CHAPTER V. 



THE REARING FIELD. 



Together let us roam this ample field, 

 Try what the open, what the covert yield. 



POPE (Essay on Man, Epi. I., line 9). 



,HE choice of a suitable field in which to- 

 complete the adolescence of your poults is 

 most important, and should be approached 

 with the gravest consideration. Some- 

 times, as in the case of a shooting tenant, or the 

 demand for a very high rent from the tenant farmer, 

 who is expected to give up his hayfield at a most 

 critical time of year, your choice may be much 

 restricted, or indeed may become that with which 

 one Hobson, of great renown but doubtful pedigree, is 

 usually associated, and you will have to do the best 

 you can with what you can get ; but I w T ill assume, for 

 argument's sake, that you are fortunate enough to 

 possess a tolerably wide selection, if so, take my 

 advice and secure the run of two fields not of the 

 same laying down, nor with exactly the same aspect ; 

 having thus " two strings to your bow," should the 

 first field experimented upon turn out to be a failure, 

 you have the other to fall back upon, and this, 



