AGRICULTURE. 235 
streams of clear water running through it, bushes and mustard- 
plants for shade, and boxes into which the hens can retire for 
protection against the cold and rain. When the young brood 
enters the yard, the older occupants, or some of them, make war 
on it, and one chick in a dozen is slain in these hostilities. After 
the hen has proved by fighting her right to be there, peace is 
restored, and she and her little ones are ready to make war on 
any subsequent intruders. After the chickens are three months 
old, they are turned into the large yard, where they have to 
struggle for their food and lives, with all the old hens and 
cocks on the place. In the large yard the chickens are fed 
twice a day, and four ounces to each chicken per day. The 
food is wheat, rice, oats, barley, raw meat, cabbage-leaves, 
sorrel, chalk, oyster-shells, and green mustard. Regularity in 
the time of feeding is considered a matter of much import- 
ance. There should be one cock to a dozen hens. The hens 
cominence laying when about eight months old and lay most 
in their second year. They will continue laying till their fifth 
or sixth year, but they are usually killed about the end of the 
fourth year. Hens that eat eggs and that crow are killed. 
Hens which want to sit when their services are not needed in 
that way, are shut up in the callaboose, kept there one or two 
days, with no food save green vegetables, ducked several times 
in cold water and then let out cured. In eight or ten dars 
they are ready to commence laying again. A hen will lay 
fifteen or eighteen eggs before wanting to sit. 
One man near Oakland, devotes himself entirely to the busi- 
ness of breeding rabbits, and according to rumor, finds it very 
profitable. 
Goats, pigeons, and pheasants are bred in California, but on 
only a small scale. 
§ 173. Bees—There were no bees in California until within 
the last seven years, and it was supposed they could not live 
here, because of the dryness of the vegetation during the last 
half of the year; but for these insects, as for larger animals, 
it was found on trial, that our climate is peculiarly favorable, 
