GALLUS DOMESTICUS. 



A new method of preserving eggs, by packing them in salt 

 with the small end downwards, and by which they have been 

 kept perfectly good for eight or nine months, will, it is be- 

 lieved, enable the inhabitants of portions of our country where 

 eggs abound to make them considerably profitable. Thou- 

 sands of bushels (and every bushel should contain forty-five 

 dozen), may thus be sent off to the Atlantic markets. Great 

 quantities are used in France. It is stated in the Quarterly 

 Journal of Agriculture that the number of eggs imported into 

 London alone amounts to near < 50,000 sterling, or almost 

 two hundred thousand dollars' worth, a year. 



There is a communication in the Farmers' Cabinet^ Vol. II. 

 p. 95, upon keeping hens and the profits from eggs, from a poul- 

 terer in Massachusetts, which contains much useful informa- 

 tion. "On the first of January," says the writer, " I had ten 

 hens and one cock. In the spring three of the hens were suf- 

 fered to set, which left seven with which to experiment. The 

 three which set raised twenty-four chickens, which were sold 

 for three dollars, when about the size of quails." The sooner, 

 he observes, the chickens are sold, the better, since they do 

 not bring prices corresponding with their increase in size. 

 The seven hens which did not set laid one hundred dozen of 

 eggs. During half the time in winter the fowls were fed 

 upon boiled potatoes and bran or meal mixed together with 

 warm water, and as the place where they were kept was well 

 sheltered, none were lost by the dough freezing in their craws 

 or crops. For the remainder of the time oats were given 

 them, which the writer considers better for fowls than Indian 

 corn, having tried both. The oats were first allowed to soak 

 in warm water for three or four hours, till well swelled, after 

 which they were given to the fowls. Treated in this way, he 

 considers one bushel of oats will go as far as a bushel and a 

 half of corn. 



If cocks, when young, are emasculated, it has a wonderful 

 effect upon their condition, and a similar effect may be pro- 

 duced upon young hens, by the abstraction of their egg-bags. 

 These operations have been practised upon poultry from the 

 earliest antiquity, for the purpose of improving the flesh. 

 The art of caponing fowls forms a part of rural economy, but 

 the mode of operating is very little understood in the United 

 States. The chickens intended for capons should be of the 

 largest breed that can be obtained, and perhaps there is not 



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