Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 301 



burned ; it is whitewashed inside and out, and allowed to stay out in 

 the sun and rain some days, then half filled with clean straw and 

 returned. There are banks of soft, fine dirt where the hens go and 

 disport themselves, for hens are so curious, the cleaner you keep them 

 the fouler they become ; perhaps they would not be fowls if this were 

 not so, and a clean, smart looking hen with smooth glossy feathers is 

 sure to take a dirt-bath every day if she can get a chance. There are 

 fireplaces in both the houses v/here wood is piled when the mercuiy 

 goes down about zero. In warm days the hens go down and scratch 

 out the ashes and shake them into their feathers. Herodotus says the 

 old Jews took lessons from the domestic fowls, and piled ashes on 

 their heads in afiiiction as they saw hens do. As to breeds, Mr. 

 L. finds the black Spanish the best for eggs but worthless .for 

 the table. For eating, he says we must take an Asiatic chicken, 

 the Bralnna, tlie Cochin, or the Shanghai. He produced a great 

 many eggs, of course, but the greatest profit he finds from 

 chickens. For instance, each of the 250 hens he has in early spring 

 may, if so disposed, have one brood a year. As she leaves the nest, 

 four or five of her feathered sisters will have young families the same 

 day. The hen who appears to be the best mother among them, the 

 large, matronly, dignified biddy, who has a loud cluck and a com- 

 posed but guarded manner, is selected as the mother and nurse of all 

 that day's hatching. She goes about proud, conscious, and responsi- 

 ble, marching at the head of a platoon, thirty, forty, or fifty strong. 

 The bereaved hens have a cold bath, are shut up a few days to a soli- 

 tarj^ struggle with maternal instincts, and then return to the harem 

 and the nest. About the middle of June he begins to eat spring 

 cliickens. If a hen comes ofi" early in April with ten chicks, by the 

 middle of June they will weigh twenty pounds, five dollars worth of 

 chickens a year. The eggs pay for food and attendance, leaving the 

 sales of poultry clean profit. Mr. L. says he can produce 1,000 

 •pounds of poultry cheaper than he can the same weight of mutton, 

 •beef, or pork. He finds as much profit from turkeys, and often 

 greater than from hens. They often require more attention, but 

 some years he has fifty to sell for which he gets five dollars each, 

 besides a great many more for which he gets from one to three dol- 

 lars. Just now he has 3,000 young chickens, several hundred young 

 turkeys, 200 hens laying every day, or hatching broods, and 

 handsome platoons of ducks and goslings, probably about 4,000 

 in all, of domestic fowls, each of which on an average is or 



