IN THE POULTRY YARD. 139 
Fall Broods. 
BIN many departments of agriculture, it is a good rule to 
find out what others are doing, and then do the oppo- 
site. If everybody is planting potatoes, then plant no 
more than you need for your own use; if nobody is setting out 
cabbages, set out all you can. Now the great bulk of the chickens 
that are raised in this country are hatched in May and early 
June; too late to bring the highest price for spring chickens, and 
yet so early that by next season they will have eaten more than 
they are worth. 
While sitting in the shade of our porch one afternoon, I re- 
called an experience which I had had a few years previously. 
We, at that time, occupied a beautiful place of about 3% acres, 
and kept a number of hens. Of course we did as others did, 
and every spring- we ra’sed enough chickens to supply our table 
during fall and winter, and to furnish pullets for next year. One 
day, late in September, one of our hens came into the barnyard 
leading fifteen beautiful chicks. She had stolen her nest and 
hatched this brood, and as she led them up to where we stood 
she seemed to say, as plainly as if she had spoken in good English, 
“Is not that something to be proud of?” Well, I thought it 
was. So I fed the little flock, gave them a nice warm berth in the 
‘stable, and made every provision to bring them up. Several 
friends wha called to see us, and who professed to be well versed 
in chicken lore, advised me to kill them at once. They never 
could amount to anything, they said; the cold weather Would 
come before they were fledged, they would probably die, and it 
they should survive, they would only be scrubs ; therefore better kill 
them now and be done with it. 
Killing animals in cold blood, merely for the sake of getting 
rid of them, is not my forte. I have killed a good many animals 
