Practical Agriculture. 
491 = 225 
all parts of the country, of perhaps double the average weight of 
the birds killed a few years ago ; and the home egg-trade has very Eggs, 
greatly increased, though there exist no figures by which it can 
be compared with the enormous importation. In the year 187G 
we imported from the Continent, chiefly from France, 6,274,924 
"great hundreds" of eggs, at ten dozen per hundred, amounting 
to no fewer than 752,990,880 eggs, or more than 2,000,000 eggs 
per day. The Custom-house valuation of the year's import was 
2,610,231/., at 8s. Ad. per ten dozen. 
Ordinary prices are, for fowls, bs. to 15s. per couple, according 
to size and season ; ducks, 6s. to 10s. per couple ; geese, 8s. to 
12s. each ; and turkeys, 10s. to 16s. each. 
CHAPTER III. 
Management op Cattle. 
While under the first division of this paper I have briefly 
sketched the characteristic features of English husbandry, its 
soils, crops, and breeds of animals, I collect here the principal 
points of information to be given with respect to the breeding, 
rearing, and fattening of live-stock, — reserving, however, the 
subjects of dairying and summer grazing for the separate section 
on Pastoral and Dairy Farming. 
At ichat age Cattle commence Breeding. — Practice varies much Age when 
as to the precise age when heifers first begin to breed. Of beginning to 
course by placing them in a breeding condition at too early an 
age, their growth is stunted, their constitution is weakened, and 
the progeny are not well developed in size and stamina. The 
greater injury is suffered by the female. As a general rule, a 
bull is not used before he is a year and a half old, and a heifer 
is not put to the bull till she is two years old. But this rule has 
to be varied from. Thus, when the female is to be a milker, 
she is commonly allowed another half-year ; that is, her calf 
comes when she is between three and four years old. The 
reason for this is that milking by hand exhausts the cow more 
than suckling, a calf seldom milking its mother dry ; the maturer 
cow can better stand the drain, and at the same time can better 
nourish the foetus of her next calf. The other variation from the 
rule is when the animals are not to be afterwards retained for 
the herd. High-fed heifers may be put to the bull at under two 
years old ; otherwise they may probably miss breeding at all. 
The Season chosen for Calving. — The best season of the year Seasons for 
for calving is a very important question to English breeders, calving, 
(to whom the rearing of valuable calves is of greater importance 
