Notes  on  Continental  Poultry-keeping. 
201 
“ Each  breed  has  a house  with  a separately  fenced-off  run  laid 
out  as  a garden  and  plantation,  on  the  French  system,  with 
paths,  grass,  deciduous  and  evergreen  shrubs  ; and  in  addition, 
from  August  to  February,  which  is  out  of  the  breeding  season, 
all  the  fowls  have  the  run  of  the  orchards  and  forests  except 
when  the  weather  is  too  inclement.  Although  there  are  but  20 
breeds  kept,  there  are  24  separate  houses  and  separately  fenced- 
off  runs,  so  that  there  are  always  four  being  renovated  and  dis- 
infected. The  earth  of  the  runs  is  dug  up  twice  a year  and 
sown  with  grass-seeds  or  buckwheat,  not  for  the  sake  of  the 
crop  but  as  a means  of  keeping  the  land  disinfected.  The 
sitting  hens  have  a separate  establishment,  consisting  of  a 
circular  building  with  an  entrance-passage  and  a central  lobby, 
from  which  access  is  had  to  six  separate  compartments,  each 
containing  a dozen  nests.  There  are  in  this  building  the 
necessary  adjuncts  to  such  an  establishment,  including  par- 
ticularly a spacious  infirmary,  where  any  diseased  fowls  may  be 
treated,  and  also  separated  from  the  rest.  Gapes  seldom  occur, 
but  an  ophthalmic  disease  is  rather  troublesome.  All  the 
houses  are  kept  sweet  and  clean  by  the  plentiful  use  of  lime  as 
a whitewash,  carbolic  acid  being  also  used  largely  as  a dis- 
infectant. 
“ The  food  is  given  twice  a day,  and  when  the  fowls  are  in  the 
orchards  and  forests  the  blast  of  a trumpet  at  the  regular  hours 
rapidly  brings  them  together.  Barley,  oats,  maize,  and  buck- 
wheat, mixed  together  in  various  ways,  are  chiefly  used  as  food  ; 
but  the  mixture  is  changed  every  three  months,  as  by  this 
means  the  number  of  eggs  laid  is  found  to  increase.  During 
moulting,  horseflesh  is  also  given. 
“ No  turkeys  are  kept  to  sit  on  the  eggs,  as  is  so  generally  the 
case  in  France,  but  an  incubator  is  used  as  an  adjunct  to  the 
hens,  some  eggs  being  partially  hatched  in  it  before  they  are 
put  under  bad  sitters.  Mr.  Weber  is  so  well  satisfied  with  the 
success  of  his  poultry-farm,  which  has  now  been  established 
four  years,  that  he  intends  making  others  at  separate  places  in 
the  centre  of  new  orchards  in  connection  with  the  dwellings  of 
the  under-bailiffs.” 
The  following  sketch  of  another  type  of  continental  poultry- 
keeping is  very  interesting  from  several  points  of  view,  especially 
on  account  of  the  means  adopted  for  hatching  eggs,  the  curi- 
ously low  prices  of  the  eggs,  fowls,  and  food,  and  the  care  with 
which  the  accounts  have  been  kept,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
remarkable  results  which  have  been  inferred  from  the  figures. 
All  these  matters  can  be  easily  discounted  by  practical  poultry- 
keepers  in  England,  and  I reproduce  the  following  very  abbre- 
