Management when at Liberty on a Farm.

The number should not exceed one hundred housed together, probably fifty will be found more profitable, but if housed quite apart, so that they cannot mix, many different lots of fifty may be kept on the same farm. Hens not for breeding will do as well without-cocks being run with them, and the eggs keep longer fresh when infertile. Cockerels should be shut up by themselves when they begin to get troublesome.

Kill off the cross-bred hens just before their second moult, when they are about two and a half years old. An extra season may be allowed to known good layers. Where a large number is kept, in order to know the age, small numbered metal clips should be fixed on the pullets' legs.

If there be good water, gravel, and places for dusting within their reach, no extra attention is required, but the roosting-house must be very clean, and lime must be supplied if many eggs be sold. Feed twice a day Soft food in the morning, grain at night. Table-scraps should not be wasted. If there be much scrub or other cover about, have a small yard in front of the roosting-house, and shut them in it till midday, when most will have laid. Leave the slide of the door open to let them come out of the house into this yard at daybreak.

To secure eggs in winter chickens should be reared early, so as to lay in autumn. Winter-laying breeds and crosses should be kept, Good shelter, hot morning food, extra meat-supply, help greatly. Crushed green bones and malt are very good. Cheap machines are now to be had for crushing bones, and malt is easily made by soaking one-third of a kerosene tin full of barley for twerty-four hours, draining thoroughly, turning over twice a day for a week, and then baking dry in an oven A little pepper may be mixed with the food two or three times a week. A sprinkling of salt gives a relish; too much is a poison, In extra severe weather, for fifty fowls dissolve a piece of sulphate of iron the size of a small hazel nut in the water used to mix the soft food. It is very cheap stuff; but remember it is a poison in large doses.

To put a hen off sitting shut her up with a cockerel, which will keep her moving, or put her outside, fronting the other hens, in a coop barred front and bottom.