POULTRY KEEPING. 225 



a place where they are moderately warm, in a temperature of from 

 forty to fifty degrees, and at that season of the year when insects are 

 not to be obtained, they should be fed with the scraps or leavings 

 from the kitchen, broken or crushed bones, or anything that will stand 

 in lieu of their natural insect food. 



PLYMOUTH BOCKS. 



The Plymouth Rock is a large, welJ formed bird, with a small single 

 comb, clean yellow legs, a large breast and bluish pencilled plumage. 

 It resembles most in form the English Dorking of all our American 

 fowls. It is, perhaps, the best fowl to be kept on farms, as it is a 

 good early winter layer, a good brooder, the chicks are hardy and 

 can be reared early, and make the best of broilers at two to three 

 months old, thus coming in at a season when chickens bring about 

 twenty-five cents a pound usually, and forty cents a pound at times. 



One of the most profitable branches of poultry keeping is the 

 rearing of young chickens for market. For these the earliest broods 

 are preferable, although there is little profit in trying to rear chicks 

 before May, unless one has a well furnished and warm poultry house, 

 heated with a stove. Where there is a green-house or cold grapery a 

 poultry house may be attached to it, and get the surplus heat, and 

 in this way young chicks can be reared in January or February. It 

 will not pay, however, on an average farm, to do this; but there are 

 many market farms near large cities, or near summer resorts, where 

 poultry keeping of this kind may bring in several hundred dollars a 

 year, and this may be earned by the younger members of the family. 

 To rear market chicks the early broods should be put in a warm 

 coop, having a sash cover, so as to get the warmth, and another sash 

 may cover a small yard, where the chicks may run and take exercise. 

 On cold nights the glass cover may be protected by a sack or a straw 



