19G DURATION OF IMPREGNATION. 



For our common, native hens, I make the boxes about one 

 foot square, both in diameter and height. 



I place my boxes six to eight feet apart, but one must have 

 a commodious fowl house to allow so much space, if he keeps 

 a large number of fowls. I have several yards and houses, one 

 for each breed. 



NUMBER OF HENS TO A COCK. 



The general rule is to allow about ten hens to one cock, yet 

 more hens may sometimes be allowed with safety, when we are 

 not particularly anxious that every egg should be impregnated. 

 In breeding very valuable fowls, fewer pullets to each male, 

 is the safer way. I have at present four Brahma Pootra (I 

 generally call them Brahma fowls, for convenience, and I find 

 that the public prefer this shorter name,) roosters to twenty 

 pullets, but I find them rather too amorous, and I shall have to 

 take away one or two of them. 



DURATION OF IMPREGNATION. 



This is a very important question to the breeder, and as it is 

 not always convenient to keep each breed separate in the fall 

 and winter, when the hens are not laying, the question is, how 

 long can we allow our fowls to run together promiscuously in 

 the non-breeding season, with safety ? 



It is the opinion of many experienced breeders, that an 

 impregnation lasts no longer than during the period of laying 

 one single litter of eggs, and that if a hen be removed at the 

 expiration of laying her litter, and placed with a cock of her 

 own pure blood, that the chicks produced thereafter will have 

 no impure trace, though the hen previously ran with an impure 

 cock. I do not admit that this is true, but I am convinced 

 that some trace of impurity will extend to the second and third 

 litter after that laid from connection with an impure blooded 

 cock. 



Last season I received a trio of Guelderland fowls from G. 

 H. Bacheler, Esq., of Lynn, Mass., one cock and two pullets. 

 He informed me that the pullets had run with cocks of other 

 breeds, and added, that a few of their first eggs would probably 

 be a little impure ; but I found that a trace of impurity ran in 

 their eggs through two litters at least. 



