I have a native fondness for poultry; and the leisure moments which I sometimes devote to them are given more for the pleasure I find in them than for any profit which accrues in their management. I am in the habit of feeding my adult fowls regularly and abundantly twice a day; the chicks are fed oftener, or food is so placed that they have access to it whenever the cravings of appetite prompt them to seek it. An ample run, the larger the better, with a stream of running water, is best, as well for the health as the growth of poultry. Young chicks should be fed very early in the morning, so as to obviate the necessity of their wandering about through the high and dewy grass in search of something to appease their hunger. I believe it is now a generally conceded point, that feeding chicks upon the dough of Indian meal, and permitting their mothers to drag them at will through the high grass and the chilly dews of morning, are among the main producing causes of gapes, a disease which annually carries off multiplied thousands of them.

In this connection permit me to give two or three recipes for gapes, which are said to be very efficacious:

1st. "To kill the worms in the windpipe, which cause gapes, administer pills of camphor', about half as large in size as a garden pea. These pills should be administered one at a time, eight hours apart, till the chick is relieved. In slight cases, cures may be effected by giving the chicks water strongly impregnated with camphor".

2d. A writer in the London Cottage Gardener says a sure specific for gapes is found in "Twenty grains bol. armen., twelve drops spirits of tar, and one ounce of cochineal, - to be divided into pills of the size of a peppercorn, and given when the first symptoms of the disease appear".

3d. " Pour a small handful of wheat into a vial of turpentine, and let the same remain for twenty-four hours; then give a single grain, night and morning, to chicks affected with gapes. A single grain, in slight cases, will sometimes effect a cure".

The disease called Roup is one of the most common, and perhaps one of the most fatal diseases to which our domestic fowls are incident. My opinion is that it originates from sudden atmospheric changes, or by carrying fowls from the protection of comfortable rooms into exposed positions, thereby superinducing colds of greater or less malignancy; these colds, if neglected, frequently terminate fatally. My reason for this belief I will state. Winter before last I purchased in this city a pair of large and healthy-looking fowls. I took them from the warm quarters where I found them and put them into a comparatively open house. In the course of two or three days I observed that the cock had a sort of rattling and discordant crow, which indicated trouble about the throat or lungs, - twenty-four hours thereafter he ceased to crow at all. Hereupon I took him in hand, washing his throat with a solution of strong alum-water and then giving him a large bolus of flour of sulphur and lard. I repeated this remedy two or three times, when his voice returned, and in three or four days he was well again. By the time the cock was restored, the pullet was attacked with the same disease, but more malignantly.

Her head was swollen, her eyes running, with heavy fever in the head, and cankered mouth and throat. I washed her head and throat with castile soap and tepid water, then rinsed her mouth well with alum-water, and gave her a tablespoonful of sulphur and lard thoroughly mixed. This treatment effected a cure in about a week, but the hen was feeble for weeks after. Others of my hens became affected, when I recalled the old adage, that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure;" so I went to work and put a quantity of sulphur in one of their drinking vessels, and in another about a half pint of tar; from these vessels my fowls had to take their daily draughts. At this point the disease was arrested, but whether by the preventive means employed, or otherwise, I can not say.

Not a great while since a Mr. Lockrow, of Conn., stated in one of the agricultural journals, that "burnt borax, wetted up with water, and applied once a day, for three or four days, to the inside of the mouth of a fowl affected with canker, is an infallible remedy." E.

F. W. Woodward, Esq. : Bear Sir - In the August number of the Horticulturist I notice an article upon Brahmas, in which the writer assumes that the Brahmas are the fowls most worthy the attention of farmers and fanciers, and places them at the head of the list.

Now, with all due respect to the writer, and acknowledging the Brahmas to be very fine and popular birds, I propose to say a few words upon the Houdans, which are birds of no ordinary merit, and are destined to become among the most popular fowls of the country.

This valuable breed of fowls derive their name from Houdan, a town in France, and are also natives of that country, where they are raised in large numbers for market. Their rapid growth and fineness of flesh commend them as table fowls of the highest excellence.

They have very broad and full breasts, with large, white or white-shaded legs, with five toes (although they sometimes come with only four); plumage, invariably black and white, spangled; crest of same color; tail, full and ample, well sickled, and carried rather erect; comb, two-horned in shape, slightly sprigged at the base, and in the cock showing well in front of crest; strongly developed whiskers and beards in both cock and hens.

In the spring of 1867 I imported a trio of these valuable birds, and although having but a small yard in the city, with not a sprig of grass, they furnished me with a good number of large white eggs, which I intrusted to the care of others for hatching and rearing. They succeeded, for various reasons, in raising but few.

This year I have kept the two imported hens and three pullets, and although I have not kept an exact account of the eggs laid, I venture to say that, no hens could have laid more or better eggs.