146 COMMON SENSE 
off the feathery part from the quills of one wing, and placing them 
in the old house where there was most room. We had to lock up 
the entire flock for ten days, but at the end of that time when we 
let them out we had no trouble. 
I was anxious to leave the poultry at liberty as long as possible, 
so though Noyember brought wet and dreary days. and a few 
flurries of snow, yet the chickens did very well. Many of them 
moulted and consequently stopped laying, but I was, surprised at 
the. number of eggs that we got every day. _The number of hens.. 
on the place was a little less than 600, and of these two-thirds 
must;have been laying for many days; we got twenty and twenty- 
five dozen eggs. At this time it was our practice to shut the hens 
in every night, and keep them in until late in the morning. As 
soon as they were let out, they had a warm feed of dough made 
by scalding a mixture of corn meal and. oil-cake, and adding a 
little of the siftings of ground oyster shells, and a little red pepper. 
At noon they had wheat, as much as they could eat.’ At night.a 
good feed of whole corn. On fine days they had free access to. 
the patch of clover and grass, and on wet days they had cab- . 
bages, as much as they could eat. Twice a week they had all 
the meat and ground bones they would eat after their. dinner. of 
wheat. 
Under this regimen they throve well, and became very bright, 
and vigorous. The egg crop increased to thirty dozen per day, 
and as eggs were bringing a good price (35 cents per dozen) we 
much more than paid expenses. At this time (Nov. 25th) we had 
on the place over 1,200 head; some of them, however, quite 
small. The feed cost about $4 per day, besides labor, and the... 
returns were over $10, so that the result was on the whole quite. 
satisfactory. As we were disposing of our cockerels quite rapidly, _ 
the amount of food required was also lessened. 
This expérience, however, was somewhat exceptional.” Under 
ordinary conditions the egg crop would have kept growing less and . 
less until the revival in February and March, and it was evident 
that under the stimulus of more liberal feeding than they had been 
previously accustomed to, and also the influence of red pepper and 
