300 Farmers' Miscellany. [April, 



to the tedious operations of incubation, in whicli case it is not 

 unusual for them to bring out thirty eggs. We cannot re- 

 commend this practice in point of humanity; for the poor hens 

 when they have accomplished their second sitting, are literally 

 reduced to skin and bone, and frequently so weak as hardly to be 

 able to walk. 



As before hinted at, great care should be taken of the young 

 turkey poults; besides warmth, proper food, and shade, the nearer 

 they are to a pure running stream the better, as they drink a great 

 deal, and nothing is of greater importance to their being success- 

 fully reared than fresh drink. They must be carefully protected 

 from strong gusts of wind, and on the slightest appearance of a 

 thunder storm, should be immediately taken into a house. They 

 should get no food for twenty-four hours after they leave the egg. 

 Their first food should be hard boiled eggs, finely chopped, and 

 mixed with crumbs of bread. Curd is also an excellent food for 

 them. When they are about a week old, boiled peas and minced 

 scullions are given to them. If eggs are continued, the shells 

 should be minced down with their food, to assist digestion, or 

 some very coarse sand, or minute pebbles. They should be fed 

 thrice a day; and as they get older, a mixture of lettuce milk will 

 be found beneficial, together with minced nettles. Barley boiled 

 in milk is another excellent food at this period, and then oats 

 boiled in milk. In short the constitution of the young turkeys 

 requires at all ages every kind of stimulating food. W^hen about 

 three weeks old, their meat should consist of a mixture of minced 

 lettuce, nettles, curdled milk, hard boiled yolks of eggs, bran, 

 and dried camomile; but when all these cannot be readily obtain- 

 ed, part of them must be used. Fennel and wild endive, with 

 all plants which are of a tonic character, may be safely given to 

 them. Too much lettuce, however, has been found to be inju- 

 rious. When poults are about a month old, they should be turn- 

 ed out along with the parent bird, into the fields or plantations, 

 where they will find sufficient food for themselves. As their feet 

 are at first very tender, and subject to inflammation from the 

 pricking of nettles and thistles, they ought to be rubbed with 

 spirits, which has the effect of hardening the skin, and fortifying 

 them against these plants." 



EARLY POTATOES. 



To secure early potatoes cut the seed into two parts, and reject 

 the but end and plant the other. There is a great difference in 

 the time of sprouting and growing of the young shoots from 



