SOILS FOR BREEDING. 



would have died like rotten sheep. In short, land 

 proper for sheep, is generally also adapted to the 

 successful keeping of poultry and rabbits. 



But as the rearing of both is necessary, upon 

 soils and in situations of every description, it will be 

 most to the purpose to point out those precautions 

 which must be recurred to, in order to ensure suc- 

 cess upon the least favourable. Of such, then, 

 artificial, or made ground, cannot be dis|>ensed with, 

 for a poultry-yard, where rearing is made an object 

 upon any considerable scale; since upon damp and 

 boggy soiU, not only will the greater part of the 

 broods be annually subject to disease and mortality, 

 but the cocks and hens themselves will be frequently 

 affected, to the great impediment of the business 

 of the breeding season. Where it is not held worth 

 while to make any extraordinary accommodations 

 for poultry, and the risk taken, enough may yet be 

 preserved for family convenience and to repay the 

 triHing expence. Hut no considerable stock can be 

 kept, far less any profit made upon it, upon an un- 

 favourable soil, independently of attention to need- 

 ful local conveniences. 



Whether or not the poultry be suffered to range 

 at large, and particularly to take the benefit of the 

 farm-yard, a separate and well- fenced yard or court 

 must be pitched upon. The foundation should be 

 laid with chalk, or bricklayer's rubbish, the surface 

 to consist of sandy gravel, considerable plots of it 

 being sown with common trefoil, or wild clover, 

 with a mixture of burnet, spurry, or star-grass, 

 which last two species are particularly salubrious to 



