The nests, if built into the wall, are in tiers from the bottom to the top, the lowest being about three feet from the ground, and a foot square. If the laying-chambers consist of wooden boxes, they are .usually fiunished with a ledge, which is very convenient for the hens when rising.
But the best receptacles for the eggs are those of basket-work, as they are cool in summer, and can easily be removed and washed. They ought to be fastened not directly to the wall, as is generally the case, but to boards fixed In it by hooks, well clinched, and with a little roof to cover the rows of baskets. They will thus bo isolated, to the great satisfaction of the hen, which delights in the absence of all disturbing intlueuces when laying. All the ranges of nests should be placed cheque-wise, in order that the inmates, when Doming out, may not startle those immediately under : those designed for hatching should be near the ground (where instinct teaches the hen to choose her seat), and so arranged that the hens can easily enter them without disturbing the eggs.
Wheaten or rye straw is the most approved material for the bedding being cooler than hay : the hens are sometimes so tortured by lice a, to forsake their nests altogether, in an agony of restlessness. A Dorking housewife has assured us that she once lost an entire clutch from having, as she believes, given a bed of hay-seeds to her sittini hen. The chicks were all glued to the shells, and thus destroyed owing, as she thinks, to the high temperature occasioned by the fer ineuting *coda For all purposes two cocks in a good run are considered in tin poultry counties contiguous to London as sufficient for twelve o fourteen hens, but In Frauce they allow twenty mistresses to each cock, which no doubt is on account of the higher temperature there In a confined yard, five hens are 'sufficient for one cock in our colt country, and a double set will nut answer in very limited space Then there are two or more cocks, care should be taken not to have hem of equal age or size, for in this case they are always jealous and marrelseine ; if one is decidedly ascendant, the other will never pre.
Anne to dispute with him. It will be judicious also to avoid the or changing of cocks in the breeding season, for the hens -equire constant intercourse with them, and several days frequeutly !lapse before they become familiarised with a stranger. The best way is to bring in the new cock in the summer, either as a chick, or ate in the year in the moulting season, when he will not take too nuch notice of the hens. As a general rule it would be well to have
me a yearliug, and the other a year older. In the third year, the :ock, who they becomes lazy and excessively jealous, should be killed.
In order to have the earliest chickens, hens should be induced to sit .n October, which they may do if they have moulted early. By atten tion in this particular, chickens can be brought to the market at Christmas. But the object should be In general to set the eggs as soon as possible after Christmas, in order to have chickens with the forced asparagus in March, when they are worth in London from is. to 10s. a couple.
In selecting eggs for lunching, awe should be taken that they are not at the utmost more than a month old, but their condition for hatching will greatly depend upon the temperature of the weather : vitality continues longest when the air ie cool.
It has been asserted that the future sex of the bird is indicated by the shape of the egg; the round producing the female, and the oblong the male. But this is contradicted, and, we believe, with sufficient reason ; and it is impossible not only to foretell the sex, but even to ascertain whether the egg be fecundated. This however is certain, that if the air-bag (at the obtuse end), which has been mistaken fur the germ, and the purpose of which is to oxygenate the blood of the chick, be perforated even in the least conceivable degree, the gene rating power Is lost altogether. Those eggs only which have been fecundated by the male are possessed of the vital principle. The 'lumber of eggs for a hen should not exceed sixteen, as she canuot impart the necessary warmth to more. It is by no means uncommon with experienced breeders to place two hens on the same day on their respective eggs, and then on the twenty-first day, when the broods are out, to give the maternal charge of both to one of the hens, removing the other to another set of eggs, which, if she be a steady sitter, she will hatch as in the first instance. This however must be deemed a cruelty, though some liens would instinctively continue to sit until death. They would however become so attenuated by constant sitting, as to lose the power of communicating to the eggs the neces sary degree of warmth. The practice of the Surrey breeders is to feed the hen on oats while sitting, as less stimulating than barley, which they give to the laying hens on account of this very quality.