No. 6. 



Keeping Hens — Eggs — Churning. 



95 



that afterwards whenever a curate made ap- 

 plication to his lordship for an improved living', 

 he would only reply, " Keep bees, keep bees!'''' 



Keeping IIens--~£ggs. 



Eaton, Massachusetts, July, 1837. 

 I send you an account of my success last 

 year in keeping hens, and will thank you to 

 publish it to let the people know how many 

 eggs a hen lays in a year. I have heard 

 much speculation on the subject, and last 

 year I kept an account, which is as follows: 

 On the first of January, 1836, I had ten 

 hens and one good crower. In the spring I 

 suffered three of them to go through the 

 process of incubation, which left me seven 

 to make my experiment upon. The three 

 which raised chickens, gave me twenty-four 

 in number, which I sold for a shilling each 

 when they were the size of quails. The 

 sooner you sell chickens the better, for they 

 will not bring more than three or four cents 

 more when full grown than when half grown. 

 When the year was out on the first of last 

 •January, I looked over my account and 

 found my seven hens had given me ninety 

 six dozen of eggs, which were sold for $15 

 91. What we had used in the family made 

 the whole quantity one hundred dozen. The 

 lowest price I sold any for was 13 cents per 

 dozen — the highest 25 cents I have asked 

 many farmers to guess the number, but they 

 always came short of it. 



They ask me what I give them to make 

 them so prolific; I inquire how they treat 

 theirs, what they give them to eat, and where 

 they rest at night. They tell me that they 

 let them rest in barns or on apple trees — not 

 giving them much except what they can 

 pick up around the house and barn. They 

 think warm dough will freeze in their crops 

 and kill them in cold weather. 



Now I'll tell you how I keep hens. I 

 cause a good house to be made for them in 

 the south side of a hill, and stone it up so 

 ■Warm that an egg will scarcely ever get 

 frozen. During half the time in winter I give 

 the hens boiled potatoes and bran or meal, 

 mixed together with warm water. I never 

 lost any hens in consequence of this dough 

 freezing in their crops ; if they have a good 

 warm house to set in, dough will not hurt 

 them any more than warm cakes will kill a 

 man. For the remainder of the time, I give 

 them oats instead of corn. I have bought 

 oats in Boston for seventy cents a bushel, 

 while corn was, at the same time, one do 

 lar and ten cents, I tried the hens first on the 

 oats and then on the corn. Before feedino- 

 the hens, I would let the oats soak in warm 

 water for three or four hours, till they o-ot 

 well swelled, and in this w^ay I found 

 that a bushel of oats would go as far as a 



bushel and a half of corn ; thus in using oats 

 instead of corn I saved ninety-five cents to 

 every bushel consumed. 



Hens will dust themselves every day 

 when they can get dry dirt. In the winter, 

 when they cannot, I place a large box of coal- 

 pit dust in their house and keep it dry so that 

 it cannot freeze ; this answers every purpose. 



Hens should never be kept near cattle, for 

 their vermin will escape to the cattle and pre- 

 vent them from growing fat. 



I preserve all the pieces of white earthern 

 ware that I can find, and when the ground 

 is covered with snow, I pulverize it and give 

 it to them. I find by experience they will 

 eat it in preference to corn. "Water is al- 

 ways placed within their reach. 



Last year, according to the best of my cal- 

 culations, the cost of keeping my ten hens 

 was $9. I sold eggs to the amount of $15 

 91, and chickens to that of $4 — leaving anet 

 profit of one season of $19 91. Besides 

 this, eleven dozen of eggs worth a shiling a 

 dozen, were used in the family. 



Cliuming. 



There is something considerably difficult 

 in making butter from cream, owing perhaps 

 to causes not exactly understood ; and every 

 dairy woman knows that causes occur in 

 which the manufacture of a good article is 

 impracticable. A friend assures us that in 

 ordinary cases the difficulty is at once re- 

 moved, and butter of a good quality pro- 

 cured by the addition of a little sal eratus to 

 the cream. We have since tried it when 

 cream proved refractory, and found it to suc- 

 ceed admirably. A spoon full of sal eratus, 

 pulverized, is a sufficient dose for two gal- 

 lons of cream. After the cream had been 

 churned a proper time, if no sign of butter 

 appear, sprinkle the powdered sal eratus 

 over the surface, half at a time, as it is pos- 

 sible no more than half may be required. 

 After churning a few minutes longer, if ne- 

 cessary, add the remainder. The philoso- 

 phy of the matter, we take to be this — the 

 alkali of the sal eratus neutralizes the super- 

 abundant acid of the cream and thus pro- 

 duces butter. 



Oreen Corn. 



Those who are fond of green corn and de- 

 sire to have it in fine order, in the winter, 

 should improve the present opportunity to 

 pack it down in clean, tight casks, with a 

 pickle sufficiently strong to preserve cucum- 

 bers. It should be put down in the husks and 

 kept excluded from the air by the brine, so 

 as to prevent fermentation, or decomposition. 

 Corn thus prepared, it is said, will keep for 

 any length of time, and will be sufficiently 

 fresh for the table, when boiled. 



