HOUSEWIFE S DEPARTMENT. 359 



Eggs and Poultry. — Among all nations, and throughout all gi-ailes of society, eggs have 

 been considered a favorite food. But in our cities, and pai'ticidaiiy in winter, they are sold 

 at such prices that few iamilies could afford to use theui at all, and even those in easy cir- 

 cumstances consider them too expensive for common use. There is no need of this. Every 

 family, or nearly every family, can, with very little ti'ouble, have eggs plt"nty diiriu" the 

 yeai-, antl of all the animals domesticated for the use of Man, tlie common duushill tbwl is 

 capable of yielding the greatest profit to the owner. In the month of November, I put apart 

 eleven hens and a cock, gave them a small chamber in tlie woodhouse, defended from storm 

 with an opening to the south. Then food, water and lime were placed on shelves conve- 

 nient for them, with nests and chalk nest-eggs in plenty. These hens continued to lay eg<»s 

 throughout the winter. From these eleven hens I received an average of six eggs daily du- 

 ling the winter; and whenever any one of them was disposed to sir, naiiiely, as soon as she 

 began to cluck, she was separated from tlie others by a grated partition and her apartment 

 darkened. These cluckers were well attended to and well fed. They could see and partly 

 associate through the grates with ie other fowls, and as soon as any of these prisoners bcaa 

 to sing, she was liberated, and would very soon lay eggs. It is a pleasant thing to feed and 

 tend a bevy of laying hens. They may be tamed so as to lollow the children, and will lay 

 in a box. Egg-shells contain lime, and when in winter the earth is covered with frost and 

 snow, if lime be not provided for them, they will not lay ; or if they do, the eggs of neces- 

 sity must be without shells. Old rubbish lime, from chimneys and old buildings, is proper 

 for them and need only to be broken. They will often attempt to swallow [)ieces of lime 

 and plaster as large as walnuts. The singing hen will certaiidy lay eggs if she finds all 

 things agreeable to her, but the hen is so much a pi-ude — as watchful as a weasel and fastidi- 

 ous as a hypocrite — she must, she will have, secrecy and mystery about her nest. All eyes 

 but her own must be averted. Follow or watch her, and she will foisake her nest and stop 

 laying. She is best pleased with a box covered at the top, with a back side aperture for 

 light, and a side door by which she can escape unseen. A farmer may keep one hundred 

 fowls in the barn, may suffer them to trampls ou and destroy his mows of grain, and have 

 fewer eggs than the cottager who keeps a dozen, provides secret nests, chalk eggs, pounded 

 bricks, plenty of corn or other grain, water and gravel for them, and lakes care that his hens 

 be not disturbed about their nest. Three chalk eggs in a nest are better than one, and Inve 

 eggs please them most. 1 have smiled to see them fondle round and lay in a nest of o-eese 

 eggs. Pullets will begin to lay early in life, when nests and eggs are plentj'-, and when oth- 

 ers are clucking around them. A dozen dunghill fowls shut up from the means of obUnnin=» 

 food, will require something more than a quart of corn a day. I think fifteen bushels a year 

 a fair allowance for them ; but, more or less, let them always have enough by them ; and after 

 they have become habituated to find at all times plenty in their little manger, they take but 

 a few kernels at a time, except just before going to i-oost, when they will take nearly a 

 spoonfull in their crops. But just so sure as their provisions come to them scanted or iiregu- 

 larly, so sure will they raven up a whole cropfuU at a time and stop laying. A dozen hens 

 well attended, will furnish a family with more than two thousand eggs a year, and one hun- 

 dred fall grown chickens for the fall and winter stores. The expense of feeding a dozen 

 fowls will not amount to more than eighteen bushels of gi-ain. They may be kept in cities 

 as well as ui the country — will do as well shut up the year round as to run at large. A ^rat- 

 ed room well li jhteil, ten feet by five, partitioned from a stable or other outhouse, is suffi- 

 cient for a dozen fowls with their roosting, nests, and feeding-troughs. In the spring of the 

 yeai", five or six hens will hatch at a time, and the fifty or sixty chickens may be given to one 

 hen. Two hens will take care of one hundred cliickens well enough until they bedn to 

 climb their little stick roosts. They then should be separated from the hens entirely. I have 

 often kept the chickens when young in my garden. They keep the May -buss and other in- 

 sects from the vines. In case of confining fowls in summer, it should be remembered that a 

 ground floor shoidd be chosen; or it would be just as well to set in their pens boxes of well 

 dried, pulverized earth, for them to waUow in during warm weather. Their pens should be 

 kept clean. [Scottish Reformer's G;izette. 



Hi.NTS TO Lovers of Flowers. — A most beautiful and easily attained show of ever- 

 greens in winter may be had by a very simple plan, which has been found to answer remark- 

 ably well on a small scale, if geranium branches are taken from healthy and luxurious 

 ti-ees just before the winter sets in, cut as for slips, and immersed in soap and water, they 

 will, after drooping f()r a few days, shed their leaves, put forth fresh ones, and continue in the 

 finest vigor all the winter. By placing a number of bottles thus filled in flower-baskets, 

 with moss to conceal the bottles, a show of evergi-ecns is easily procured for a whole season. 

 They require no ti'esh water. 



Seedling Fruit. — It is gross ignorance, says Professor Lindley, in any man to suppose 

 that the seedlings of grafted phmts will be thtj same as the parent. 

 (679) 



