Fowls allowed to run about are naturally fond of grass and vegetables; any refuse cabbage-leaves, lettuce, and grass-cuttings from the lawn will be most acceptable to them, and should be thrown into their run.

Having housed the fowls and described their food and the way of feeding, it is natural to look forward for some reward in the way of eggs and chickens. With proper food, such as has been recommended above, we are certain to have a good supply of the former. We will show the method as adopted by some of the best breeders to raise the latter. The first thing is to choose a hen for sitting; that is easily ascertained. When you see one of your stock ruffling her feathers, wandering about, trying to hide herself in dark corners and out-of-the-way places, and making a peculiar sort of "cluck," immediately prepare a nest for her in a quiet spot, and place there the number of eggs which she can conveniently cover. It depends entirely upon the size of the hen what number of eggs you should place in the nest. Select if possible a short-legged hen. The number of eggs will of course vary according to her size, from nine to thirteen. Should you have two hens "clucking," it is a good plan to sit them both on the same day, as when the eggs are hatched the two broods may be given over to the charge of one hen; you will then have the other in a short time laying again.

The nest must be made warm and comfortable; there must also be some degree of moisture. Some old housewives sit their hens on the ground, but damp is fatal to hatching. The most simple nest is one made of straw, well-softened by rubbing in the hands, fern or heath. You must induce the hen to leave her nest every day, and see that she has plenty of water and food, and also an opportunity of rolling herself in dust or ashes, and picking among gravel or soil. Do not interfere with her more than this, as excessive watching will disturb her. The eggs chosen for sitting should be from the newest you have; if you have enough all laid on one day, so much the better. At the expiration of twenty-one days, if all goes well, you will find your chickens hatched; if in winter, hen and chickens should be comfortably housed - an old shed will do. Place the hen under a coop; a box with one side taken out, with laths nailed in front, makes a very excellent and cheap one. Place some chicken food in front of the coop. Whilst very young they should be fed every hour, and any stale food they may have left should be removed; as they grow, the number of meals may gradually be reduced until they are fit for fattening.

The best food for very young chickens is hard-boiled eggs, bread-and-milk, millet, rice (boiled), and canary seed. With the chicken as with the fowls, the greatest cleanliness must be observed, and their water-pans should be replenished two or three times a day. The best age for sitting a hen is from two to five years, and in selecting the hen you should choose one that has proved a good brooder, and keep the giddy and careless ones solely for laying. Many people select fowls as sitters that have tufts on their heads. Every year some fine young fowls should be reared, to keep up a stock of good breeders; by attending to this, and feeding bad layers and careless nurses, you will insure a good and profitable stock. Should you be inclined to sit a hen on any other description of eggs than her own, be most careful in placing her eggs as many days after the others as there is difference in the length of their sitting. Have wormwood and rue conveniently situated near your poultry-house; some of the former, boiled and sprinkled over the floor of the house, is an excellent thing. Pills made of chopped rue and butter are by some considered a panacea for all the ailments to which fowls are subject.

Moisture, as before shown, is absolutely necessary to insure success, as well as being a means of insuring quick hatching - which is of great consequence, as many chickens die from inability to escape from their shell. During wet, warm weather the eggs will not require any interference with; but in hot, dry, parching weather, a little assistance must be given, by sprinkling the eggs during the absence of the hen, when feeding, with tepid water, and watering with a water-pot in the neighbourhood of the nest, to create a moist, steamy atmosphere. Should it be necessary to give assistance to the chick in its endeavour to quit the shell, care must be taken that the time has really arrived when assistance should be given. If on breaking away the shell the least shadow or sign of blood should be seen, stop immediately - the chicken is not ready to leave the shell; by persisting you would most certainly cause the death of the chick. If the chick be ready to leave the shell, but unable through the dryness of the weather, and consequent hardness of it, he will assist you in your attempts to bring him into light.

Do not neglect to feed your poultry regularly with good and solid food from the first Those hens you intend to keep for laying should be fed on Indian corn-meal, and those for market or for the table should have more nourishing food. It is a great mistake to purchase what is called chicken's corn for fowls, as it is generally little more than husk, or corn so shrivelled that there is no nourishment in it. Good wholesome corn, every description of the best meal - such as barley-meal, Pollard's buckwheat, oatmeal, cayenne pepper-seeds, and greaves - made into cakes, and given hot, is one of the most fattening and flesh-making foods for poultry. Little chickens thrive best if they are given chopped nettles, with a little butter-milk thrown over them.

The following is a food on which our poultry will fatten very quickly. Put a sufficient quantity of rice to feed the fowls you wish to fatten in a saucepan, with some skimmed milk; let it boil until the rice is perfectly swelled out, and then add a little sugar. Feed them three times a day in earthenware pans, giving them only as much as will quite fill them at once. Let the pans be washed out in spring water, that no sourness may be conveyed to the fowls, as that will prevent them fattening; give them the milk the rice was boiled in, and clean water, to drink. By adopting this plan the flesh will have a clear whiteness, which no other food gives; and when it is considered how far a pound of rice will go, and how much time is saved by this method, it will be found to be cheap. A little animal food mixed with vegetable food also causes poultry to fatten rapidly, but before these are killed they should for a few days have a purely vegetable diet. Another method of fattening fowls is by cramming them, which no doubt fattens them very shortly; by this method you may have fowls ready for table or market in a fortnight, the fowls weighing from five to seven pounds.