Supplement to the '^'Tropical Agriculturist" [Jan, 1,' 1904. 
change it. Localities will often influence both 
birds and system of management. For instance, 
in some localities a certain breed will do well and 
yield a good profit, but in another the same variety 
will not be worth the food it consumes. 
All the breeds I have tried have been kept 
under exactly the same conditions both as regards 
feeding and housing, and I have found very little 
variation from the following treatment necessary 
for the different varieties : — 
Penned Fowls. — My treatment is as follows : — 
First meal (7 a.m. winter, 5-30 a.m. summer), 
scalded bran and coarse meal (given warm), a 
little grain, green stuff, and fresh clean water ; 
1 p.m., small ration of barley and wheat ; about 
sundown kafircorn or barley. Mealies once a week. 
Twice a week meat chopped fine and bone meal 
mixed with the soft food. Small sea shells twice 
a week. Every morning the droppings should be 
removed from under the perches, and once a week 
the whole pen raked over and the refuse carried 
, away and a quantity of sand scattered over the 
floor. Perches and nest boxes should not be more 
than three feet from the ground. Ventilators 
should be placed above the perches near the roof. 
White-wash twice a year. 
Avoid giving heavy breeds such as Cochins, 
Brahmas, Langshans, Plymouth Rocks, Orpingtons 
and Dorkings too many mealies, as they produce 
internal fat, thereby causing a seriou% falling off 
in the egg production. One meal a week of 
mealies for penned fowls will be ample. Birds at 
liberty and young stock may have one feed a day 
of this grain. Wheat, barley and kafircorn as 
grain ; bran and meal as soft foods ; cabbage, 
lettuce, mangel wurzel, thistles, lucerne, clover, 
&c., as green food, and crushed bones, sea shell 
and coarse sand, with an occasional treat of meat. 
I buy a sheeps' pluck, boil it, put it through a 
sausage machine and then mix it with scalded 
bran, using the water it was boiled in to mix the 
bran. Any greasy water so used will be giate- 
fuUy accepted by our birds. Mix the bran so 
that it will fall to pieces when thrown down. 
Give all soft food in shallow tins or crockeryware 
vessels, and see that they are kept clean ; the 
•water vessels should be of cockeryware and plnced 
out of the sun. Do not allow the soft food to 
become sour. The wisest policy is to buy the 
very best food. 
Deaths will occur in the best kept yards and 
must be expected. Cleanliness, systematic feeding 
on good (best) sound grain, clean water, crushed 
bones, shells and coarse sand, and a plentiful 
supply of green food, with shelter from cold winds, 
rain and heat, if this treatment is followed it 
will greatly diminish the risk of disease and death. 
I have found the small blue tick now infesting 
80 many fowl houses a terrible scourge, and think 
that, it some remedy is "not soon forthcouiiug to 
rid U8 of the pest, the mortality amongst our 
feathered stock will be considerable. 
My remarks will be chiefly for the benefit of the 
person who wishes to send eggs and poultry to 
market and not to the fancier or exhibitor. 
Poultry kept with reasonable care will yield a 
profit if kept in almost any locality ; so, the 
jtttttter of suitable or uusuitable place need not. 
take up much of our time. The most unhealthy 
place for poultry kept in towns is your neighbour's 
garden ; but in the country the attention of the 
hawk and the smaller members of the cat tribe 
have to be taken into account when constructing 
fowl runs and erecting houses. 
Any large piece of waste land will make a 
capital poultry run. If it is a bleak spot, plant a 
few hardy trees or shrubs to act as a break wind or 
erect bundles composed of bushes interlaced in a 
wire or wood frame, and place them in different 
parts of the run, to act as places to retire to for shade 
in summer and shelter in winter. Fowls must have 
a retreat from the wind and rain. If the place is 
at all suitable for fruit trees by all means plant 
them, and in a few years the return from the sale 
of fruit from such trees will be no small item in 
your accounts. In my runs I have plum, apple, 
peach and loquat trees, and a quince hedge. The 
yield of fruit the last three years has been far 
more than that from the trees planted in the 
adjoining kitchen garden, and away from the 
presence of the fowls. This year (1898) we have 
gathered over 600 black gage plums from one tree 
in the fowl run. My impression is, that the 
presence of the fowls constantly about the trees 
picking up grubs and other insects and their 
scratching round the roots combine to improve the 
fruit-bearing capacity of the trees. I recently 
read in an English paper that some of the hop 
growers in Kent regularly pen a hen with her 
young chickens or ducklings amongst their hop 
plants, and the yield of hops from such gardens 
has been a great deal more than from gardens not 
tenanted by chickens or ducklings. The young 
birds, they found, played sad havoc with the insect 
pests peculiar to the hop plant. In the same 
paper I read of a poultry fancier purchasing a 
barren and bleak piece of ground, quite useless for 
cultivation without the expenditure of large sums 
on fertilisers. This piece of land he converted 
iiito a poultry run ; and, after it had been so used 
for a few years, it was put down to grass and 
yielded a rich hay harvest. 
My choice for a poultry run is one facing the 
north-east and on a gentle slope. When I speak 
of a run I am presuming that the fowls are kept 
penned up, as I am not an advocate for poultry 
having too much liberty. If kept penned up, say 
until 12 o'clock daily, a better supervision is 
ensured, and a more intimate acquaintance is 
fostered between the owner and his birds. By 
these means an observant person will become 
familiar with the eggs laid by this or that hen, 
and if a register of eggs laid is kept, at the end of 
the year there will be no difficulty in deciding 
which hen to part with as a bad or indifferent 
layer. I am awaie that it is fur easier to allow 
the birds to have the run of the farm and pick up 
their own living, but such a system does not 
commend itself to me. 
In a piece of ground 50 by 100 feet, enclosed by 
a wire-netting fence, 20 hens and a cock could be 
kept permanently. If the birds are allowed out to 
roam part of the day a run 20 ft. by 20 ft. would 
be ample. After running the fowls on this piece 
of ground for a year, the adjoining piece should be 
utilized for the next year and so on, shifting W 
