r£EDI>'Q.] 



POULTKI. 



[fKKUl.NQ. 



practically experienced, to need much in- 

 btructiou of the kind Iroiu books. 



"Another point in view lins been, not to 

 attempt tlie foriiiatiou of anylliiii'^ like a com- 

 plt-te collection or menagerie of poultry — 

 though wo have alwaya wished to have j 

 plenty, both to observe and to eat — but rather 

 to have a succession of breeds ami species 

 continually passing in review through our 

 premises ; to have their peculiarities noted ; a 

 pen-and-ink sketch of their portraits taken ; 

 and then, when what we fancy to be the secret 

 of their life has been coaxed out of them, or 

 shrewdly guessed at, to dismiss them as incon- 

 venient supernumeraries, and to replace them 

 with less familiar faces. This mode is better 

 suited to the income, the establishment, and 

 the brains too, of most naturalist poulterers, 

 than to have a vast, overcrowded, unwieldy 

 aviary population, which distracts and per- 

 plexes the student as much as it pleases the 

 common starer. There are minds capable of 

 threading their way continuously through such 

 a wilderness of interesting objects, and of 

 carrying along with them a collection of clear 

 and conclusive ideas ; but such minds are not 

 the majority. It is wiser to attempt the per- 

 formance of a feat a little below, rather than a 

 little above one's powers. 



"Our collection, then, consists of turkeys, 

 geese, ducks, various breeds of fowls, pigeons, 

 with their several young, besides guinea-fowl, 

 guans, a stork, a brood or two of pheasants and 

 partridges, and a few pair of cage birds ; alto- 

 gether about a hundred and fifty head. At 

 seven in the morning, during summer, those 

 birds which had been shut up in their re- 

 spective houses the night before, are let out 

 for the day. A sprinkling of barley is 

 thrown on the floor of each house the pre- 

 vious evening. The geese (to begin with 

 them) are driven into a large, well-screened 

 orchard (nearly an acre), that slopes slightly 

 to the south, and contains a good-sized pond. 

 There they have thrown down to them a few 

 handfuls of barley, as much as is thought suffi- 

 cient for their gradually diminishing numbers 

 • — i.e., about half of a quarter of a peck for 

 ten or a dozen geese. This, however, is 

 shared with them by such fowls as choose to 

 fly over the fence and join the breakfast party ; 

 the ducks, too, will frequently creep through 



and under the palings ; bo that, although two 

 or three additional handfula may be given oa 

 such occasions, still, if every handful, or even 

 every grain were counted, no truo aeecjunt 

 could be exactly rendered of the (luiinlity ot 

 corn appropriated to the geeae. Their [jrin- 

 cipal maintenance ia the grass in the orciiard ; 

 and wo find that, during summer, they are tliua 

 kept in sufficiently good condition to kill for 

 the house. During autumn and winter they 

 require to bo shut up, to fatten in the regular 

 way. About half this quantity of barley is 

 given at noon, and again at sunset, in tho 

 court-yard, when they are driven up for the 

 night about eight o'clock. 



" Our ducklings are kept pretty nearly in 

 confinement — i.e., in coops with small iiiclo- 

 sures in front — from the time they are hatched 

 till they are about a quarter grown. During this 

 infantile state they are entirely dependent on 

 the food brought to them, consisting of bread- 

 crumbs, mixed barley- meal, worms, &c. As 

 soon as they are judged sufficiently robust to 

 take to the water — of about an acre of which 

 they have the range, besides open drains and 

 ditches — they arc turned loose with their nurse, 

 but are always got home at night. Previous 

 to this complete enfranchisement, they are, of 

 course, disciplined by a few preliminary swims 

 in a large milk-pan sunk in the ground. If 

 their nurse be a hen, they very soon desert 

 her, and cater for themselves ; if a duck, then, 

 under her guidance, they pick up by far the 

 greatest part of their maintenance, costing 

 nothing but the few kernels of barley that are 

 thrown to them three or four times a-day to 

 keep them in the habit of returning home with 

 tolerable frequency. Now it is impossible to 

 make any calculation of what these birds con- 

 sume or are maintained by, that can all'ord 

 any real instruction. I cannot properly enter 

 into ray balance-sheet, the insects, worms, 

 seeds, and water-weeds on which my ducka 

 grow, get flesh, and even fat, although they 

 are all the produce of my own premises. De 

 minimis non curat lex. The law careth not for 

 crumbs and atoms. A farmer who wants to 

 know the exacc profit and loss on each duck 

 and hen, would, we take it, be penny, or 

 rather farthing wise and pound foolish ; that 

 is, if his time and thoughts are worth money to 

 him. And what most baffles us is, that these 



803 



