Honey Water Perfume, Honey and Glycerine Ointment, Honey Paste for Skin, Honey Dog Medicine, Honey Drink for Horses and Cattle, Honey Flip, Honey Soothing Syrup, and a host of other preparations by different manufacturers of specialities, beverages, etc.

Fruits can be most advantageously preserved in honey, and are simply delicious. Honey vinegar is most admirable for its refined tartness. Honey noyau, honey currant wine, metheglin-mead, honey liquorice, honey tea cakes, Hamburg honey cake, honey apple cake, honey fruit cake, honey sponge cake, honey lemon cake, and many others are among those delicacies with honey which all ladies wishing to make dainty dishes to place before their guests will do well to acquaint themselves with, and I will gladly supply any subscriber to "LAND" with a number of such receipts—too numerous to mention here which when made up they will pronounce superb, and by making and using and distributing help on our land's resources.

Wax, too, can be applied to a great number of uses. Wax candles (fine bees'-wax candles) are not, unfortunately, so much used as formerly, save in churches ; but for furniture polishes, for dubbin for boots, for dental surgery and modelling purposes, as well as artistic uses, it is most serviceable, and the "waxing of the thread" has by no means gone out, nor has sealing wax passed away in toto in these days of gummed envelopes. I have mentioned only a few of the many uses to which these two products of the bee can be applied, but these alone are sufficient to show that there is ample room for "apiculture" on our land, and for sale of and use of their productions.

V. H. MOYLE.

CHAPTER LXII.

POULTRY FARMING.

By C. F. DOWSETT, F.S.I.,

Author of various Articles on Land and House Properties; “Striking Events in Irish History"; &c.

SPEAKING from an experience of several years, derived from a knowledge of farmers in various counties, I venture, in a very friendly spirit, to remark that there exists amongst them great ignorance on the subject of poultry farming.

On farm after farm, I have inspected the poultry houses and found them dirty-either not ventilated, or too exposed to the weather, and generally most ill adapted to the requirements of successful poultry farming the perches being often mere sticks, which, for heavy birds, are sufficient to produce malformation.

Cleanliness is of primary importance; the floor should be hard, so that it can be swept daily, and the arrangement of the perches should be such as that the droppings, which, of course, occur principally at night, can be easily collected. Some years ago, I made a careful and very profitable study of Mr. Lewis Wright's book on poultry, published by Messrs. Cassell, and had a poultry house built on the principle he laid down for heavy birds, which is inexpensive and singularly simple. A nest of laying divisions on the ground were covered by a broad board, extending about six inches beyond

the uprights of the nests; above this board (about six inches) was a scaffold pole, on which the large Brahmas roosted. The necessity for a scaffold pole is seen in the size of the bird's foot, and the short distance from the ground in the bird's bulk. This board was kept strewn with ashes, and the droppings, of course, mingled with them, so that the excrement of fifty or a hundred birds could be raked off in the morning into a box kept for the purpose in one minute; and this excrement is worth from three to seven shillings a hundredweight, according to the market for it. With smaller light high-flying birds, such as the Hamburg, Spanish, Houdan, Polands, and even Dorkings, much smaller perches are requisite, and should be placed higher from the ground, but they can, with a little contrivance, be so placed as that the droppings shall be easily collected and not defile the house, much less the laying nests. Without a strict observance of cleanliness, poultry cannot be healthy, and, if not healthy, cannot be profitable stock. The coal ashes answer a double purpose, not only to promote cleanliness by licking up the droppings, but they destroy fleas where the birds' feathers are often full of ash-dust, fleas cannot live. I once employed a man who, with his wife, had managed a poultry farm, but they resigned it for the reason that they were plagued with fleas upon their persons. Another situation on a poultry farm was offered them, which they declined for this reason; when the owner observed to them that he had not a single flea in all his poultry, and the reason was that he kept ashes in the poultry house and ashes in a dry shed for their bath; for, be it remembered, poultry take their daily bath in dust as a pigeon does in water; and when they wallow in the dust, shaking it through their feathers, they cleanse themselves from the impurities of insect life. I always kept lime in

one corner of the poultry house, and the natural movements of the birds caused a thin dust of lime occasionally to arise, and this mingled with their feathers and was a double preservative of cleanliness. When a rat made his appearance I took care to fill his hole with lime, and I found rats would never work through lime.

I have seen poultry houses which had not apparently been cleansed for months, and the effluvia was simply dangerous to the health of any living creature, and under such circumstances it is just impossible to farm poultry with success.

A poultry house, too, should be warm to breed with profit. Chickens must be hatched so as to be ready for the market as table birds in March or April, and commence laying in December, when eggs are dear.

A very common fault, I have found, is to sit the birds in a dry place, a box, basket, unused manger, loft, or such place, and the result often is, that many of the chicks do not hatch out, the reason being that the moisture of the egg becomes so dried that the poor little chick is thoroughly glued to the shell. Sitting nests should always be upon the natural earth, so that the heat from the hen's body should draw up the moisture to the eggs, as is the case with them in their natural condition. have often sprinkled my eggs with luke-warm water with advantage.

I

Plenty of really clean water is a necessary requirement to profitable poultry farming.

Upon a farm much less may be said of food than in confined runs, because the birds have a wide range, and often a wide selection of food in summer; but eggs are wanted when they fetch the highest price in the market, and this is when the ground is often covered with snow or crusted by frost. Food then should always be given

soft in the morning and hard at night, because in the morning it should be as soon as possible got into the system, while at night it should be retained in the crop, so that the system can feed upon it all night. I always gave my birds a hot breakfast in winter. Spratt's food put into a bucket with boiling water added, and left (say twenty minutes) to swell, is a capital breakfast, especially in confined runs, for it contains particles of meat and oyster shell the latter or lime of some kind is necessary to the bird for the formation of the egg-shell. In very cold weather I have added pepper. At night Indian corn, barley, buckwheat, or other grain.

In confined runs it must ever be borne in mind that poultry must have daily, green food, fresh water, a dry bath, and perfect cleanliness; if these conditions cannot be observed poultry ought not to be kept.

An important feature of success is to get rid of the old birds in the autumn and replace with those hatched in March or April, and always to buy from healthy stock. Some of the old-fashioned Surrey fowls, commonly called barn-door fowls, are as profitable, I believe, as any for eggs. I always preferred a cross between a dark Brahma and a grey Dorking; they lay fine eggs, are splendid table birds, and are very tame, being easily handled. Houdans are capital birds; they lay large eggs and have fine flesh.

A common fault in confined runs is over-feeding. If birds do not run readily and pick up the food given, it shows that they do not want it, and food should never be allowed to lie about the ground. A great stimulant to egg-producing is flesh-horse flesh, etc. On farms in the spring, the snails and slugs excite the laying properties. On some farms the variety of food obtainable by the birds is so abundant that they want little feeding; but