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I V I - I * d-< • t . \ ‘ I 
T RT>wq 183.00 PER YEAR. 
f Single No., Eight Cents. 
NEW YORK CITY AN1) ROCHESTER, N, Y. 
ATPIfTCi j II Pnrk Row, New York. 
OrriCES, | M2 Buffalo St., Roelichter. 
YOU. XX. NO. 8. 
FOR THE WEEK ENDING SATURDAY, FED. U, 1880. 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S69, by n. D. T. M oons, in the Clerk’s Office of the District. Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.] 
cp C=) 
JJonltrn-^artr. 
ENGLISH PRIZE FOWLS. 
The foregoing illustration of the prize 
birds at the great Birmingham Poultry 
Show will he studied by our readers, inter¬ 
ested in poultry matters, with attention. 
The portraits given will be compared with 
the best American birds in the possession of 
Ruralists. The comparison of points and 
peculiarities will, undoubtedly, prove prof¬ 
itable. This Birmingham Show was the 
twentieth in the history of the Society. In 
1861,1,617 pens of birds were exhibited; in 
1868,2,747. Since 1861, the pens of Brahma 
fowls had increased from twenty-seven to 
two hundred and thirty-three; of Cochins, 
/from one hundred and eighty-one to three 
hundred and twelve. The host pair of Rouen 
ducks at the late exhibition weighed nine¬ 
teen and one-quarter pounds; the best cock 
turkey, thirty-three pounds; the best gander, 
thirty-seven and one-half pounds. 
The first portrait in the left of the illus¬ 
tration is a ten-month dark bull Cochin- 
China cockerel, which took the first, prize of 
the cup in a class of sixty-eight; the next is 
a first prize, silver-penciled, nearly white 
Brahma hen above a year old. The next 
are a pair of Japanese silkies, white, with 
very peculiar feathers, as light as a zephyr 
and with black bones. The fourth is a 
white, silver-pencil Brahma-pootra first prize 
cock. The fifth, a silver Polish hen, which 
took a first prize and the cup. Sixth is a 
first-prize, rumpless and buff-colored bantam 
cock; and then a thirty - months’ white 
Cochin-China cock, which took the cup. 
The next is the black Creve-Coeur, which 
took the Poultry Club cup, and a first-prize 
hen two years old of the same breed; then 
comes a first-prize white Cochin-China pul¬ 
let. ; and lastly, in front, is a black and white 
Polish cock, who was the winner of a cup 
given by the amateurs of Birmingham. 
1 - 
To Prevent Hens Setting.—J. A. Col- 
t.ins, Oardington, Ohio, fastens a string, say 
four or five feet in length, to a lien’s leg, 
and ties the other end to a stake driven in 
the ground close to the path most trav¬ 
eled, and scares her as often as lie passes 
her. One day effects a cure. 
NOTES ABOUT POULTRY. 
Big farmers may sneer at the “ fowl busi¬ 
ness,” but if anything is finer than a flock 
of bens, weighing seven or eight pounds 
each, all as white as the driven snow, we 
would like to see the sight. And there is 
nothing specially mean in a round dozen of 
eggs, fresh from the nest. Hens and eggs 
are good tilings to us. We know at our 
breakfast table just what we are eating. 
But what we want to say is, that it is just 
as easy to have good hens and good eggs as 
poor hens and no eggs. Give your fowls a 
decent shelter. Protect them from the snow 
and rain and wind. For food, give, them 
wheat screenings, corn or meal, with the 
scraps of bones and meat from the house, 
and plenty of pure water, and you will have 
fat fowls and constant layers. 
If you want the best breed for home use, 
get the Brahmas. If you want to sell the 
eggs, get a breed which will lay small eggs 
and a plenty of them, for the knavish shop¬ 
men will not allow you a copper a dozen 
more for a big egg than for one the size of a 
walnut. It is a nice thing to be sure to put 
before a counter-jumper’s eyes a basket of 
magnificent eggs, and be told that you are to 
receive just so much per dozen as he gave 
for a barrel full of mean, semi-rotten, long- 
traveled things resembling last years’ robin’s 
eggs. Don’t, then, fool away your solid, 
compact, rich, delicious food. Keep your 
eggs at home, and let the butcher-cart the 
oftener pass unpatronized. No better food 
for man than the egg Oar Bramahs (we 
have tnirty) were every one non-extant. April 
1st, last. Yet they lay this winter through 
admirably. Next spring we mean If possible 
to get a flock of Black Spanish, they being 
extra summer layers. Farmer. 
Connecticut Valley, Feb. 2, 1869, 
-*-*-*- 
DRY EARTH AS A DEODORIZER. 
Trot employment of dry pulverized earth 
as a means of deodorizing poultry houses, 
(says a late number of the London Field,) 
appears to be worthy of more attention than 
it has hitherto received. The fact that from 
four hundred to five hundred fowls can, by 
this aid, be kept in one building for months 
together, with less smell than is to be found 
in any ordinal/ fowl-house capable of ac¬ 
commodating a dozen chickens, is very con¬ 
clusive as to its efficacy. In the building 
of the National Company, where this fact 
has been ascertained, seven or eight fowls 
are kept in each compartment, twelve feet 
by three feet, and yet there is no smell or 
trace of moisture. 
All*. GitEYELrN informs us that if a much 
larger number arc put into each run, the 
ground becomes moist, ceases to deodorize, 
and t he birds at once become unheal (by. It 
should be stated that, the droppings that fall 
from the perches during the night are re¬ 
moved from the runs each morning, and that 
the dry earth only receives the manure that 
falls during the day; this has its moisture 
absorbed so speedily by the earth that it at 
once becomes pulverized, mixes with the 
soil, and ceases to smell. So powerful is the 
deodorizing effect of the earth that it does 
not require to be renewed in the runs for 
many weeks together. 
-- 
Eartii worms are greatly relished by fowls 
in confinement; and tin; increased contribu¬ 
tions to the egg basket will amply repay the 
time and trouble of turning over a little 
ground every day for them. They will soon 
learn what the spade means, and will run to 
meet you when they see it coming. 
PRIZE X^OTJILiTJtY 
THE BIR MlisrGHELAJM /AND MIDLAND COTTNTTES iVG-IIOTJX/TUH.A.JL SHOW, ENGLAND. 
