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New Zealand Herald, Volume XII, Issue 4271, 22 July 1875, Page 1 (Supplement)

"(iive me a kiss dear girl," said a snvain. " I shan't," she replied. " I don't niiinl lending you one, but 1 must have it returned to-niomiu - ." Kmployment for Kowls : To kee]> fowls from eating eggs :in<l each other's feathers, and to keep them in Rood health, give them something to do. There will generally l>o m> trouble about feather-eating when fowls have their liberty all the while and arc will fed, and the same is true of egg-eating. Jiut when it is necessary to eonline them, the owner should make it his duty to keep them at work. One good method is to cover their yards, when not in grass, with some sort of litter—straw, leaves, cornstalks, salt hay, vegetable tops, <fcc., and cover most of it. This will necessitate "scratching" for it, and they will undertake it without further urging. Where litter is abundant, the work of the fowls in scratching may be utilised in getting the litter reduced to a " very line tilth,"as farmers say of ground Well prepared for seed. They will scratch a moderate layer of straw or salt hay out of sight after a while, if allowed to do so, anil even cornstalks also, after sullieient exposure to the hot weather has made the stalks brittle. Another good plan is to plough or spado their enclosure frequently ; sow it with corn or other grain, and harrow or plough thia under. It will noon sprout, and while the green tops will l>c eagerly eaten, the half-decomposed grain is also dainty food for fowls, and the work of scratching it out will furnish agreeable employment and exercise till it is all gone. And still another excellent plan is to lightly bury beef heads or touj:h pieces of refuse meat in the chicken, yard. In duo time, in warm weather, this becomes inhabited, which the. fowls are not slow in discovering. Of course, scratching is resorted to, ami their reward is not only the crop of olltnsive insects themselves, but the putrid llesh also, in amounts proportioned to their industry. Fortunately a chicken's gizzard is a chemical laboratory of such power that everything going into it ia deodi.rised and puritied before being changed into tlcsh ; so there need be no scruples about feeding with such articles. 7,et the owner exercise ingenuity to keep his fowls at scratching, and it will close tho door to many vicious linbite,