IN THE POULTRY YARD. 183 
this principle hold good in the case of the common hen? We be- 
lieve that it does, and our rule has been to have plenty of nests, 
each provided with a nest egg, and to remove all eggs, as fast as 
this can be done without disturbing the hens. 
What shall we use for this purpose? Some poultry keepers use 
any old or stale eggs that may be on hand—a very filthy and fool- 
ish habit, as such eggs when broken defile the nests and disgust the 
hens. ‘lo disgust such owners by any amount of filth would of course 
be impossible. Some English writers recommend a stall lump of 
chalk, and this is no doubt very good when chalk is easily pro- 
cured, but, unfortunately, it was not available in my neighborhood. 
At first, therefore, we used the common white glass nest eggs, and 
during warm weather there can be no objection to such eggs ex- 
cept on the score of cost. Dealers ask from threé to six cents for 
them, and this is altogether too much to pay for nest eggs, though 
perhaps glass ones cannot be sold for less. In cold weather, how- 
ever, the hens seem to dislike them. ‘They easily become very 
cold, and being comparatively poor conductors of heat they are 
very chilly to the touch. Our little German maiden ‘thought, 
therefore, that she would get up a better nest egg, and so she emp- 
tied a few shells of their contents and filled them with dry corn 
meal. ‘This would have answered adniirably if the rats and mice 
had not soon found them out and destroyed them. Perhaps if she 
had used sawdust the rats would have let them alone. “But any 
kind of powder is bad, although the device was a very ingenious 
one. We were therefore driven to adopt another plan. We made 
a very small pinhole in one end of an egg, and in the other end we 
cut a hole three-eighths of an inch in diameter. The contents were 
‘blown out of the egg through the large hole, and the shell was then 
filled with plaster-of-Paris properly mixed with water. As soon as 
the plaster hardened we had a most excellent nest egg at a cost of less 
than half a cent, for it must be borne in mind that the egg itself 
could be used for ‘Cooking’ purposes. 
The plaster uséd-for this ptitpose may be obtained at any paint 
store. The proper way to mix it is as follows: Pour into a bowl 
as much water as you think you will need to fill the egg-shells you 
