278 
GKNERAL MA^TAGEilENT 
•does not receive scarcely half the weight in food. Such 
persons may be wonderfully clever in building castles in the 
air ; but they cannot build either a house or pigsty without 
sufficient materials. Then some there are who seem to be- 
lieve that both pigs and poultry thrive best in the dirt. 
Never was there a greater mistake ; for experience has 
taught me to know, that, to produce profitable or prize pigs 
^nd fowls, the points to be most scrupulously observed are, 
extreme cleanliness, proper food, and regular feeding, per- 
fectly dry situations, pure air, and plenty of pure water. 
With these observances anything will thrive and do well ; 
but the instant you neglect them, that instant they begin to 
go wrong. So the truth is, that the real method of econo- 
mizing poultry, is to feed them well, but not to waste ; and 
then will they not only repay you plentifully with fine eggs, 
but supply the table abundantly with fine fat chickens. 
Neglect and Mismanagement of Poultry. 
Curiosity one day led me to go in quest of a weasel ; and 
after a fruitless hunt I called at a roadside house to take 
lunch, where I fell in with a neighbouring farmer, who was 
much taken with my clogs. I asked him if he could inform 
me where I was likety to find a weasel. ^' A wissel," he 
exclaimed, with a volley of oaths. " Why we're swarming wi' 
'em ; they're eating us up alive ! Now, do you know, sir, 
that with young-uns an old-uns, they've eaten an' destroyed 
over 200 head of chicken this season in my place alone! 
As to eggs, we can't get one, except what we find in the 
hedge rows ; an' now there's not a fowl will go near the 
house j they roost in the trees, and elsewhere round about. 
'Twas only last evening I set my chaps to stone 'em out; 
but, lor, it's no use ; they only fly right away, an' settle in 
other people's corn. But I'll tell you Avhat it is, sir, " 
Here he heaped all the hard words which none but a drunken, 
foul-mouthed man could utter, upon the head of a poor little 
speckled hen, calling her everything but a lady, because she 
led the others astray. The result was, I went to see his 
-farmstead, and there was nothing but a squalid recklessness 
in the appearance of everything around. The truth was, , 
the man was a determined drunkard, and sold and spent " ' 
•everything he could lay his hands on. * 
