74 THE REARING AND 



are not likely to do so.* The chicks for the first week or two 

 look well enough, and it is not to be expected that the very 

 first seeds of disorder should be apparent ; but no farmer's 

 wife would be pleased that her stock had the look of those that 

 get to be six weeks or two months old. Compare the tables 

 of mortality amongst infants in the French Foundling Hospi- 

 tals with those calculated on the families of healthy English 

 cottagers, and the contrast will be a guide to the relative me- 

 rits of the natural and the artificial modes of rearing Chickens, 

 Turkeys, and Guinea-fowl. And what becomes of the Hens 

 belonging to such establishments which desire to sit, but are 

 prevented on principle from doing so, on eggs at least ? They 

 are just put up to fatten as soon as they become broody, and 

 after a certain time killed to be eaten. No one who knew 

 any thing about Fowls would select such for his table from 

 choice. It cannot be expected that those Professors, who are 

 unable to raise sufficient chickens for the supply of a small 

 neighbourhood, should be able to communicate the art of afford- 

 ing plenty to a nation, even by means of a patented apparatus 

 and an expensive license. Were all the chickens reared that 

 are hatched by Hens alone, poultry would be much more 

 abundant than it is at present. The artificial hatching of 

 Ducks and Geese is a more promising speculation than the 

 same attempt upon Fowls ; but if it were entered upon to any 



* My friend H. L. Devereux, Esq., of Dedham, Mass, writes me, 

 " My experience in raising Fowls is, that the young chicks are as 

 well off without a Hen as with, provided you give them a dry, ivarm 

 place, they need much to be kept dry. I have this season raised 

 about a dozen fine pullets of the Forbes Stock, without a Hen, which 

 did better than those I let run with a hen. I gave them to eat, 

 cracked corn, wet with water or milk, curd, broken wheat, bread, 

 some potatoes, and, in fact, they will eat almost any thing you throw 

 to them." ED. 



