A COMMERCIAL POINT OF VIEW. 2'J 



valuable botli for artificial hatching and consumption ; 

 and taking an establishment with two thousand laying 

 and one thousand breeding hens, the extra profit will 

 be as follows : Three thousand hens at thirty extra eggs 

 equal ninety thousand at 15s. per hundred, £675, to be 

 ascribed solely to a warm temperature and appropriate 

 diet ; but this is not the only advantage derived from a 

 genial temperature during the winter months ; it may 1 

 save, perhaps, hundreds of pounds in the loss of poultry 

 from diseases caused by exposure to damp and colds. 



As the laying can be forced by artificial means, so 

 can it also be retarded ; and when it is intended to 

 keep some hens for laying during the time that others 

 are moulting, which generally begins in September, it 

 is only necessary to pull out the feathers of such hens, 

 and thus produce an artificial moulting about two 

 months sooner, say early in July, when they will cease 

 laying until their feathers have grown again. 



The Ovarium. 



It has been ascertained that the ovarium of a fowl is 

 composed of six hundred ovulas or eggs ; therefore a hen, 

 during the whole of her life, cannot possibly lay more 

 eggs than six hundred, which, in a natural course are dis 

 tributed over nine years in the following proportion : — 



First year after birth, . . . . 15 to 20 



Second " " 100 " 120 



Third " " 120 " 135 



Fourth " " 100 " IIS 



Fifth " " 60 " 80 



