2740 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Aprit, 1898. 
three dozen, 1 am 7} cents ahead, do you see? There is the broody and 
moulting season, when the egg-basket runs low, I know; but does not your 
cow have her lay-offs as well? - Does she not fail of a full flow of milk 
sometimes from other than natural causes? ‘True, my hens may be mainly 
idle during the winter, while you in the meantime are producing 20-cent 
butter; but should they give me but one dozen eggs a day, at 20 cents a dozen, 
I am still even, till during warm weather, when you are making cheap butter 
from grass, I far outstrip you solely by virtue of numbers. Now, here you are 
worsted in the game; for while you have to be doubly careful to get your 
butter in marketable shape, I am filling my basket with a commodity already 
prepared. Here lies the advantage in that I realise my profits With less 
Jabour and worry than you do. 
SETTING A HEN. 
Beginners are apt to make the mistake of putting as many eggs under a 
hen as she can cover, believing as long as she can spread herself over them that 
" she can hatch chickens out of them. The truth of the matter is, that to bring 
chickens out of eggs she must have no more than she can hug up to her and 
keep warm. During the spring, or except in the hottest of weather, twelve to 
fifteen eggs are a great plenty, twelve being the safer number. Give a hen 
thirteen eggs, and she will bring out twelve chicks nine times out of ten ; 
give her eighteen or twenty, and she will hatch from four to ten. You had 
better sell the extra half-dozen than let the hen rot them in a vain endeavour 
to bring chicks out of them. J have known hens in midsummer to steal their 
nests in the brush or weeds where they were sheltered from the wind, the sun 
having a fair chance all day to heat up the earth and atmosphere, to bring out 
eighteen chicks from twenty or even twenty-two eggs; but it 1s the exception, 
not the rule, You will find that thirteen -eges to the hen will, during the 
season, bring you a greater number of chicks than more, for every fertile egg 
that lies against the warm body of the hen is bound to bring forth a lively 
chick.— Report of Kansas State Board of Agriculture. 
Cabbage is one of the very best vegetables to feed to poultry, as it keeps 
green a long time, and the chickens enjoy picking at it. Hang it up where 
they can eat it readily without scattering it about or soiling it. 
Never feed whole egg-shells to hens. By doing so you teach them to eat 
their eggs. Crush up the shells finely and scatter the fragments where the 
hens and chicks will pick them up. Never mix the shells with soft food, 
If hens take to flying over fences, it is your own fault. You cannot cure 
a hen of the habit once she has discovered her powers of flight. Prevention is 
the cure. We know that Satan finds mischief for idle hands ; so an idle hen 
gets into mischief, and there is no limit to the mischief done by a hen in her 
wrong place. Give her some work to do in the yard or paddock in the way 
of scratching and food-hunting. She will not then look over the fence. 
