CHAPTER XII. 
HINTS ABOUT MANAGEMENT. 
COMMON SENSE IN THE POULTRY-YARD. 
The “poultry” that everybody keeps are technically 
designated ‘‘ Fowls,” or ‘‘ Barn-door Fowls.” As a rule 
they are kept in small flocks, fed chiefly upon what no 
farmer misses. On most farms a flock of twelve to forty 
hens will pick up a living without receiving a particle 
of grain from May to October, including both months. 
Their food consists of insects, seeds, and grass or weeds ; 
they need fresh water besides. What wonder is it that 
fowls thus kept are demonstrably more profitable than 
any class of stock, or any crop on the farm? 
This is the best way to keep fowls, provided they can 
be induced to lay where their eggs can be found while 
fresh. ‘To accomplish this a house of some kind is 
needed where the fowls may be shut in occasionally for 
a few days at a time, so as to make them roost and lay 
in convenient places. If fowls can roost in the trees, 
lay all over the farm, and “‘dust” themselves in the 
road, they will almost surely be healthy, lay a great 
many eggs, and keep in good condition. Besides, every 
now and then a hen will unexpectedly appear with a 
brood of ten or a dozen chicks, hatched under some bush 
where she had ‘‘ stolen” her nest and done her hatching. 
That is all very well, so far as the hen is concerned, but 
no one wants it to happen. We wish the hens to lay 
and sit where we can put what eggs we please under 
them for hatching—and, what is still more important, 
we wish to be able to collect the eggs for use or for sale 
daily. A fresh egg isa joy, a delight, a good gift of 
Heaven—a pretty good egg is an abomination, An 
egg, to be fit to eat, or for sale, must he fresh hevona a 
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