

(For Fanciers’ Journal.) 
SCIENTIFIC BREEDING OF LIGHT BRAHMAS 
FOR EXHIBITION. 
ARTICLE VY. 
CULLING OR PICKING OUT POOR BIRDS, AND 
SEPARATING THE SEXES. 
In a well-kept flock of chickens, as in a well-kept garden, 
an occasional weed will appear, in spite of all the care and 
skill which may have been éxercised in selecting and mating 
the sire and dam. These the fancier should have the cour- 
age to pick out and destroy at the earliest moment that he 
is enabled to discern them. I think it advisable to care- 
fully examine each brood at eight weeks old. If properly 
fed and cared for, the chicks at this age ought to weigh 
from three to four pounds to the pair, and are just the right 
size for frying or broiling. Any chick found with crooked 
toes, or any other deformity, should be sent at once to the 
gridiron. The effects of breeding from such birds will be 
lasting and grievous. . At twelve weeks or three months old 
the birds must be separated as to sex, if extra fine large 
birds are desirod. The cockerels.may be put in a yard with 
an old cock, who will prevent their fighting, and in most 
cases will agree very well with them. At this age the birds 
should receive another thorough weeding. Cockerels that 
do not show plenty of black in the hackle may be killed 
with impunity. Any approach to knock-knee or leg weak- 
ness should condemn the bird at once. Occasionally a bird 
will be met with whose wing feathers grow twisted or in a 
spiral position. This should be stamped out whenever 
_found. Birds with crooked backs and wry tails should be 
killed as soon as possible. The fancier should be careful 
how he discards otherwise fine birds for too much black, as 
some pullets will be much spotted on the back until six 
months old, and still moult out clean; but a pullet whose 
hackle is cloudy or lead-color will rarely make a show bird. 
It requires considerable courage for a fancier to pick out 
and kill his birds in this manner, but he should remember 
that one bad sheep spoils a whole flock; this saying is 
equally true when applied to fowls. He should also remem- 
ber that a bad chick takes the same amount of food and care 
as is required to rear a good one. When he has killed his 
poor birds, and receives a visit from a brother fancier, he 
will not shrink from showing his stock, for he will know 
that there is no danger of that scrawny, crooked-backed, 
wry-tailed, twisted-winged, knock-kneed bird stalking out 
in front of his visitor, and cocking his head to one side with 
a look which says louder than words, I am a specimen of my 
owner’s stock. Well then, having disposed of his poor birds 
to the best advantage, and in a manner which will redound 
FANCIERS’ JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 

227 
to the credit of every fancier, he will have more time and 
room for his good,ones. During the hot summer months a 
suitable shade must be provided, or the birds will become 
sadly sunburned, and instead of their plumage being white, 
they will be a disagreeable yellow. Those who are so for- 
tunate as to have plenty of shade trees and shrubbery, un- 
der which the birds can seek shelter from the hot sun, need 
feel no anxiety on this score. My own yards heretofore 
were unprotected, and consequently I was compelled to 
make artificial shade in the following manner: Plant two 
posts in the ground two feet deep and about the same height 
above ground, and about ten feet apart; across these nail a 
piece of scantling. Now sink two more posts directly op- 
posite the other two, but only one foot high; nail a piece of 
seantling across the same, as on the other. Cover these 
with boards, and cover the boards with three or four inches 
of earth. This will make a nice cool retreat, to which the 
birds will not fail to resort during the hot weather. 
W.#. Frowsr. 
SHOEMAKERTOWN, PA., March 28, 1874. 

sem tO 
(For Fanciers’ Journal.) 
HENS’ NESTS. 
In looking back through the pleasures of memory to ‘ye 
olden tyme’’ of my boyhood days, I seem again to find my- 
self, basket in hand, at sunset time, rambling through the 
orchards, bushes and hedges, under the barns and brush- 
heaps, into stumps and logs, and many other outlandish 
places—in fact, only such as a boy or old hen would find— 
‘hunting the eggs.” This Lenten season brings back the 
thought of my hidden hundreds when Easter came, as well 
as my boyish pride when in the morning I delivered up to 
my dear old mother the snowy treasures. Those good old 
days are gone, and have carried with them much of the 
sweetest romance of life; and business, ever jealous of our 
time, has driven me from the old farm, down by Cayuga, 
into town. I left the old barnyard favorites, but brought 
with me my taste for fowls, and having the disposition to 
keep step with my fellow-fanciers, I find a goodly variety of 
the more noble sorts about me. 
The object of this epistle is not to give advice about 
making hens lay, as any fancier would be behind the times 
should his hens not lay after the instructions given by my 
fellow-countryman Wright, as well as the counsel from a 
host of your own good American writers on this subject. In 
the first place I gave a hint of what sort of places our old 
hens in the country used to use for nests. Well, instinct 
and their affection for their progeny caused them to hide 
their nests just where they did. They never laid a single 
egg without intending not to have it found by man, or any 
other animal. A hen is just as careful to hide her-nest and 
eggs from one animal as she is from another, and in those 
old times I speak of hens did just what our city fowls would 
do had they the same chance, and I can not remember of ever 
finding a nest lying around loose, or in sight; but, instead, 
I frequently found it where it took hours to do so, and have 
often watched some old favorite strolling away into the fields 
while I followed after, until she got to where the nest was 
not, and would fly upon the top of the fence and dress her- 
self while I remained in sight. On becoming provoked, I 
would drop down into the tall grain out of sight, and so 
would she, and when I went where she was she was not there, 
but had evaded me by sneaking off into the grain to her 
