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POULTRY and their eggs come more immediately under the care and management of our country housewife, than any other outward part of the farmer's business; and accordingly many farmers think it their interest to let their wives have all the profit of their eggs and poultry, for raising money to buy what we call common or trivial necessaries in the house, as sugar, plumbs, spices, salt, oatmeal, &c. &c. which piece of encouragement engages our housewife and her maid-servants to take special care of feeding her poultry in due time, setting her hens early, and making capons at a proper age.

  The best Feed for Dunghill Fowls, to make them lay early Eggs, and many of them --Is horsebeans and hempseed. Of the first, a particular woman had such an opinion, that she preferred it to all others, and the rather as horsebeans in some wet summers grow in prodigious plenty, and are sold very cheap, sometimes for less than two shillings a bushel; hempseed indeed is dearer. As this last is furnished with much hot oil, as the horsebean is with a very hot quality, they both cause hens to lay in winter, when no other common seed can so well; but if hens were confined always in a room, it hinders very much their laying. The game hen lays most eggs, but they are commonly the least sort.

  Sorts of Hens.--The Hertfordshire dunghill fowls and their eggs have been in great esteem a long time, and at this time their eggs have the greater reputation of all others, insomuch that the very cryers of eggs about London streets take particular care to make the word Hertfordshire be well known; for our country is a Chiltern one, abounding with many hills, dry soils, gravelly rivers, plenty of most sorts of grain, and allow'd by professors of physick to be the healthiest air in England, all which undoubtedly contributes to the breeding of the best of eggs and soundest of dunghill fowls; a proof of which is very demonstrable, by the game cocks bred in Hertfordshire, that beat for the most part those bred in other counties. But I can't say our dunghill fowls exceed all others, for there are excellent sorts of the Poland, the Hamburgh, and the Darking dunghill fowls; the character of the last of which is hereafter inserted.

  Of Hens sitting, and of Chickens and young Ducks.--The game hen sits oftner than the dunghill hen, and will fight the hawk better in defence of her chickens: But as their legs are commonly as black as their feathers, few farmers keep them, because their blackish chickens will not sell like the white-leg'd dunghill sort. When a hen sits on her own eggs, she commonly hatches in three weeks, but when she sits on duck eggs, a month. If she has sat a week on duck eggs, and by accident the eggs are broke, or the hen too much disturbed, so that if she is set again on other duck eggs, she will not sit out her time; in such a case, if she is set again on the hen eggs, she will, because on these she sits a shorter time than on the duck eggs. A hen that sits beyond her time of three weeks seldom brings all her eggs to perfection, which is chiefly owing to her being set in a cold place, or going too far for her meat when off; but that is the best hen that hatches a day or two before the usual time. It is a fault to set a pullet with too many eggs. One was set with eighteen eggs, which she sat on well till the first chicken chirp'd, and then she was affrighted, ran away, and forsook the rest, so that our housewife could preserve but three, and for bringing them up she was forced to use more than ordinary care.--To have early chickens, an industrious housewife living at Gaddesden had a brood of chickens a fortnight old this 25th of February 1747-8; she set her hen in a chimney corner that had no fire near it, but on the back of the same chimney there was a daily one kept, which struck such a sufficient heat to the corner, as enabled the hen to sit close in this cold season, and hatch twelve chickens, which our housewife kept in this place, giving them offald wheat, that was screened at the mill from good wheat, and now and then some wetted pollard; with these the chickens went on well, and for eating up what the chickens and their hen left, our housewife let in a laying hen now and then, so that here was no waste made.

  Dunghill Fowls, their Nature, by Mortimer.--The oldest are best sitters, and the youngest best layers, but good for neither if kept too fat. To breed right chickens is, from two to five years old; the best month is February, and so any time between that and Michaelmas [here Mr. Mortimer is wrong, for when a hen begins to moult, she ought not to be set, because her chickens then seldom live.] A hen sits (says he) twenty days; geese, ducks, and turkeys, thirty; let them have always meat by them while they sit, that they may not straggle from their eggs and chill them. One cock will serve ten hens. If fowls are fed with buck-wheat, they will lay more eggs than ordinary, and the same with hempseed; the buck-wheat whole, or ground and made into paste, which is the best way: It is a grain that will fatten hogs or fowls speedily, but they are commonly fatten'd with barley-meal made into a paste with milk; but wheat-flower is better.--Mortimer, vol. I.

  To fatten Hens, Pullets, Chickens, Capons, or Turkeys.--Their coops must be kept very clean, for all ill smells and nastiness is prejudicial to the fattening of fowls, as contributing towards giving their flesh a bad tang, and an unwholsome quality; to this purpose, they should have also two troughs, that one may be scalded and dried, while the other is in use, and both meat and water, or other liquor, should be kept from each other free of any mixture. As to their meat, there may be several sorts made; one by boiling barley till it is tender in water, another parcel of it in skim milk, another in strong ale; when so boiled, a little coarse sugar may be mixed with it. Or make a paste with barley-meal, and water or skim milk. And as to their drink, let them have strong ale or skim milk, or water wherein a little brickdust is mixed; for if they have not something to scower their maws or crops, they will not thrive to expectation, therefore if brickdust is not put into their drink, either a little of that, or fine sand, should be mixed with their meat now and then, to get them an appetite, and make them digest their food the quicker; the ale will intoxicate them, and cause them to sleep much and fatten the sooner, but the milk tends most to the whitening of their flesh. Now it wants no demonstration by argument, to prove that variety of meats forward the expeditious fattening of any animal; in this case, therefore, give any of these fowls these several sorts of foods alternately; so will they be creating them an appetite while they are fattening, to the making of them exceeding fat in a little time.

  An ancient Author's Way to fatten Chickens.--Boil (says he) bread in milk, as though they were to eat it, but make it thick of the bread, which slice into it in thin slices, not so thick as if it were to make a pudding; but so that when the bread is eaten out, there may some liquid milk remain for the chickens to drink; or that at first you may take up some liquid milk in a spoon, if you industriously avoid the bread; sweeten very well the pottage with good kitchen sugar of four-pence per pound, so put it into the trough before them; put therein but little at a time (two or three spoonfuls) that you may not clog them, and feed them five times a day, between their awaking in the morning and their roosting at night. Give them no other drink, the milk that remaineth after they have eaten the bread is sufficient, neither give them gravel or aught else; keep their coops very clean, as also their troughs, cleansing them well every morning. To half a dozen very little chickens, little bigger than blackbirds, an ordinary porringer full every day may serve, and in eight days they will be prodigiously fat. One penny loaf, and less than two quarts of milk, and about half a pound of sugar, will serve little ones the whole time; bigger chickens will require more, and two or three days longer time; when any of them are at their height of fat, you must eat them, for if they live longer, they will fall back and grow lean; be sure to make their pottage very sweet.--Or you may pound rice in a mortar till it is very small, and the smaller the better, for then it may be made into a paste with scalded milk and coarse sugar, which if given to chickens by a little at a time, so that they are not gorged, will fatten them in a very little time; let them have ale or good small beer to drink, and give their meat warm.--But there is a receit that directs the fattening of chickens with rice without pounding or grinding it, only to boil rice in milk till it be very tender and pulpy, as when you make milk-pottage; it must be thick, that a spoon may stand an end in it; sweeten this very well with ordinary sugar, and put it into their troughs where they feed, that they may be always eating of it; it must be made fresh every day; their drink must be only milk in another little trough by their meat-trough; let a candle (ftly disposed) stand by them all night for seeing their meat, for they will eat all night long. You put the chickens up as soon as they can feed of themselves, which will be within a day or two after they are hatched, and in twelve days or a fortnight they will be prodigiously fat; but after they are come to their height, they presently fall back, so that they must be eaten. Their pen or coop must be contrived so, that the hen (who must be with them to sit over them) may not go at liberty to eat their meat, but be kept to her own diet in a part of their coop that she cannot get out of; but the chickens must have liberty to go from her to other parts of the coop, where they may eat their own meat, and come in again to the hen to be warm'd by her at their pleasure. You must be careful to keep their coop very clean.--Or you may scald oatmeal in milk, and feed the chickens with it the first week, and rice and sugar the second week; in a fortnight they will be prodigiously fat; a little gravel will now be necessary sometimes to cleanse their maws and give them an appetite.

  Sir Kenelm Digby's Receit to make a luscious Food to fatten Chickens in the sweetest and quickest Manner.--Stone (says he) a pound of raisins of the sun, and beat them in a mortar to pulp, pour a quart of milk upon them, and let them soak so all night; next morning put to them as many crums of grated stale bread, which beaten together will bring them to a soft paste; work all well together, and lay it in the trough before the chickens (which must be about six in a pen, and keep it very clean) and let a candle be by them all night. The delight of this meat will make them eat continually, and they will be so fat (when they are but of the bigness of blackbirds) that they will not be able to stand, but sit down upon their bellies to eat.

  Gaddesden Farmers Way to feed Chickens.--Notwithstanding we live on a high hill, and on a red clayey soil, yet some of our farmers venture their early bred chickens abroad, and let them take their chance in going with the hen abroad from the first, even in February or March, though the weather is frost or snow; but then we take care to give them a hearty food, for enabling them to withstand the cold; and that is whole oatmeal and barley mixt together, which will so hearten them, that they will not kill themselves with chirping and pain, as those chickens are apt to do, that are fed with sloppy meat, such as wetted pollard, &c. And if the chickens should fall sick, we give each one sow-bug or wood-louse, and it often recovers it; but a hen as well as a chicken is killed by musty corn. The chicken is cured by the bug, or both the hen and chicken are sometimes cured by rue.--Butter and scouring-sand must be given a little in large pills or pellets.--For the same reason, put rue into the water the chickens drink, which will keep them in health, and from the cramp.

  To make Capons.--This operation belongs to the country housewife. I know a yeoman living near Hempstead in Hertfordshire, whose estate is but about fifty pounds a year, that makes (as it is credibly reported) ffteen pounds a year by the sale of capons; his wife and daughter cut the young dunghill cocks, but I don't suppose they were all bred on his farm, for some for this purpose make it their business after harvest-time to go to markets for buying up chickens, and between Michaelmas and Allhollantide caponize the cocks, when they have got large enough to have stones of such a bigness that they may be pulled out, for if they are too little, it can't be done; and to know when a cock is fit for it, he should be pretty well grown, have a good comb, and be well fleshed, for these signs shew they are bigger than those of leaner fowls. To cut them, the cock must lie on its back, and held fast, while with a very sharp knife she cuts him only skin-deep about an inch in length, between the rump and the end of the breast-bone, where the flesh is thinnest; next she makes use of a large needle to raise the flesh, for her safer cutting through it to avoid the guts, and making a cut here big enough to put her finger in, which she thrusts under the guts, and with it rakes or tears out the stone that lies nearest to it. This done, she performs the very same operation on the other side of the cock's body, and there takes out the other stone; then she stitches up the wounds, and lets the fowl go about as at other times, till the capon is fatted in a coop, which is commonly done from Christmas to Candlemas, and after. Now if the stones are but big enough, as they lie to the back, they may be safely taken out with a greased fore-finger, without much danger of killing the creature, but when they are too small there is danger. This way of caponizing a cock, I have had done at my house for my information, by a woman deemed to be one of our best capon cutters, else it would have been a difficult matter for me to give a description of it; for they that never saw such an operation, and venture at it, must expect to kill one or more, before he or she gets master of the science. And indeed it is for want of this knowledge that the art of caponizing fowls is not so much practised as formerly; but as I have given a pretty good account I hope of it, I am of opinion the art will be revived, and capons sold in greater plenty than ever.

Kings-Head-Inn at Darking, Jan. 24th, 1747-8.

SIR,

I AM very glad to oblige you with the best account I can give of our fowls; they are large, and in general white-leg'd; they that are most curious of their breed chuse a cock all white, and the hen of a speckled mixture of feathers, but white leg'd, that making a stronger breed than both being white: They are all round us very careful of their feed, cramming them with fine ground down corn made in rolls and dipped in milk; they are received by all people as the finest of poultry that any place affords. I am, Sir,

    Your most humble Servant,

          Benj. Barnsley.

THIS is the largest tame land-fowl we have in England, and by many is preferred to others, if they are well fatted. There are two sorts of this species, the common Suffolk or Norfolk turkey, and the Blue Virginia sort: The first are bred in vast numbers in those two counties, from whence London is chiefly supplied with these excellent fowls, as appears by the many large droves of them, frequently seen on the roads thither. A turkey, sold at Artleborough near Norwich for fourteen-pence, at Stratford near Bow in Essex was sold for twenty-pence, so cheap are they in Norfolk; for here they have many dry sandy grounds, that produce abundance of turnips, barley, &c. which tend much to the growth of turkey poults. The other blue sort are of the flying kind, and will settle and roost on trees, yet may be kept as tame fowls, but they must have one wing cut, if they are to be hinder'd from flying, which is practised by some, and by others not, because some gentlemen delight in their flying behaviour; and where many of these sort are kept in parks, or other large inclosed grounds, a boy may attend them, and by the frequent use of a whistle, to call and invite them to a feed of corn now and then at a particular place, it will be a great means of naturalizing these turkeys to the part, and keep them from straggling too far from home; as it is practised in a nobleman's park, to my knowledge. One cock is enough to seven hens.

  Of breeding Turkeys.--As they are of a more tender nature than most other tame fowls, they are somewhat difficult to rear, especially in a cold country, or on a wettish cold soil; in a warmer one, they may, if kept well, be made to tread twice a year; but few do this, but are contented with one brood only. They are commonly set with thirteen or ffteen eggs. The turkeys are very apt to lay their eggs in hedges, where they live near them, and sit abroad: But of this, our right sort of country housewives are aware, and take care to set them in a barn, hovel, or other large cover'd place; for to stint them of room, is prejudicial to this bulky body'd fowl in their hatching and bringing up their young. When the young turkeys are strong enough to be admitted abroad, they are liable to be hurt by several accidents, by hawks, pole-cats, nettles, &c. before they attain an age of security. A nettle will sting them to death, by making their head to swell, till they pine and die; therefore many good country housewives, to prevent this, where they have nettles grow near their houses, will before-hand pull them up.

  To feed young Turkeys.--To a quart of pollard, put a hard egg, and as many leaves of wormwood as will make all green, both cut very small, and mixed with as much boiling milk as will make all into a soft paste; after young turkeys have been fed with bread and milk one or two days, feed them with this paste for a week, it will keep them alive. And if you will feed them with scalded bran for a month afterwards, they will shift for themselves bravely, when otherwise they often die very young. But there are several other sorts of food that some give young turkeys, till they are big enough to range for a living abroad, as fennel, curds, &c. But in dry sandy grounds, they are certainly brought up in the cheapest manner, because in this loose earth they easily find and pick up seeds of weeds and corn, worms and other insects; and as they in particular love to stock their craws with particles of sand, here they have it in plenty. Some spring seasons of weather are attended with so much cold and wet as destroys many broods of young turkeys, notwithstanding all the care that has been made use of.

  Of fattening old Turkeys.--A turkey is not to be fatted like a dunghill fowl; if we fat them by crams, we mix barley-meal with pollard and water, with which we make pellets or crams, and put as many down the turkey's throat as it can well take in, every morning, for three weeks or a month, and turn him loose all the rest of the day. This we commonly begin to do before Christmas, that the turkeys may be fatted for a market or a friend. Barley-meal crams dipt in milk make their flesh appear the whiter.

  A further Account of the Breeding and Feeding of Turkeys.--These fowls are bred by some farmers as the most profitable sort; others reject them for their troublesome breeding up, and being too great devourers of corn. One author observes, that when they have a large range of liberty they will feed on herbs, and seeds of herbs, without trouble or charge, except in breeding and fattening time, and then they require very careful attendance, as they are a tender chilly fowl; that where they have a wood or grove near a house, the hen turkey will seek her nest abroad, conceal it from the cock, and bring up her brood with more success than the more tame; that they seldom fatten before winter be well spent, when they forget their lust; that the cold weather gets them a stomach, and the long nights afford them much rest; and observes, that the whitish or light colour'd turkeys are much better meat than the blacker sort, but withal, that they are more tender in their nursing up; when young turkeys are hatched, to give them a pepper-corn, one corn with a little milk to each turkey poult, as being a great preservative against the cramp, which these fowls more than ordinarily are subject to suffer by; that an egg boiled till hard, and chopt small with wormwood or cloves, is a good first food for warming their bodies and creating an appetite, and so is cheese-curds and wormwood. They should be kept from rain while they are very young, in shelter till a warm day, and then they may be brought out in the middle of it for an hour or two, under a coop, at about a week old; and so on, longer and longer, till they can shift for themselves without the hen. It is reported, that a turkey may be improved in bulk and goodness of flesh by castration; and I think, that if the eggs of the bustard were search'd for in April, and set under turkeys, they might be brought up as tame as dunghill fowls. But of this most noble fowl the bustard, more is designed to be wrote, when I publish my Treasure of new Discoveries in the Improvements of Instrumental Husbandry, &c. In short, as the turkey for its large body and delicate flesh is kept by many farmers and gentlemen, and that the chief art of breeding them lies in their right managing of the poults, I have further to add, that if they are timely fed with a proper food, and kept under cover for the first four or five weeks from rain, slugs, or snails, that are apt to scour and kill them, and a turf of grass every day given them, there needs little care in their attendance afterwards. And if they are bred near oak or beech trees, their mast in a plentiful year will fatten them without any other meat, as is often seen by those turkeys bred on Gaddesden-Hill, and fed amongst our many beech trees, that are of the largest sort in England. 

THE Profit of keeping Ducks.-- The duck is not fit to be kept where there is but little water in ponds or ditches, for if there is but little, they mud and spoil it for kitchen uses, and for watering of cattle; but they are certainly very profitable where there are good conveniencies for keeping them, because they run up in growth very fast for an early market, eat up the weeds on waters, devour spawn and young frogs, caterpillars, slugs, and snails, &c. return downy feathers, live cheap, and when fatted under confinement, with a pure meat, they are dainty food for the nicest palates; where there is a river or a springy moor, they will get three parts of their living abroad.

  Of the several Sorts of Ducks kept in England.--The common white duck is preferred by some, by others the crook-bill duck, some again keep the largest of all ducks, the Muscovy sort; but the gentry of late have fell into such a good opinion of the Normandy sort, that they are highly esteemed for their full body and delicate flesh; they are very great devourers of grain, insomuch that if they were wholly to be maintained on it, it must cost a person many times more than ducks are sold for at the poulterer's shop. A good parcel of ducks will do great service in a turnip or rape field, where they are seized by the black caterpillar, and so will a turkey or a goose, for all these fowls are very greedy of such insects, and accordingly have proved a cure, when no other applications could.

  Of breeding Ducks.--One drake will serve for near twenty ducks. In the hardest weather, one quart of barley will be sufficient to feed ten or twelve ducks one day; however, the better they are fed the more eggs they'll lay, and so fed they'll lay abundance at intervals of time, beginning after moulting time about Allhollantide or about Christmas. Those who have no duck eggs of their own seek out to buy some, for having them in readiness to set the first broody dunghill hen, that they may have the earliest ducklings to market, for when they are very early sold, they may fetch eighteen pence apiece, in February; but then such an early brood must be kept in a house, unless the weather is very mild indeed; and for their first meat, it should be a very hearty sort, made with bread and milk, and pollard mixt together; so that in breeding ducks, the dunghill hen, which commonly sits first, and keeps house better than ducks, becomes very serviceable, and thus there is the greater opportunity to enjoy a brood of ducks both by the hen and the duck's sitting, and of bringing up the more young ones. On this account many farmers sell their duck eggs to a good advantage. Our Vale farmers wives duly observe to dip the bills or beaks of the ducklings as soon as they are hatch'd in milk, and where they make cheese to give them curd. 

SORTS of Geese.--There are several sorts of English tame geese, some smaller bodied than others, but the largest and finest sort that I ever saw was at Sir Jeremy Sambrook's, at his seat near Northaw Common; but that truly honourable and very worthy gentleman, Sir John Rawdon, shewed me, at his seat near Brentwood, Essex (when I carried to him fourteen young tame pheasants) a breed between the English and Portugal sort, which he prefer'd for their good qualities.

  Geese sitting and hatching.--This business comes in particular under the country housewife's inspection, and for managing it to profit, she should feed her geese well betimes, even from Christmas, that they may lay early eggs, and enough of them for setting her geese in February or March at farthest, and therefore some oats ought to be given them or other corn, or wetted bran or pollard, besides what food they get abroad; coleworts raw or scalded, or turneps boiled and bran mix'd, or raw carrots chopt small, or guts and garbage will very much contribute to their laying and sitting betimes, that their goslings or green geese may come to an early market for fetching the best price; feed them in the out-house they are to lay and sit in, for naturalizing them to the place; provide them wheat or other straw, and make them a nest with it as far off the company of other geese as conveniently can be, and as a goose sits about a month let her have water and gravel constantly by her, and meat in due time; set her on her own eggs, for it is thought by some that her knowledge extends as far as this, to approve of, and sit better on her own than those of other geese. And that if a dunghill large hen is broody first, it is profitable to set her with five or six goose eggs; but this is very seldom done, because a goose well fed will lay and sit early enough, and cover thirteen or ffteen eggs. The goose having hatch'd, if the weather is severely cold or wet, she and her brood should be kept in till the goslings get older and heartier, by giving them at first bread, bran, pollard, yetted barley, or other corn scalded in milk, with chopt clivers, lettice, coleworts, or turnips boiled to a mash, with bran or pollard mixt with them, or minced raw carrots amongst it, till after a week or more that they can eat buck-wheat, barley, oats, or other raw corn, and shift for themselves. Likewise be sure to put fennel in all their water. Thus the goslings may be prevented having the cramp or other illness, which, for want of a careful and right management at first, sometimes kills them; and for their greater security, let them go and be kept out a little at a time, till they are able to endure the weather, and preserve them from eating musty corn, from the kite, from the pole-cat, and Baltick rat, from hemlock, henbane, and other poisonous herbs by land, and from the pike or large jacks in water, for that all these are enemies to young ducks and goslings.

  The Loss and Profit of keeping Geese.--They are not fit to be kept where there is a scarcity of water, but only where there is much pond water, or near a river, or on a common. Here geese may pay better than any other tame fowl; because they are great devourers (hog like) of meat, and bite grass rather closer to the ground than a sheep, and therefore their keeping is disallowed of on many commons; but where they have plenty of water, grass, and weeds, they'll live and thrive with very little expence all the year, except in feeding time for laying eggs, in sitting time, and in bringing up their young. Then it is that some geese-owners buy oats or other meat, as those do who live on Box-Moor near Hempstead, to whom I have sold oats for this purpose; but for the rest of the year, the old geese are very little expensive. A goose, it is said, may live forty or fifty years, as has been proved; and although she is very old when she comes fat out of the stubbles, yet her body being furnished on a sudden with new flesh, she may eat to satisfaction: Which leads me to observe, that notwithstanding it is the custom of many farmers in Hertfordshire and elsewhere, to fatten geese chiefly in stubbles, yet it is the custom of many others to sell them lean, as may every year be seen by the great droves of such geese travelling towards London, from Flag-hundred near Yarmouth, in Norfolk. In one drove there were fourteen hundred sold at Stratford in Essex, for twenty-pence a piece, to fatten for the London poulterers. If geese are fatted in stubbles, when they are brought home every night, they should have some pollard or bran mixt with skim milk, broth, or water, or corn soaked and given them in water; but in a morning they should eat nothing before they are drove to the field, because they'll search for their meat with the greater diligence. Again, in case geese are to be fatted altogether in a house, that house is best for this purpose that has the least light, and is farthest off the noise of other geese. There are several sorts of meat to fatten them with, as French wheat just broke at the mill and given in water, or the flower of it made into a pap or paste is a great fattener; so is ground malt mixt with pollard and given them in water, or barley-meal wetted into a thin paste; but let the meat be what it will, they must always have a pan of water by them, wherein is some gravel or sand; and if with any of these meats, some coleworts, lettice, or clivers are given besides, it will increase their appetite, and cause them to fatten apace, in a fortnight or three weeks time; for goslings especially are such extream lovers of lettice and coleworts, that they'll almost fatten upon them alone, and so they will on carrots cut small, or on turneps boiled to a mash and mixt with pollard, which is the cheapest meat they can be fatted with. A goose is easier brought up than a turkey, for a turkey, when as big as a pigeon, may be stung to death by a nettle.

  Eighteen Goslings killed and carried away in one Night's Time by a Polecat.--A Man who lives on Box-Moor, near Hempstead, had eighteen goslings carried away in one night; and believing they were carried away by a polecat, diligently searched amongst the hedges to find his hole, but finding none, they proceeded to search about a bay of hay in a barn, and perceiving a hole, they cut down into it, and there found a polecat lying in the midst of it, with most of the dead goslings, for which they had only the satisfaction of killing him.

THE Pleasure and Profit of keeping Swans.--Swans are stately beautiful birds, and are said to be a very proud, but chaste fowl; and are so sensible of affronts, that I have often seen a cock swan scare both women and children in wing-running after them. They are chiefly kept by gentlemen, who regard them more for fancy than profit; not but they will pay indifferently well, if kept under a right management in large ponds or in a river. Nor will they leave the place if pinion'd, but keep strictly to it, even if it be only a pond of no great compass, as has been seen in Ashridge-Park, for some years, in the time of Scroop the late Duke of Bridgewater; but if they go unpinion'd, they are apt to take flights, tho' they seldom entirely forsake their first habitation. They are a very hardy bird, and are not devourers of fish to any great damage, for they never dive deep, hardly ever farther than their necks will reach, so that they can only take a few of the smallest fish. And as to the expence of their maintainance, what they get in and about the water, and the grass that grows on the land contiguous to the pond or river, with a few oats now and then, will suffice, except in a hard frost, when they are deprived of the benefit of water; then, indeed, they must have a greater allowance of oats. The young swans, called cignets, if fatted, are a dainty dish, and eat excellently well in a pye, provided they have not exceeded two years of age. Their long neck, broad feet, and broad bill, are necessary; their neck to reach, and their broad mouth to take up much slime at once, in order to take up worms and other insects from the bottom of ponds; the upper part of their bill is pierced, in order to discharge the water.

  Of Breeding Swans.--Swans make their nest with flags or rushes, which they build on the water, amongst flags, to a very great bulk; here they generally lay their eggs, in March, to the number of four, five, or six, and then sit on them for seven or eight weeks before they hatch; in which time, as their nest is always pretty near the shoar, they must have oats given them. When they have hatch'd, the young swans have nothing given them besides what the old swan provides, which are flies, worms, or other insects, weeds and grass, carrying them now and then on her back, and so will the cock swan, and provide his share for them; but after three weeks age, the cignets will eat oats, which are placed in a trough fix'd in the water about two foot from the land, to which both old and young have always free access; and now it is that the cock swan is most furious at spectators, as being very jealous of his mate, and fond of her brood. Where there is not good room in a pond for their large nest, or conveniency to make one with flags or rushes, grass, straw, and such like stuff must be laid near the edge of the water, on the land, and the swan will, if not much disturbed, lay her eggs in a nest she builds there.

  How to fatten Swans.--To fatten these large water fowls, they must not be totally deprived of water, and therefore for accommodating them in the most natural manner, stakes must be drove into the ground round a place in the water, by the shore-side, and on part of the contiguous land; so that one half must be land and the other half water, that is to be thus inclosed for about half a pole square, that the swans may have liberty allowed them enough to be on either. Here the cignets, or old swans that are to be fatted, must be confined to feed on oats, and nothing else, and if well supplied with them, they will fatten in three weeks or a month at farthest. Swans are of a dunnish colour for the first year; but before the second is over, they will be perfectly white. Then the cock may be partly known from the hen, by the larger comb, neck, and legs. About Michaelmas time they should be pinion'd, and for doing it safely a person should have some fore-hand knowledge of it, and not venture at random, lest he kill them by being an ignorant operator, as one I know did, who was thus the death of four young swans out of six; therefore observe the following method.

  Pinioning a Swan.--Mr. Bradley, in his Farmer's Monthly Director, page 132. (sold by Mr. Brown, at the Black-Swan, without Temple-Bar, London) says, That the feathers must be pick'd clean round the first joint of one wing, then take a strong pack-thread, and knit hard enough round the place, a little below the joint, to stop the bleeding, when the pinion is cut off with a very sharp knife. For doing this, the month of September is a good time.

HOW to preserve Eggs sound.--Dr. Godfrey in his book says, That eggs have been laid under a running water, and after two years lying in the same have been found perfectly sound for eating, and breeding of chickens. He also further says, that if eggs are covered with a proper varnish they will hold sound a year, as has been proved by putting them under a hen that produced chickens; for by these means the air is kept from entering their shells, and so are preserved from rottenness.

  A second Way to preserve Eggs sound.--This is done by the art of packing them in a wicker-basket, hamper, or cask, for if you place their large ends downwards, they will keep sound two or three months. The reason for this is, when you place them the reverse way, the air has a greater contact with the wind-bladder in the large end of the egg, so as to waste and exhaust it much the sooner thro' the pores of the shell, for as this wind-bladder (which supports and helps to keep the yolk from sinking and running amongst the white) becomes more or less damaged, so will the egg be in proportion.

  A third Way.--When you pack eggs for carriage or keeping some time, always set their broad ends downwards, and between every layer of them put straw, and keep them out of the power of cold air, that it may not freeze them; therefore reserve the hamper, basket, or cask, in a warm room in winter, and in summer in a cellar. The broad ends of the eggs, which are porous, have a thick skin, which the egg feeds upon while it lies in this posture; but when the eggs lie long ways, there is little else but skin, and when that is fed on, and eat up by the rest of the egg, the egg begins to rot. It is also observable, that the chick's bill lies next the bottom, and here through the little holes it fetches its breath. Now if these little holes lie uppermost, the air has the more power to enter and spoil the egg.

  A fourth Way.--A farmer's wife, to save her eggs in a cheap time against a dear one, used to put them on wire or other sieves, or on other bottoms, and by laying them thus, she turned the eggs once every week, from August till towards Christmas, in imitation of the common higlers way, who, when they meet with a disappointment of sale, turn their pack'd-up eggs in a hamper bottom upwards, and by so doing once a week, they will keep sound four or five weeks.

  Rotten Eggs sold knowingly.--It is too often practised by some farmers wives, to save their eggs from harvest-time to sell near Christmas, and though many be rotten, yet they will sell them as sound ones if they can, though they know them to be rotten. Therefore,

  To know rotten Eggs.--When they are rotten, on holding them against a fire, candle, or the sun, they appear of a dirty or blackish colour.

  Hertfordshire Eggs.--We generally are so careful of sending clean eggs to London, that when we find any of them sully'd, we put them for a minute in warm water, and rub them with scouring sand; then lay them on a cloth, and they presently dry.