54 FARMING FOR LADIES. [chap. n. 



sitions — some flighty and careless ; and others 

 looking attentively to the charge of their 

 young family, which they hring up with all 

 the care of a matron. The first, are the 

 fittest for the spit ; but the latter, should 

 always be kept so long as they are capable 

 of rearing chickens : with this observation — 

 that they should, in that case, be all of nearly 

 the same age ; for otherwise, the cock will 

 assuredly mark the difference between the 

 old and the young, and probably neglect or 

 ill treat the former. 



After the selection of the cock, comes the 

 number of hens which he should be permitted 

 to entertain, and in this there is much differ- 

 ence of opinion : some persons recommending 

 twelve to fifteen ; others ten ; and many un- 

 gallantly limiting him to six or eight, from the 

 notion that " the fewer the mistresses in a fa- 

 mily, the greater will be its comfort ;" while 

 the French and Italian housewives insist that 

 he should be indulged with a seraglio of five- 

 and-twenty ! and in the " Transactions of the 

 Highland Society," a breeder in the north of 

 Scotland insists that "one cock is sufficient 

 for twenty-four or thirty hens." 



i 



