130 THE DOMESTIC FOWL. 



try with boiled grain, and this was readily ascertained 

 from knowing, first, how much dry grain sufficed one 

 or more fowls, and then boiling the same quantity, and 

 trying how much of that would in like manner be suf- 

 ficient. The experiments made with the different sorts 

 of grain were as follows : 



Rye, although so very considerably increased in bulk 

 by boiling, so far from being more sufficing, becomes 

 less so, as fowls will eat rather more of it when it is 

 boiled than when it is dry. Seven hens and a ccck 

 consumed only three fourths of a pint measure of dry 

 rye in one day, but ate in the same time three pint 

 measures of the boiled grain ; consequently, as three 

 pint measures of boiled rye are equivalent to four fifths 

 of dry, it would cost one twentieth more to feed fowls 

 with boiled than with dry rye, four fifths being one 

 twentieth more than three fourths. 



Oats, although increased in bulk by boiling, nearly 

 one half, are not, any more than rye, rendered more 

 sufficing ; for the fowls, which, in two days, would have 

 eaten four pint measures of dry oats, consumed in the 

 same time seven pint measures of the boiled grain ; 

 consequently it is no saving to boil the oats. 



Moubray says, " oats are apt to produce the scour, 

 and chickens become tired of them ; but that oats are 

 recommended by many for promoting laying, and in 

 Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, for fattening." 



Buckwheat, is increased in bulk by boiling still more 

 than oats, as four pint measures, when well boiled, 

 swell to fourteen ; yet is there small benefit obtained 

 by boiling buckwheat ; for the fowls consume the four- 

 teen pint measures of the boiled grain nearly in the 

 same time which four pints of the dry would have 

 sufficed them. Moubray says, also, that buckwheat is 

 an unsubstantial food. 



Maize, or Indian Corn, is, on the other hand, more 

 profitable when boiled than when given raw ; for the 

 fowls which would have got through a pint and a 

 quarter of the dry maize, consumed only three pint 



