ive hen-houses and
artificial nests are mostly humbugs. Have many places of concealment
about, where they can make their nests as they please. When a hen begins
to set, remove her, nest and all, to a yard to which layers have no
access, and you need have no difficulty with her. Set a hen near the
ground, in a dry place, on fifteen fresh eggs, all put under her at
once, and they will hatch about the same time at the end of twenty days.
Old hens, of the common kind, are best to set. Let them have their own
way in everything but running in the wet with their young chickens--and
that they will not be much inclined to do if they are well fed. Much is
said about the diseases of fowls and their remedies. We have very little
confidence in any of it. Sick chickens will die _unless they get well_.
Time spent in doctoring them does not generally pay. Wormwood and tansy,
growing, or gathered and scattered, or steeped and sprinkled about the
premises occupied by hens, will protect them from small vermin. Never
give them anything salt or sour, unless it be sour milk. The eggs of
ducks, turkeys, or geese, may be hatched under hens. Time, thirty days.
Hence, if put under with hens' eggs, they must be set ten days earlier,
that they may all hatch at once. Fattening chickens may be well done in
six days, by feeding rice, boiled rather soft in sweet skimmed milk, fed
plentifully three times a day. Feed these in pans, well cleaned before
each meal, and give only what they will eat up at once, and desire a
very little more. Put a little pounded charcoal within their reach, and
a little rice-water, milk, or clear water. This makes the most beautiful
meal at a low price. Never feed a chicken for sixteen or twenty-four
hours before killing it.

_Varieties or Breeds._--This has been matter of much speculation. The
result has been (what was probably a main object) the sale of many fowls
and eggs at exorbitant prices. When chickens have sold at fifty dollars
per pair, and eggs at six dollars a dozen, some persons must have made
money, while others lost it. Yet, there is some choice in the breed of
hens. The kind makes less difference, as far as flesh is concerned, than
is usually imagined. It requires about a given quantity of grain to make
a certain amount of flesh. Large fowls give us much larger weight of
flesh than small ones, but they also eat a much larger quantity of
grain. Large fowls are certainly large eaters. The three best layers are