POULTRY. 85 



• 



committee could gather, these birds can be reared by every one -who 

 cultivates land with great profit. They are easily managed, cheaply 

 fed, very prolific, and find ready sale if not needed at home. The 

 sweepings of all poultry houses, properly composted, is nearly as 

 fertilizing as any imported guano, and the Egyptians obtain all 

 their manure from their pigeon houses. Ammonia, uric acid and 

 albumen are found in the droppings of every description of poultry. 



Domesticated rabbits were exhibited in great variety. In several 

 European countries, and in the vicinity of New York city, these 

 animals are cultivated in large numbers, their amazing fecundity 

 rendering a "warren" very profitable. Those who have kept them 

 in this county say that any one who will manage them properly, 

 can obtain, from one buck and four does, fed at an average ex- 

 pense of 4 cents a day, two plump young rabbits, fit for the table, 

 each week. Your committee, however, did not award small gratu- 

 ities for the best rabbits, or for a curious white woodchuck exhibited, 

 because they were convinced of their actual utility. Such a test 

 would ■exclude most of the fancy articles from the attractive exhi- 

 bition of ladies' work, and it would hardly do to apply it to the fancy 

 horses, the ornamental carriages, the costly fruits, or the rare flow- 

 ers. The committee saw interested crowds watching the specimens 

 of the animals of our county, and thought that small gratuities 

 should reward the bright-eyed lads who exhibited them. 



There is, unfortunately, little exertion made to interest the farm- 

 er's boy. He is forced to "do the chores," or to labor with worn 

 out tools, and he never has an opportunity to earn distinction or 

 pocket money. Easy communication with the cities and manufac- 

 turing towns presents to his mind the apple of discord as well as 

 of temptation. The clerk and the apprentice, better dressed, tell 

 him of their librar;y associations, their debating societies, and their 

 opportunity to make money by overwork or perquisites. Is it 

 strange that so many country-born boys run away from the old 

 homesteads, or persuade their parents to find them situations in the 

 city ? 



It is difiorent in England ; nor is her agricultural glory attribu- 

 table to her scientific farmers, to' her physiological herdmen, or to 

 her practical chemists. Her sons are retained on their ancestral 

 homesteads, where they have dove-cotes, and rabbit-warrens, and 



