Something about Fowls. 523 
fine paper under a knife. The web between the toes, when young, 
is tender and transparent; when old, coarser and harder. 
JVest Eggs. — To those who keep fowls, and desire eggs in 
winter, a good nest is important. The qualities of a good nest 
egg is a tolerable resemblance to a real egg. A hen will not 
lay to an egg shell, however perfect it may be, for she knows by 
its want of weight that it is a counterfeit. 
A good nest egg may be made of solid white maple or hickory 
wood turned to the right shape. But every one has not a lathe, 
and such eggs are not always to be had. Another nest egg which 
may be made by any body, any where, was lately described to 
us, says the editor of the Prairie Farmer, by Mr. D. Lathrop of 
Lasalle, a gentleman who keeps one hundred hens, and is very 
apt to find out the best mode of doing any particular thing. 
The eggs are made of clay, formed to the right shape, in the 
hands. After being dried they are whitewashed; when they are 
ready for use. The matter is so simple, that it only requires to 
be thought of to be available. These eggs answer the purpose 
perfectly, the hens accepting them as fully as those of their own 
make. 
But the best artificial nest egg we have ever tried was made 
of plaster, in the following manner. Take an egg and break a 
small hole in one end, of about a quarter of an inch in diameter; in 
the other make a small hole with a pin, and then blow the contents 
out of the large hole. Then take some calcined or boiled plaster, 
and make a thin paste with water, and fill the shell, which soon 
sets and becomes hard, and would even deceive a biped of larger 
growth. 
Size of Poultry. — Small boned, well proportioned poultry 
greatly excel the large boned, long legged kind, in color and 
fineness of flesh, and delicacy of flavor; for it is held good, that 
all animals of the domestic kind, those which have the smallest, 
cleanest, finest bones, are in general, the best proportioned, and 
are covered with the best and finest grained meat; besides being, 
in the opinion of good judges, the most inclined to feed, and fat- 
tened with the smallest proportionable quantity of food, and the 
greatest comparative weight and size. 
Killing Poultry. — The best method of killing fowls is to cut 
their heads off at a single blow with a sharp axe, and then hang 
them up and allow them to bleed freely. By this process they 
never know what hurts them, or endure pain for a second. 
Wringing the necks of poultry is almost as shocking as nailing 
their feet to planks, for the purpose of fattening them, and follows 
in the same barbarous category. — Am. Agriculturist. 
