166 THE POULTRY-BOOK. 



a root diet, in any case ; but such food should be mingled or 

 alternated with a sufficient quantity of grain. 



Green food. Almost all kinds of green food are acceptable 

 to poultry, and indulgence in this kind of diet is absolutely 

 indispensable to their health, and is also advantageous in an 

 economical point of view. The more delicate kinds of green 

 vegetables are eaten with the most avidity. All succulent 

 weeds, grass, and the leaves of trees and shrubs, will also be 

 consumed by them. Reaumur says, that if hens have green 

 plots to graze in during the day, which they are inclined to do, 

 and which they must do, if sparingly fed with grain, the 

 expense of their keeping will be diminished one half. 



The same author advises that all the refuse of the kitchen, 

 of a vegetable nature, should be freely thrown into the poultry- 

 yard, and says that this will form for fowls an agreeable and 

 wholesome salad. 



Green food, however, will not answer for an exclusive diet. 

 Experiment has shown that fowls fed with this food alone for 

 a few days together exhibited severe symptoms of relaxation 

 of the bowels ; and after the lapse of eight or nine days, their 

 combs become pale and livid, which is the same indication of 

 disease in these birds, as paleness of the lips in the human spe- 

 cies. M. Parmentier recommends the adoption of his own 

 practice, of giving bread to fowls. He took the trouble to 

 bake bread expressly for his own poultry-yard, composed of the 

 flour of different sorts of grains. From this he made a soup, 

 of which the fowls were very fond, when given to them hot, 

 and he pronounces this method to be economical. Such pieces 

 of bread, pie-crust, and fragments of pudding, &c., as are lia- 

 ble to be wasted in a family, will be readily consumed if be- 

 stowed upon the fowls. Broken biscuit of the variety called 

 ship-biscuit, or pilot-bread, even if mouldy or infested with 



