760 I^R' CEASE'S BECIPES, 



III. Buckwheat is especially valuable as s fattener, and is also par- 

 ticularly an egg producer, besides it is well liked by poultry generally. 



IV. Oats are not a favorite with poultry unless ground and made into 

 dough, no doubt for the reason of its length of kernel, in the sharpness of th» 

 ends, making it difficult to swallow. 



V. Fine Gravel, unless they have easy and near access to it, shoula 

 always be kept where the poultry can scratch and pick it over, as they will do 

 daily, and eat it in considerable quantities as an aid in cutting their food in the 

 gizzard. 



VI. Charcoal, broken finely, should also always be given them once or 

 twice a week at all times of the year. 



Raising Chickens, by a City Woman, with Great Success.— 

 The following was reported through the Country Oentleman. The lady says: 



"I have brought up chickens by hand; had 103 at one time, and never had 

 an insect (lice) on them. I put sulphur under their wings and on the backs of 

 their heads, and once or twice put a pinch in their food, and they were perfect- 

 ly free from these exhausting pests. Speaking of chickens, I would like to 

 say for the benefit of novices (beginners) in chicken raising, I am one who 

 never had a case of gapes among my chickens; never saw a chicken with the 

 gapes. I think the reason was I never let them run in the damp, and if I saw 

 any tendency to looseness of the bowels, I always put a stiff dose of cayenne 

 pepper in the food every day until they were cured, and out of 109 chickens - 

 hatched I only lost four, and those died from accidents — boards fell on them, 

 I never let my young chickens run unheeded in the grass. I fixed up what I 

 called "my yard," with boards propped against sticks driven into the grass; 

 and then I covered over the whole place with mosquito netting to keep the 

 little ones in, and to prevent the old fowls from stealing the young chicken's 

 food. Chickens must be fed every three or four hours at first. [Allow 

 me to say here, not the first day, but after that.] I never feared hawks, for 

 we kept Guinea hens, and never lost a chicken. Many country people have 

 expressed astonishment that I, a city woman, should bring up chickens that 

 never had the gapes. Great care did it. Never let a chicken get its feet wet, 

 and it will never have the gapes. I always had plenty of coal ashes for the 

 little things to roll and pick in; ashes, not cinders. If a number of chickens 

 are in one place (I had about thirty in each place,) the ashes must be changed 

 once a week while they are very young, and every other day as they grow 

 older." 



I will mention, for the good of others, I visited a family during the past 

 eummer (1884), in a village in Ohio, where the woman was raising about 100 

 chickens in a space not two rods square. I remarked to her, "you have four 

 times as many chickens in that yard as you ought to have," etc. The cholera 

 got amongst them and she lost a large number of them, not long after. 



Many persons in different sections of the country are using some of the 

 incubators, such as we see at the fairs, for hatching and raising chickens. 

 ;some use heat from lamps to keep the eggs at about 102 degrees F., and some 

 use the heat produced by fermenting horse manure, for the same purpose ; but 

 before any one goes into either plan extensively, they had better be certain they 

 Lave not been humbugged or deceived in the information they received about 

 the undertaking. To give proper instructionc would require mucb more space 



