



All this takes but a small amount of time each day ; while 

 the results are very satisfactory in more ways than one. We 

 get many hundreds of dozens of eggs while the price is com- 

 paratively high. We raise from one to several tons of poultry, 

 which, by watching the markets, we sell at good prices, and 

 which in reality have already paid a fine profit beyond the cost 

 of raising by the decrease of insects and the increased fairness 

 and value of the apples. 



By selecting the earliest-hatched pullets for wintering-over, 

 we always have a large yield of eggs to sell during the scarcity 

 and consequent high prices of winter. While we make use of 

 all the means known to us for reducing the number and depre- 

 dations of insects, we know of no means so perfectly and 

 cheaply effectual as the keeping of poultry in the orchards. 



After trying very many of the newer breeds of fowls at the 

 farm, we have now fairly settled down to the conviction that 

 none is in all respects equal to the Plymouth Rocks. They 

 combine more of the following good qualities than any other 

 breed we have ever tried hardiness, early maturity, quiet- 

 ness, abundance of good-sized eggs, even in winter, and size of 

 carcass. We think this emphatically a general-purpose fowl. 



We select each year about 25 to 30 hens, in every way 

 models, and with these we mate a cockerel as nearly perfect as 



