MANAGEMENT OF FOWLS. 97 



various food, is indispensable to perfect health, rapid growth, 

 and a profitable yield of eggs. It is not possible to compensate 

 a laying Hen for the want of liberty. Coop her up give her 

 grain, meat, vegetables, fruit, water, gravel, lime, every thing 

 that may be thought conducive to health and comfort, and 

 though her yield of eggs will greatly exceed that of alien confined 

 and kept in an ordinary way, it will by no means compare 

 with that of a Hen in a state of liberty, equally well kept, 

 one that breathes the wholesome, free, circulating air, and 

 picks grass, gravel, worms, and insects, to suit herself. The 

 want of range has almost as much effect on the comparative 

 barrenness of a Hen in winter, as the cold. Liberty and varied 

 abundance are the two greatest essentials for poultry, old and 

 young, to promote health, growth, beauty, and fertility. 



Lice have very justly been considered the greatest draw- 

 back to the success and pleasure of the poultry-fancier, and 

 nothing short of unremitting vigilance will exterminate them, 

 and keep them exterminated. To attain this, whitewash 

 frequently all the parts adjacent to the roosting poles, take 

 down these, and run them slowly through a fire made of wood 

 shavings, dry weeds, or other light waste combustibles, until 

 every adhering louse and lousette is demolished. Flowers of 

 sulphur (which costs five or six cents a pound) given to Fowls 

 with Indian meal, is highly recommended; about one ounce 

 to a chicken, to be given in as short a time as they can be 

 induced to eat it. This to be repeated, at discretion. I have 

 tried these combined remedies, apparently with good result. 

 What share the sulphur had in it, I cannot positively say. 

 It certainly never injured the chickens, and very probably 

 improved their general health. In warm and moderate 

 weather, the best place for poultry to roost is in the open air, 

 where sunshine, and rain, and wind tend equally to the de- 

 struction of parasites. 



Hens should be made to lay in portable boxes, that may be 



