The Dairy and Poultry Dard.

WHO WOULD KEEP POULTRY?

colour, not seldom accompanied by a style and spirit which an artist may feebly imitate, but never equal, while, all the time, they are cherishing those feelings of sympathy and kindness which makes them no worse members of society.

We repeat, however, that such persons require no arguments to bring them over to support an innocent, pleasing, and instructive amusement. It is with harder natures we have now chiefly to do. Honourable and useful individuals, nevertheless, because cautious and practical, we must acknowledge them to be, who, while having no objections to keeping poultry, yet refuse to do so at a pecuniary loss, or at a profit too small to repay their trouble. They are no despisers of a good fowl, well prepared for the table, or of a rich, fresh egg, but it wounds their practical natures to pay cent. per cent. above the market value for the former, or twopencehalfpenny for the latter. To such weighty and even prudent scruples we dare not object, only we beg to question the accuracy, or at least the necessity, of the prices which have begat them.

Now, whether such poultry establishments as M. Sora's, near Paris, with its 100,000 fowls and handsome yearly return, do actually exist, or are mere myths, we do not much care; but generally we say that, if two different purchasers, the "cadger" and the city poulterer, coming between the first owner and the consumer, contrive to have each a fair profit, we cannot see why fowls and eggs should not, with judicious management, repay the expense and labour of the producer. This strong probability, moreover, is much strengthened by the vast and increasing demand on foreign supply. The number of eggs imported into this country in 1863, according to the Board of Trade Returns, was 266,929,680; in 1864 it was 335,298,240; while, so far as the Returns are published for the present year, the increase is in quite as great a ratio, being 10,000,000 for January and February over the return for the same months in 1864. No doubt a fowl or egg may be bought cheaper, and perhaps produced at less cost also, in many places on the

Continent than in most places in Britain. But against this put the increased value of the foreign article, caused by the profits of dealers and the risks of transit, before it comes into the hands of the British consumer, and we can hardly help concluding that the home producer should be able to sell with a profit as cheaply as the foreigner. It is not a question, nevertheless, that needs very much the help of general conclusions, for it has been settled by the testimony of experienced amateurs and practical breeders alike, that poultry may pay and have paid. On every hand you may collect proof of this statement. Ask the cottager or the hind's wife, who is allowed (now very seldom) to keep hens, if they pay, and she will compliment your ignorance by asking in return if ye "ken nae mair than that yet.” The industrious farmer's wife will tell you, "I'm no sure if anything pays better." As for exhibitors, they hardly like to say what their profit or loss is, although we are generally answered by the somewhat significant words, "We can't say we lose by them." The "Henwife," of whom we poultryfanciers are all so proud, who can boast of hatching in one year upwards of 1000 chickens, declares that "rearing for the market only would even give a profit;" and by a minutely constructed balance-sheet proves that her own splendid yard is far from being an unprofitable one. Such testimony is all the more valuable that the stock at Inchmartine is very various, and forms a fine combination of the useful and ornamental.

We can humbly add our own experience as regards a small yard where only one kind is kept, and sixty or seventy chickens are hatched, and that is, that without one advertisement or sale by auction we have, within the last six months, paid £4 for fresh blood, and drawn £21 for birds sold. This, after allowing £4 for keep, leaves a nice little balance on the right side, without taking into account a pretty liberal supply of eggs from thirteen hens for home consumption and hatching.

Unquestionably some people make nothing by their poultry, and just because they deserve nothing better. Laziness or greed is in such

cases almost always visible.
unlucky beings packs a pretty large stock
into a small hole, where every passer by is
offensively met by the strong fumes rising
from the accumulated droppings of the un-
healthy inmates. Another feeds on boiled
potatoes tainted with disease, unmixed with
sharps or fine barley dust, or ground maize,
any slobber being good enough for hens!
To advise such persons to give up keeping
poultry would only be an act of humanity,
for the most benevolent could hardly, we
imagine, wish success to persons so cruel and
greedy.

One of the to lay in autumn; and for a regular supply in winter, as well as early laying, Brahmas are the best. See that the roosting-houses are not overcrowded, but well ventilated and cleaned frequently. Give such food as your stock seems to thrive on best, changing it occasionally, and never withholding sound grain as a portion of the daily fare; and as a general rule, let no meal be very soft, espe cially in the case of chickens. If these simple precautions be taken, you are then deserving of success, and you will assuredly meet with it. As for your account, showing your expenditure and income, do not forget to mark in the latter, at a fair price, the eggs or fowls which have been used at home; and at the end of the year the result will in all probability be very gratifying.

But there are respectable and good people who do not abuse their stock, and while realizing a very trifling profit, are not without reason dissatisfied with the remuneration of the poultry-yard as a whole. Now, these are mostly parties who rear for the market or depend on eggs for a profit, exhibitors being generally shrewd enough to manage better. With Mrs Blair, our advice is, make the chickens larger and prices must rise. Let some few plump old-fashioned Dorkings or good Dorking-crosses be kept, from which you may get kindly feeding spring chickens. Do not stop there, however, but keep a good many Spanish hens or Spanish crosses with some larger breed, such as Cochins, Brahmas, or Dorkings, for a regular supply of large eggs. Dispose of all hens past their best at the moulting season. If not successful with early hatchings, buy young hens ready

This encouraging promise, however, is thus confidently held out to those only whose yards are in a healthy state to begin with, and who are willing to exert themselves to banish disease and worthless specimens from their sight. If you have roup or asthma, the sufferers must be resolutely got rid off; and if you have hens of an unproductive class, make a clean sweep, and even at some preliminary expense put on a new stock of healthy young birds of such kinds and in such relative numbers as your market throughout the year demands. In a word, bestow the same care on your fowls as the successful cultivator of any larger live stock does, otherwise you can not reasonably expect proportionate results.

POULTRY-HOUSES.

/HAT is the best sort of poultry-house? for the purpose. The people who act thus are This question will be answered vari- generally among the grumblers at the slender ously by different individuals. As hinted revenue from their fowls. You must patiently in our remarks on some palpable blunders in hear them value the expenditure on their the treatment of poultry, some are satisfied stock at some such high figure as will make with bestowing the very smallest amount the cost of each egg twopence or threepence, of attention on the hen-house. Any odd while the poorhens, as innocent as they are corner, let it be ever so dilapidated, open, truly unfortunate, get all the blame. and from its space and structure unfit as course, the old-fashioned barn-door fowls or a lodging for fowls, is too often assigned cottager's hens, hardened, but likewise stinted,

Of

easy matter when the houses are not confined by their vicinity to other larger erections, as may be seen in the middle of a park devoted chiefly to the poultry of its wealthy owner. In such a situation, where room abounds, small moveable houses are decidedly the best.

All houses, of whatever material formed, should be high enough for a large-sized man to stand erect in them, except under the lowest part of the roof, where there is no occasion to enter unless in a stooping posture to gather the eggs. This implies that the roosting spars should be placed under the highest part of the roof, and the nest under the lowest part, as they should be. Where room is precious the nests should be covered in above, thus dispensing with all other assistance to the birds when flying to the roosting spars or descending from them. The spars may be made of any soft wood from 3 to 31⁄2 inches wide, a little rounded on the upper side, and the sharp edges taken off, We do not find any necessity for retaining the bark, if the spar be made of sawn fir.

by the severe training of their chickenhood, be made weather-proof by a screen canvas may be comparatively much less hurt by placed over them. Ventilation is also a very sleeping in a hovel than the different varieties of more generous descent. Still, as the smaller classes of cattle and sheep are now much improved, even on their native uplands, by closer attention and more genial treatment than formerly, all sorts of poultry are much the better for comfortable roosts in roomy, well-roofed houses. Perhaps nothing is worse than a leeky roof and a penetrating draught. Indeed, a duck's fondness for water is fully equalled by a hen's aversion to it. As for draughts, geese and ducks are the only poultry little affected by them, while other classes pay the penalty of exposure to them in much the same way as man himself, by suffering from sore throats, weak eyes, swollen head, and general debility. This state of things is particularly true of such stocks as are confined within too limited runs during the day, and are too crowded on their roosts at night. Yet there must be abundant fresh air admitted. If the walls of the house be of stone or bricks, this can be done through openings in the roof formed by raising one or more tiles or slates high enough up to save the fowls from the direct current of colder air. If the house be of wood, and the roof of felt or other tarred cloth, the object will be best gained by slight crevices between the boards, or holes bored through the door, or by the door itself being a loose fit, always guarding against a cold current rushing through the heads of the fowls. In summer, when the atmosphere is not too damp, the slip admitting into the yards, when not placed opposite the door, may be left open at night, wholly or partially, as the temperature outside demands. In a house made of boards overlapping one another, the roof may be made perfectly tight, and a plentiful supply of fresh air be obtained from the effect of the sun's rays on the side-boarding and door. Hence most experienced poultry-fanciers prefer wooden houses to all others; and certainly in warm weather they merit the preference awarded to them; while in winter any too open part can be stopped up with straw or hay, and if necessary, the whole walls may

The height of the perch should not exceed 3 or 4 feet, and should never be very near the roof, otherwise the cocks' combs will run imminent risk of being frost-bitten by coming in contact with the roof. All poultry, for the sake of cleanliness, should have this spar or perch-Cochins not excepted, although theirs need not be more than 2 feet above the floor. Indeed, all lumpish poultry, including the strong-winged but tender-toed Dorking, should have low roosts; and when the more active breeds, as Game, Hamburghs, and Spanish, are allowed to mount 5 or 6 feet above the floor, the range of nests should be closed in above with a wide board to afford them a landing-place when they leave their perch. Earthen floors are the best, but to remove from the fowls all temptation to scrape them up, they should be beaten hard, well watered on the surface, and then smoothed down with a trowel.

When the houses are numerous it will be a great advantage to have them planned so as

to pass right through the entire range of overhead, and two inner doors enter a sepathem without interruption, for the purposes rate apartment on either side. The door both of cleaning and feeding. In such cases, of each is in the middle, as being most also, the moveable tressle-shaped perches convenient for cleaning, and in this case, to should be used. avoid contact with the outer door, which, in its turn, yielding to the principle of convenience, opens inwards. Runs of the same width as the house communicate with both apartments, having each a door from the garden walk close at the corner of the house, and the trap-door or slip for the fowls is at the same corner. One perch in each, 3 feet high, runs from end to end of each division, and two roofed-in nests are placed over against the door and the middle of the perch. A large pane of glass is placed in the side of each division for light. Except the garden wall gable the whole is of overlapping boards. The roof does not overlap, as it is covered with tarpaulin. The inmates are to number twelve hens and two cocks; and if further subdivision be rendered necessary, the house is so halved that it can with almost no change have three apartments, or even four at a push.

In smaller establishments a sheltered situation is often looked for, and the house leans against some good wall. Here the perches may be fixed, and within one outer door, under lock and key, may be formed several separate apartments, entering from the main passage running parallel with the supporting wall, each containing one cock and from four to six hens. Before this term we had a house answering this description, 16 feet long by 8 feet wide, including the main passage. The four inner apartments were fitted up with open spars to admit light from the door and windows, which latter should be in the sides of the house, as if placed in the roof there will be considerable inconvenience during a snow-storm. To adapt the house to the ground, one run entered at the end, and, looking northwards, had a broad fence opposite the gable of the house as a shelter from cold winds. The sub-divisions were necessarily small, yet with good airy runs and abundant ventilation through this wooden fabric, a stock of from sixteen to twenty hens and four cocks have thriven and maintained an honourable position in the show-yard. Removing to a new house, we find only a garden border, 72 feet wide, but of great length, whereon to erect the future dwelling for our pets. Well, what is to be done? Why, against a wall 6 feet high we are placing a house, entering from the gardenwalk, the passage inside being at right angles to the wall, the ridge of the roof being exactly in the middle of this passage

Every morning this house will be thoroughly cleaned, and the floor sprinkled with ashes (wood-ashes if possible) twice a-week. The inside of the roosting-divisions will be washed with lime every six months, or sometimes oftener, and the outer door will be kept open all day, unless in stormy weather. Of course this latter precaution cannot be taken in cases where the eggs are stolen, and then more ventilation will be required from other parts of the house. We have never, for nearly twenty years, had a single fowl stolen, nor perhaps even one egg, although the latter sort of theft has once or twice been attempted.