140 COMMON SENSE 
in my time, but to deliberately kill a nice little flock of chickens, 
and throw them in the manure heap was a kind of killing rather dif- 
ferent from anythmg I had ever done before. So I let them live; 
their food, poor little things, did not amount to much, and for the 
present, at least; they seemed supremely happy. ‘They grew 
apace; when the cold weather came, the mother abandoned them, 
but we stretched an old blanket on a frame which supported it 
about three inches from the floor, and they crept under this and 
kept warm. We gave them specially rich food and all the tid-bits 
from the table, but the older chickens robbed them, so I made 
a coop with a hole through which they could easily pass, while the 
older ones could not, and we placed the food under that and 
they could eat whenever they wanted to. We lost five by various 
accidents, but when I went to the stable on Christmas morning to 
give my animals a Christmas greeting and a Christmas breakfast, 
there were ten as fine young birds as I ever saw—four cockerels 
and six pullets. They throve well in spite of the cold weather, 
and in March the pullets began to lay, and kept on laying when 
eggs began to grow scarce and other birds ceased. The cockerels, 
were plump and delicate—far different from the previous spring 
birds, which had ngw become somewhat rank and tough. At this 
time common poultry was selling for 20 cents per Ilb.—3o per cent. 
higher than it'had brought in the fall—but for these birds we 
could have got more. And so I concluded that the best paying 
brood on the place—that which had given least trouble and had. 
brought most profit—was the brood that came from the stolen nest. 
Now, I had noticed that several hens in the different houses 
‘wanted to sit, so I decided to hatch out three or four hundred . 
young chickens this fall and see whether or not the operation 
would be a profitable one. 
I therefore filled out my former hatching room with hatching. 
boxes, similiar to those previously described, and gradually filled 
them up with hens. I managed to place in it twelve boxes, hold-. 
ing forty eight hens. In expectation of the young broods, I had 
a lot, more of the brpoding coops made so that I could care-for the 
chicks under any circustances, 
