in a pecuniary point of view, as it was very
doubtful if the children's pets would ever have died for the benefit
of the dinner-table, and I only insert this chapter for the purpose of
proving what I stated, viz.; that if a lady wishes her stock of any
kind to prosper, she must look after it herself. When I say prosper, I
mean without the expense being double the value of the produce she
would receive from her "four-acre farm."

We did not enter these disasters in our housekeeping book, it went
under the title of children's expenses. For my own part, I am disposed
to think that it must always be expensive to keep live stock of any
kind for which all the food has to be purchased. Had we continued to
keep our fowls in the yard, I am convinced they would have brought us
little or no profit; but the grass, worms, and other things they found
for themselves in the field, half supplied them in food, as well as
keeping them healthy. We had not one death among our poultry from
disease in the six months of which I have been relating this
experience of our farming.

Our next venture proved more prosperous than the rabbits, and will be
related in the following chapter.

CHAPTER IX.

OUR PIGEONS.

After we had been a few months in the country, a friend, who was a
great pigeon-fancier, wished to add some new varieties to his cote,
and offered to send us, as a present, seven or eight pairs of those he
wished to part with. We were greatly pleased with his offer, and at
once set the carpenter at work to prepare a house for them. As soon as
it was ready we received sixteen beautiful pigeons.

For the first fortnight the pigeon-holes were covered with net, that
the birds might be enabled to survey at a distance their new abode,
and become accustomed to the sight of the persons about the yard. When
the net was removed, they eagerly availed themselves of their freedom
to take flights round and round the house. One couple, of less
contented disposition than the others, never came back, nor did we
ever hear that they had returned to their old home. Our number was
not, however, lessened by their desertion, for we received, at nearly
the same time, from another friend, a pair of beautiful "pouters."

As we resolved to keep a debtor-and-creditor account of all the things
we kept, we found that our eighteen pigeons consumed in every seven
weeks.

Two pecks of peas . . . . . . . . . . . $0 75
One peck of tares . . . . . . . . . .