350 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Nov., 1898. 
travelling salesmen, who through the entire year repeatedly visit each city, 
village, and cross road where people dwell and sales can be made, urging the 
use and consumption of their goods and wares. ‘hese emissaries of the 
wholesale trade reach more people, do more talking, extend and enhance more 
the interests of the trade in any accepted line than all other means combined. 
They are backed by unlimited capital, and are ever ready to take up any line 
of productive industry wherein profit, however small, is reasonably sure. 
FOOD FLAVOURING EGGS. 
Te conditions under which fowls are kept, and the food on which they are 
fed, do influence the flavour of the eggs, but not to the extent that one 
wouid think. For instance, fowls kept in confinement and without a grass 
run do not lay eggs with a yolk so rich-coloured as those with a wide range of 
grass. ‘The richer yellow the yolk, the finer the flavour. But if the fowls in 
confinement are well supplied with green, and kept in perfect health, the 
difference in the eggs is very slight. owls can eat a great deal of offal and 
high-smelling food without their eggs gaining any objectionableflavour. I have 
fed laying fowls daily with pressed meat which, when dissolved in boiling water 
to mix with the meal, gave off a very evil smell; also on liverine, which is a 
mixture of fish and meal, and this also, when the boiling water is poured upon 
it, raises an odour bad to beat. But the eggs had no objectionable taste. A 
diet of putrid fish and meat will flavour the eggs if the fowls eat enough 
of it. It should be remembered that fowls are gross feeders, and there is 
little they will not peck at, so if there is carrion or rotten fish about they are 
likely to eat it, and possibly to the extent of flayouring their eggs.—Farmer 
and Stockbreeder. 
CONDITION OF TABLE POULTRY. 
Iv is not enough to kill a bird when it is plump and in good condition if 
intended for market. Half the battle lies in plucking and dressing, in its 
making a good appearance in the poulterer’s shop. ‘This is a point often lost 
sight of. A fowl should never be killed when the new feathers are just 
appearing ; the stumps are terribly hard to get out, and spoil the appearance, 
Yet such birds are often seen in shops ; they have been plucked, but the new 
feathers are showing through the skin, and will severely try the patience of 
the cook. These birds are generally young fowls kept just too long and killed 
on the commencement of their moult instead of two or three weeks earlier, 
The farmers’ wives round Yarmouth want no instruction on this point; their 
fowls at Yarmouth market always look tempting on the stalls. One ingenious 
' method they have of setting off the fowl’s appearance is to stuff it with a 
towel, thus giving it a plump appearance. But whatever “the tricks of the 
trade,” the poultry are good in quality, well picked, and well dressed.— Farmer 
and Stockbreeder. 
COOKING OLD FOWLS. 
Ture is often some difficulty in disposing of the sarplus stock, by which I 
mean the birds which, having finished their second laying season, it is not 
advisable to keep longer. In this case they should be killed and eaten. If 
