IN THE POULTRY YARD. 41 
good deal of Brahma blood, so that a low fence ‘easily kept them 
in; but the cock would have required a ten-foot fence, and, indeed, 
I doubt if even that would have confined him against his will. So 
I just shaved off the feathery part from the quills of one wing, and 
after that the height of fence necessary to restrain him was limited 
by his power of jumping, and which, by the way, was by no means 
contemptible. 
It did not take long to get the new house in order. Laying 
plans and getting material consumed more time than did the actual 
work, but on the evening of the second day we had the three hens 
first selected, safely in their new quarters. As they had been two 
days in company with the cock I was satisfied that the eggs would 
soon prove fertile, so I selected two more hens and placed them in 
the storeroom, and next day I added two more, thus making seven 
breeding hens in all. On the fifth day I placed the cock in the 
out-door coop with the three hens first selected, and as soon as the 
hens in the storeroom had laid four eggs each, I placed them in 
the coop and gathered all the eggs for hatching. 
The time which it takes to produce fertile eggs depends, of 
course, upon circumstances. If the hens are not laying, and do 
not lay for a week after they are with the cock, then every egg will 
probably be fertile. -But if they are laying, then every egg that is 
developed to a certain extent will be sterile. After the filh egg it 
is safe to depend upon them. ‘These hens were all laying. This 
is an easy matter to determine, and we took care to examine the 
hens before selecting them. During the first seven days we’ got 
thirty-five eggs from the seven hens, and these we used for cooking. 
After that we set the eggs as fast as circumstances would permit. 
Subsequent experiments threw this little venture entirely into the 
shade, but it may not be out of place at this point to give the 
reader the results, and this Iam able to do, because I kept this 
little flock and their progeny separate for several seasons, having 
regarded it with a good deal of interest, since it might be supposed 
to serve as a test of the correctness of my plans and theories. 
My object at this time was merely to establish a new flock of 
about fifty hens for my own family use, and perhaps the sale of a 
