XIV INTRODUCTION. 



lina and Alabama, and yet the value of 

 poultry in the first only equals $397,460, 

 while in the second the value of the poultry 

 amounts to $1,419,814. In the Western 

 States, fowls are so prolific that eggs are 

 commonly sold at the rate of 90 cents a 

 bushel, estimated to contain forty-five dozen. 

 For farther details on this subject we would 

 refer to the eleventh chapter. 



In many parts of Europe, the care of the 

 poultry and the rearing of chickens are in- 

 trusted exclusively to women ; and this 

 seems, indeed, peculiarly within the prov- 

 ince of that sex, who are so pre-eminent for 

 their kindness towards the brute creation and 

 their solicitude for helpless infancy. The 

 writer would fain hope to induce his coun- 

 trywomen to assume the charge of this de- 

 partment. Their husbands, fathers, or broth- 

 ers would soon be shamed out of their 

 present careless and wasteful practices. 

 They would soon learn that he who suffers 

 his poultry to range through his house, to 

 drown themselves in the swill-tub, to scratch 

 up his garden, or to trespass on the prop- 



