136 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



is best, because the eggs will pack most regularly. In selecting 

 these eggs, some persons believe that when the long, slim ones 

 are taken, the chickens will be invariably males, and the thick, 

 nearly round ones, females. This is a very uncertain plan to 

 adopt in the choice of eggs, and ought never to be relied upon. 

 The surest method seems to be, to select those eggs, if pullets 

 are wanted, which when they are held between the eye and a 

 lamp, discover the cavity at the great end of each egg to be at 

 one side of the centre of it. If it is at the centre, the chick 

 will be a male. 



The sitting hen should have her nest where she cannot be 

 troubled by other fowls. Give her a retired, quiet place, and 

 she will seldom want to leave her nest ; but if she is in the 

 bustle of the poultry-house, she will be nervous and restless, 

 and, oftentimes, will abandon her nest. There should be con- 

 venient to her sitting place a box or pile of ashes, where she 

 can dust and wash herself, plenty of food, and pure water. 

 These are the only attentions she requires. The period of 

 incubation is twenty-one days ; during this time the hen should 

 be left to her own inclinations, and the eggs should not be 

 touched or moved ; she carefully turns them that they may 

 receive a uniform warmth, and any interference with her man- 

 agement only irritates her, sometimes causing her to break the 

 eggs, or leave them entirely. At the end of the twenty-first 

 day, all the chickens should be hatched ; some, however, in 

 consequence of great thickness and toughness of the shell, are 

 unable to break it ; these may be assisted by carefully, with 

 the point of a penknife, chipping away the shell where the little 

 punctures are made by the chick. Great care, however, is 

 necessary in doing this ; and, as a general thing, it should be 

 avoided. The chickens require no food for twenty-four hours 

 after being hatched. They may then be fed on a dough made of 

 Indian meal and water ; this should not be too thin, as it is liable 

 in that state to induce diarrhoea. If the weather is pleasant, 

 the chickens may be put out in coops the second day after 

 hatching. Those coops are most conveniently made in the 

 following manner : take pieces of boards four feet in length, 

 and make a platform three feet in width ; to the two sides of 

 this platform nail other pieces of boards, which will meet 

 together as a roof, over the middle of the bottom ; at the ends 



