No. 4. 



Eggs and Poultry. 



131 



shall await the official report of the proceed- 

 infe, which will make their appearance in 

 about three weeks; and the premiums will 

 also be announced. — W. Chester {Pa.) Vil. 

 Record. 



Eggs and Poultry. 



Amonpr all nation?, and throughout all 

 fjrades of society, ec^gs have been a favorite 

 food. But in all our cities and particularly in 

 •winter, they are held at such prices that few I 

 families can afl'ord to use them at all ; and even | 

 those who are in easy circumstances, consider j 

 them too expensive tor common food. 



There is no need of this. Every family or ' 

 nearly every family, can, with very little! 

 trouble, have eggs in plenty during the whole 

 year; and of all the animals domesticated for' 

 the use of man, the common dunghill fowl isj 

 capable of yielding the greatest possible pro-, 

 fit to the owner. ! 



In the month of November, I put apart} 

 eleven hens and cock, gave them a small' 

 chamber in a wood house, defended from j 

 storms, and with an opening to the south. — 

 Their food, water, and lime, were placed on 

 shelves convenient for them, with warm nests 

 and chalk nest-eggs in plenty. These hens 

 continued to lay eggs through the winter. — 

 From these eleven hens I received an average 

 of six eggs daily during the winter ; and when- 

 ever any of them was disposed to set, viz. as| 

 soon as she began to cluck, she was separated 

 from the others by a grated partition, and her 

 apartment darkened ; these cluckers were j 

 well attended and well fed ; they could see 

 and partially associate through their grates 

 with the other fowls, and as soon as any of 

 these prisoners began to sing, she was liber- 

 ated, and would very soon lay egge. It is a 

 pleasant recreation to feed and tend a bevy of 

 laying hens ; they may be tamed so as to fol- 

 low the children, and will lay in any box. 



Egg shells contain lime, and in winter, 

 when the earth is bound with frost or covered 

 with snow, if lime is not provided for them, 

 they will not lay, or, if they do, the eggs 

 must of necessity be without shells. Old 

 rubbish lime, from old chimneys and old build- 

 ings, is proper, and only needs to be broken 

 for them. They will often attempt to swallow 

 pieces of lime piaster as large as walnuts. 



I have often heard it said that wheat is the 

 beet grain for them, but I doubt it; they will 

 sing over Indian corn with more animation 

 than over any other grain. The singing hen 

 will certainly lay eggs, if she finds all things 

 agreeable to her; but the hen is much of a prude, 

 as watchful as a weasel, and as fastidious as 

 a hypocrite ; she must, she will have secrecy 

 and mystery about her nest; all eyes but 

 her own must be averted; follow her or 



watch her, and she will forsake her nest, 

 and stop laying; she is best pleased with a 

 box covered at top with a backside aperture 

 for light, and a side door by which she can 

 escape unseen. 



A farmer may keep an hundred fowls in 

 his barn, may suffer them to trample upon and 

 destroy his mows of wheat and other grain, 

 and still have fewer eggs than the cottager 

 who keeps a single dozen, who provides se- 

 cret nests, chalk eggs, pounded brick, plenty 

 of Indian corn, lime, water and gravel, for 

 them ; and who takes care that his hens are 

 not disturbed about their nests. Three chalk 

 eggs in a nest is better than a single nest egg, 

 and large eggs please them ; I have often 

 smiled to see them fondle round and lay into 

 a nest of geese eggs. Pullets will commence 

 laying earlier in life where nests and eggs 

 are plenty, and where other hens arc cackling 

 around them. 



A dozen dunghill fowls, shut up from any 

 other means of obtaining food, will require 

 something more than a quart of Indian corn 

 a day ; I think fifteen bushels a year a fair pro- 

 vision for them. But more or less, let them 

 always have enough by them, and after they 

 have become habituated to find enough, at all 

 limes a plenty in their little manger, they 

 take but a few kernels at a time, except just 

 before retiring to roost, when they will take 

 nearly a spoonfuU into their crops ; but just 

 so sure as their provision comes to them 

 scanted or irregularly, so surely they will ra- 

 ven up a whole crop full at a time, and will 

 stop laying. 



A single dozen fowls, properly attended, 

 will furnish a family with more than 2,(X)0 

 eggs in a year, and 100 full grown chickens 

 for fall and winter stores. The expense of 

 feeding the dozen fowls will not amount to 18 

 bushels of Indian corn. They may be kept 

 in cities as well as in the country, and will 

 do as well shut up the year round as to run 

 at largo ; and a grated room, well lighted, 

 ten feet by five, partitioned from any stable 

 or other out-house, is sufficient for the dozen 

 fowls, with their roosting place, nests and 

 feeding troughs. 



At the proper season, viz. in the spring of 

 the year, five or six hens will hatch at the 

 same time, and the fifty or sixty chickens 

 given to one hen. Two hens will take care 

 of 100 chickens well enough, until they be- 

 gin to climb their little stick roosts; they 

 should then be separated from the hens en- 

 tirely; they will wander less, and do better 

 away from the fowls. I have often kept the 

 chickens in my garden ; they keep the May 

 bugs and other insects away from the vines, 

 &c. 



In cases of confining fowls in summer, it 

 should be remembered that a ground room 



