HINTS ABOUT MANAGEMENT, 103 
scraps, or other flesh diet, and some grass, or other 
greens which they like—such as lettuce or cabbages. 
They must have plastering, oyster-shells pounded fine, 
or some other source of lime, besides fresh water con- 
stantly. 
Better than all, they need an afternoon run, and a 
chance to scratch and pick in the door-yard, road, and 
barn-yard, if there be one. Here let us protest against 
hens being made use of as scavengers for picking up and 
cleaning up filth about the back-door. There is no bet- 
ter habit for farmer folks to cultivate in regard to poul- 
try than on every occasion to drive them away from the 
kitchen door, and never to throw out anything that they 
tan eat anywhere near the house. ‘The practice of hav- 
ing a slop-hole—or spot near the back door where dish- 
water and other ‘‘slops,” containing more or less that 
hens will eat, are thrown—is a filthy one at best. All 
such water should be thrown upon the dung-hill or com- 
post heap. Here the hens may pick up many a crumb, 
and the manure will be greatly benefited. 
In the matter of varieties the fancy breeds are best 
let alone by any one who does not make a business or a 
pastime of poultry-keeping. It is very pleasant for a 
person who keeps but a dozen or twenty hens to have 
them of some choice breed, and to take great pains with 
them; studying into their habits, their “‘ points,” and 
all that. But few persons have either the taste or in- 
clination to be successful breeders; so, as a rule, it is best 
to keep common or mixed hens, but a full-blooded cock 
of one of the best breeds. 
For general use most persons who have had experience 
will agree that the Plymouth Rock fowls are excellent, 
and either these or the Dominiques, or one of the Asiatic 
breeds, are to be recommended if a pure breed of fowls 
is desired for eggs, broilers, capons, and fat cockerels 
and pullets. For eggs alone, the White Leghorns are 
