92 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER 



[ Angnst 4, 1870. 



surrounded with tarred haybands at the time that the perfect insects are 

 making their appearance. — I. O. W. 



POULTRY, BEE, AND PIGEON CHRONICLE. 



end of November, and for early eggs only cocks penned up, 

 which have moulted well and regained perfeet health and 

 vigour. — L. Weight. 



EARLY EGGS FOR HATCHING. 

 It need hardly be pointed out that to the breeder of fancy 

 poultry it is of very great importance to obtain eggs from his 

 best hens early in the year, whether for sale or for his own use. 

 I say from his best hens, because eggs from pullets are, of 

 course, to be had easily in any quantity, 'but are by no means 

 so good for early broods, producing chicks with less stamina, 

 which fledge more slowly, and are altogether less adapted to 

 withstand the vicissitudes of the early months. It is, there- 

 fore, to the early laying of the mature hens I purpose to devote 

 this paper, the present being the time which my own expe- 

 rience leads me to believe has much influence upon the matter. 

 It has been said over and over again that early eggs cannot 

 be obtained except from pullets, and also that there are no 

 artificial means by which the production of eggs can be either 

 hastened or retarded, being a natural process incapable of being 

 interfered with. Both statements are generally true, but they 

 are only true relatively, and any intelligent breeder who knows 

 definitely what his object is, has very great power over the degree 

 in which it shall be attained. If he wants, for instance, merely 

 the greatest possible number of eggs in a year, his treatment 

 will not be that I am now considering. But the fancy breeder 

 does not so much seek a high average as to have eggs in good 

 time. He knows that every egg early in the year may produce 

 a valuable fowl, or will be saleable at a high price, whilst later 

 on it will only realise its mere food value ; so that twenty eggs 

 in August may be of less account than one in February. It is 

 on this principle he must proceed. 



All my observations during several seasons have satisfied me 

 that the time at which a bird begins laying depends chiefly, 

 after allowing for differences of breed and character, upon the 

 time when she left off. If a Cochin hen has been laying 

 very late in the autumn, almost, in fact, into the winter, it is 

 absurd to expect she can begin again till the season is well 

 advanced. Cochins and Brahmas, and even Hamburghs, will, 

 in fact, often lay till more than half through a severe moult, 

 which is, of course, a drain upon the system so extensive as to 

 demand much time for recovery. But, on the other hand, if a 

 hen has had a late brood of chickens, it will almost always be 

 found that she lays in good time, and for several years I have 

 found no difficulty in getting eggs from a portion at least of 

 my hens by Christmas, or even before. 



As the hens become broody towards the end of July and 

 August, therefore, let them either be allowed to sit, or if that be 

 inconvenient, to remain on the nest for a month or five weeks. 

 This will not only give the system a rest, but it actually 

 induces or hastens the moult, the feathers dropping off very 

 frequently almost in handfuls. The process will generally be 

 half through, in fact, by the time the bird is turned off, and 

 she will then rarely lay again till after it is completed ; whereas, 

 if the moult finds a hen laying, she will often, as I have said, 

 continue till nearly through. A little meat and ale will also 

 help to hasten the process, and plenty of fresh green food must 

 also be supplied. Under these conditions, and not being re- 

 duced by egg-laying, the moulting will be hastened very con- 

 siderably, and the bird will be in laying condition much sooner 

 than if turned off her nest directly she is broody for the sake 

 of her autumn eggs, as is generally done. 



Of course some breeds are less prolific than others, and it is 

 much more difficult to get early eggs from a Dorking than a 

 Cochin ; but in all cases much may be done by such a system 

 of management in the case of breeds which evince a regular 

 desire for incubation. There are, of course, several minor 

 matters to observe, such as the selection of birds hatched in 

 good time, and which will, therefore, moult tolerably early ; the 

 providing tight and well-sheltered houses, &c. ; but the securing 

 the cessation of eggs for some little time before the moult, and 

 the hastening of that process, have by far the greatest influence 

 on the matter, so far as my observations go. 



There is one more point to be mentioned. Though the 

 mating will not, I think, hasten laying in the least, I have 

 generally found that even hens which left off early in the 

 autumn did not lay till three weeks or a month after enjoying 

 the company of the cock, and not then unless he also were in 

 good condition, The henB should therefore be mated by the 



WATCHING THE CHICKENS. 



By some people, but not, certainly, by readers of " our 

 Journal," watching the chickens would at once be set down as 

 an amusement suited to the buttercup-and-daisy-gathering age. 

 Be it so ; sensation novels, railway running about, and the 

 like, have unsettled many minds, and made people enjoy less, 

 or unfitted them to enjoy at all, pleasures found at home. But 

 yet a taste for simple enjoyments is a healthy taste, and one 

 which never tires. Still, tastes will differ to the end. " I can- 

 not understand," said a young lady to me, " whatever there is 

 for you to make a fuss about, week after week, in that garden- 

 ing and poultry paper of yours." I replied " I cannot think 

 why you are so particular to have the newspaper the first day 

 that it contains the month's fashions." 



Well, tastes will differ. Thus some people cannot even see 

 a joke. A man with a keen sense of humour was looking 

 through a gallery of pictures with a friend who had no more 

 sense of humour than an iron bar. Presently they came to a 

 picture of two cats fighting. " Ah," said the quick-witted one, 

 " evidently by Claude (clawed)." "Indeed, it is not," replied 

 the matter-of-fact man, " I assure you that Claude painted 

 only landscapes, of which I have seen many," &c. Not even 

 Sidney Smith's remedy for a dull man — viz., to have a surgical 

 operation performed upon his skull, in order to get a joke in, 

 would suffice for such a one. Yet dullness is at times amusing, 

 as " Did 'em wear tin gaiters then?" said an old farmer who 

 was looking at a brass in a church. But I am conscious that 

 I am rambling, roaming far away from my subject. 



To return. During this hot weather, now reaching over 

 many weeks, when I was afraid to be in the sun, lest, as some- 

 body said, "a small heap of bones and a grease spot should be 

 found instead of one's self" — sitting, then, in the shade of a 

 far-reaching elm that throws its shadow on some part or other 

 of a greensward the summer day long, I was day after day 

 reading, but — I could not help it — " from my slack hand 

 dropped" very often not "the gathered rose," as Rogers de- 

 scribes the child who had fallen asleep, but dropped my book to 

 my knee while I watched the chickens. Perhaps they this 

 year were even more attractive than usual, being groups of tiny 

 Bantam chicks — little neat-formed "sprack" (sprack is good 

 Wiltshire, though not good English) Game Bantam chickens 

 from eggs of Mr. Crosland's. Let me prattle — a child-like 

 word becomes a child-like pleasure, as some one, not a reader 

 of " our Journal," but one who has taken it up by mistake, 

 would say — let me prattle, then, about these tinies. How tiny, 

 indeed, they are when from the little eggs they first come, 

 seeming too small to get on their feet ; but soon they do, and 

 totter about an inch or two, and then make a tumbling plunge 

 under the feathery care of all warmth and comfort beneath the 

 hen. Then follow the first pickings and sippings, trying the 

 appetite with that as yet unknown thing — food. But how 

 rapid is the progress of chickens well cared for — that is, under- 

 standingly cared for. The warm south-fronted outhouse first 

 receives them, and next day they venture upon little, still 

 tottering walks, and one bolder or stronger than the rest even 

 circumambulates the coop, and feels as he felt who first sailed 

 round the world. The following day they are on the lawn, 

 shaded duly from midday sun, and then note their progress. 

 Little aerial fly-eatchings are attempted, and wanderings and 

 scratchings with feeble feet, and the firBt worm found and run 

 away with, the fortunate or unfortunate chick (for he usually 

 loses it) duly chased by the rest, eager to become worm- 

 devourers. Then some one or other of the brood strays into 

 some laurel bush, and, like the babes in the wood, is lost, and 

 shrilly yelps forth his sorrow to the sore discomfiture of the 

 listening but not seeing hen. But head grows with body ; soon 

 they know their feeder and his wonted call, and run to meet 

 him with expanded wings assisting their legs, for they soon be- 

 come things with wings, each week the useless winglets grow- 

 ing more and more into useful wings. 



When the first month is turned, as I notice in my little 

 Game Bantam chicks, the little pullets have their golden hackles 

 coming, seen as they run from me, and resembling tags of 

 gold thread hung to the back of their necks. Then the little 

 cockerels are developing, for here and there a black or red 



feather is appearing, and a cock-pheasant-like hue is visible in 



their plumage. In watching a couple of broods of Game Ban- 



