The Poulterer

Too heavy feeding and want of exereiso tend to bai-renness. Keeping fowls on bard runs or floors will cause swollen ieet or legs. Hens in confinement need to have eggshell material supplied to them. Any kind of poultry may be improved by a careful selection and breeding. Chickens will keep healthier if they can have loose ground to scratch over. Even in winter, if the hens aré expected to lay regularly, care must be taken not to let them become too fat, The principal reason why cooked food fattens the fowls more rapidly is because it is much more easily digested. When fowis are closely confined, the runs need spading up occasionally to prevent them f rom becoming too foul. Barly broilers usually prove very profitable. Push the growth until they will average two pounds and then sell. It will pay tosellall thecommon turkeys nnd make a new start with someof the better breeds like the Bronze of Narragansett. A small quantity of sur.flower seed given occasionally will add to the gloss of the plumage. A handful to a dozen fowls will be sufficient. Bran, ground oats and cornmeal make one of the best rations for growing chickens. It may be improved somewhatby baking aud then cruinbling. In selecting the hens, if there are any ! that have proved themselves exceptionally good mothers, it will pay to keep theui over if they are past 3 years old. The nests should be dark, warm and supplied with good nesting material, which should be cfaanged regularly, even in winter, to prevent its becoming too foul. Setting hens are scarce in winter, so u early chickensare wanted a good incubator will be necessary, the size depending upou the nurnber of chickens to be hatched. Lea ves or chaff make a good litterto scatter on the floor, and by throwing grain aniong is the fowls wlll be kept busy scratching it over, and in this way take exercise. One of the principal items in raising chickens in the brooder is warrnth. If they get chilled, they will crowd together in a brooder so closely that soine will be smothered. Wheat is one of the best grains for laying hens. It is rich in material for growth, while stimulating totbeeggfnnctions. At present prices it can bardly be eousidered an expensive feed. With good treatment pullets hatched in February will lay in September; those hatched in March will lay in October, while those hatched in April will usually begin laying in