fowls, as they
are picked up by the birds and find their way into the gizzard, where
they perform the part of mill-stones in grinding the corn.

LAYING.

The early period of spring, and after a cessation at the end of summer,
are the two periods at which fowls begin to lay. When the period of
laying approaches, it is known by the redness of the comb in the hen,
the brightness of her eyes, and her frequent clucking. She appears
restless, and scratches and arranges the straw in her laying place, and
at last begins to lay. She generally prefers to lay in a nest where
there is one or more eggs; hence it is of use to put a chalk egg into
the nest you wish her to settle on.

The eggs ought to be taken from the nest every afternoon, when no more
are expected to be laid, for if left in the nest, the heat of the hens
when laying each day will tend to corrupt them. Some hens will lay only
one egg in three days, some every other day, and some every day.

To promote laying, good food in moderate quantities should be given to
the hens, and also clean water. A hen well fed and attended to, will
produce upwards of one hundred and fifty eggs in a year, besides two
broods of chickens. Some half-bred game hens begin to lay as soon as
their chickens are three weeks old.

PRESERVATION OF EGGS.

To preserve eggs fresh for a length of time, it is only necessary to rub
each egg with a small piece of butter, which need not be larger than a
pea, or the tip of the finger may be dipped in a saucer of oil and
passed over the shell in the same way. Eggs may be thus preserved for
nine months.

HATCHING CHICKENS.

The eggs given to the hen to hatch must be perfectly fresh; they should
be large in size, the produce of the most beautiful birds, well shaped,
and the number put under the hen should vary according to her size, and
may be from nine to thirteen eggs; odd numbers, old housewives say, are
the _luckiest_.

When a hen wants to sit, she makes a particular kind of clucking, and
goes to her nest. Here she fixes herself for a period of three weeks, at
the end of which time, the young chickens break the eggs and come out
perfect beings. They run about as soon almost as they are out of the
egg, and in twenty-four hours will take food.

On the first day of their birth, chickens require nothing but warmth,
and they must be kept under the mother in the nest. The next day, they
may be put under a coop and fed with crumbs of bread soak