Pickings In The Poultry Yard

March and April are the best monlha for hatchiug, generslly speaking. But a few winter broods should be brought out. Mix ground black pepper with the morning food for chicks twice a week, one table-spoonful of pepper for every twonty chickri. Feed ohieks niorning, noon and late afternoon ; cooked food uiorning, and grain, as broken coru, wheat, etc., noon and afternoon. In selecting hens for setting, the smallest will be found the most sucoessful, as they are less liable to break the eggs or crush the young cliicks when hatched. No beu sbould havo more tlian twelve cbiekens 10 tuke care of at the most, otherwiao t-lie will notdo justice to them ; and in cold weather eight or nine, or as some say, diily sis, are quite unough, if choice chickGravel, fand or some other similar sub; stance is al most as essential to the fowls' well-being as is food, aud if fowls are kept in eonfinement and not suppliod with this, no matter how much grain you may supply, they will not thrivc, or even keep healthy for any length of time. Very early chickena must be fed by lamplight at night. One great essential is to shorten the night and lengthen the day as much as possible. Feed at least twice after dark, once the last thing before bed-timo. lt is not difficult to teach chickens to come forth at nigbt and cat cracked corn and wheat sereenings. Eggs for early hatching should not be allowed to remain in the nests during cold weather, even if experiments have showu that they may be subjected to a great degree of cold without destroying their vitality. At its best, early hatching has too inany disá Ivantages to add to the Hst the chancos of an experiment. - Exchange. Thomas Jefterson said : " Let the farmer forevermore be honored in his calling, fur they who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God." A correspondent of the Ioter-Ocean, writing from Hattle Creek, Wich., says that he purified his well of water, which was subject to many wornis, bugs and other insects as to render it alniost unfit for drinking, by plaeing in the well a couple of good-sized trout. Tlicy have kept perfectly healthy, nnd have eaten up every live thing in the water. In the winter season crumbs of bread or crackers are thrown in. The water is perfectly pure and sweet.