which so much has been written, especially by the French naturalists. It
is the _useful_ that I shall treat of, and that is done in not many words.
The best _hives_ are those made of clean unblighted _rye-straw_. Boards
are too cold in England. A swarm should always be put into a _new_ hive,
and the sticks should be _new_ that are put into the hive for the bees to
work on; for, if the hive be old, it is not so _wholesome_, and a thousand
to one but it contain the embryos of _moths_ and other insects injurious
to bees. Over the hive itself there should be a cap of thatch, made also
of clean rye straw; and it should not only be _new_ when first put on the
hive; but a new one should be made to supply the place of the former one
every three or four months; for when the straw begins to get rotten, as it
soon does, insects breed in it, its smell is bad, and its effect on the
bees is dangerous.
161. The hive should be placed on a bench, the legs of which mice and rats
cannot creep up. Tin round the legs is best. But even this will not keep
down _ants_, which are mortal enemies of bees. To keep these away, if you
find them infest the hive, take a green stick and twist it round in the
shape of a ring to lay on the ground round the leg of the bench, and at a
few inches from it; and cover this stick with _tar_. This will keep away
the ants. If the ants come from one home, you may easily _trace them to
it_; and when you have found it, pour _boiling water_ on it in the night,
when all the family are at home.
This is the only effectual way of destroying ants, which are frequently so
troublesome. It would be cruel to cause this destruction, if it were not
necessary to do it, in order to preserve the honey, and indeed the bees
too.
162. Besides the hive and its cap, there should be a sort of shed, with
top, back, and ends, to give additional protection in winter; though in
summer hives may be kept _too hot_, and in that case the bees become
sickly and the produce becomes light. The _situation_ of the hive is to
face the South-east; or, at any rate, to be sheltered from the _North_ and
the _West_. From the North always, and from the West in winter. If it be a
very dry season in summer, it contributes greatly to the success of the
bees, to place clear water near their home, in a thing that they can
conveniently drink out of; for if they have to go a great way for drink,
they have not much time for work.
163. It is supposed that bees live only a year; at any rate it is best
never to keep the same stall, or family, over two years, except you want
to increase your number of hives. The swarm of _this summer_ should always
be taken in the autumn of next year. It is whimsical to _save_ the bees
when you take the honey. You must _feed_ them; and, if saved, they will
die of old age before the next fall; and though young ones will supply the
place of the dead, this is nothing like a good swarm put up during the
summer.
164. As to the things that bees make their collections from, we do not,
perhaps, know a thousandth part of them; but of all the blossoms that they
seek eagerly that of the _Buck-wheat_ stands foremost. Go round a piece of
this grain just towards sunset, when the buck-wheat is in bloom, and you
will see the air filled with bees going home from it in all directions.
The buck-wheat, too, continues in bloom a long while; for the grain is
dead ripe on one part of the plant, while there are fresh blossoms coming
out on the other part.
165. A good stall of bees, that is to say, the produce of one, is always
worth about _two bushels of good wheat_. The _cost_ is nothing to the
labourer. He must be a stupid countryman indeed who cannot make a
bee-hive; and a lazy one indeed if he _will_ not, if he can. In short,
there is nothing but _care_ demanded; and there are very few situations in
the country, especially in the south of England, where a labouring man may
not have half a dozen stalls of bees to take every year. The main things
are to keep away insects, mice, and birds, and especially a little bird
called the bee-bird; and to keep all clean and fresh as to the hives and
coverings. Never put a swarm into an _old hive_. If wasps, or hornets,
annoy you, watch them home in the day time; and in the night kill them by
fire, or by boiling water. Fowls should not go where bees are, for they
eat them.
166. Suppose a man get three stalls of bees in a year. Six bushels of
wheat give him bread for an _eighth part of the year_. Scarcely any thing
is a greater misfortune than _shiftlessness_. It is an evil little short
of the loss of eyes or of limbs.
GEESE.
167. They can be kept to advantage only where there are _green commons_,
and there they are easily kept; live to a very great age; and are amongst
the hardiest animals in the world. If _well kept_, a goose will lay a
hundred eggs in a year. The French put their eggs under large hens of
common fowls, to each of which they give four or five eggs; or under
turkies, to which they give nine or ten goose-eggs. If the goose herself
sit, she must be well and _regularly fed_, at, or near to, her nest. When
the young ones are hatched, they should be kept in a warm place for about
four days, and fed on barley-meal, mixed, if possible, with milk; and then
they will begin to _graze_. Water for them, or for the old ones to _swim_
in, is by no means _necessary_, nor, perhaps, ever even _useful_. Or, how
is it, that you see such fine flocks of fine geese all over Long Island
(in America) where there is scarcely such a thing as a pond or a run of
water?
168. Geese are raised by _grazing_; but to _fat_ them something more is
required. Corn of some sort, or boiled Swedish turnips. Some corn and some
raw Swedish turnips, or carrots, or white cabbages, or lettuces, make the
best fatting. The modes that are resorted to by the French for fatting
geese, _nailing_ them down by their webs, and other acts of cruelty, are,
I hope, such as Englishmen will never think of. They will get fat enough
without the use of any of these unfeeling means being employed. He who can
deliberately inflict _torture_ upon an animal, in order to heighten the
pleasure his palate is to receive in eating it, is an abuser of the
authority which God has given him, and is, indeed, a tyrant in his heart.
Who would think himself safe, if at the _mercy_ of such a man? Since the
first edition of this work was published, I have had a good deal of
experience with regard to geese. It is a very great error to suppose that
what is called a Michaelmas goose is _the thing_. Geese are, in general,
eaten at the age when they are called green geese; or after they have got
their full and entire growth, which is not until the latter part of
October. Green geese are tasteless squabs; loose flabby things; no rich
taste in them; and, in short, a very indifferent sort of dish. The
full-grown goose has solidity in it; but it is _hard_, as well as solid;
and in place of being _rich_, it is strong. Now, there is a middle course
to take; and if you take this course, you produce the finest birds of
which we can know any thing in England. For three years, including the
present year, I have had the finest geese that I ever saw, or ever heard
of. I have bought from twenty to thirty every one of these years. I buy
them off the common late in June, or very early in July. They have cost me
from two shillings to three shillings each, first purchase. I bring the
flock home, and put them in a pen, about twenty feet square, where I keep
them well littered with straw, so as for them not to get filthy. They have
one trough in which I give them dry oats, and they have another trough
where they have constantly plenty of clean water. Besides these, we give
them, two or three times a day, a parcel of lettuces out of the garden. We
give them such as are going to seed generally; but the better the lettuces
are, the better the geese. If we have no lettuces to spare, we give them
cabbages, either loaved or not loaved; though, observe, the white cabbage
as well as the white lettuce, that is to say, the loaved cabbage and
lettuce, are a great deal better than those that are not loaved. This is
the food of my geese. They thrive exceedingly upon this food. After we
have had the flock about ten days, we begin to kill, and we proceed once
or twice a week till about the middle of October, sometimes later. A great
number of persons who have eaten of these geese have all declared that
they did not imagine that a goose could be brought to be so good a bird.
These geese are altogether different from the hard, strong things that
come out of the stubble fields, and equally different from the flabby
things called a green goose. I should think that the cabbages or lettuces
perform half the work of keeping and fatting my geese; and these are
things that really cost nothing. I should think that the geese, upon an
average, do not consume more than a shilling's worth of oats each. So that
we have these beautiful geese for about four shillings each. No money will
buy me such a goose in London; but the thing that I can get nearest to it,
will cost me _seven_ shillings. Every gentleman has a garden. That garden
has, in the month of July, a wagon-load, at least, of lettuces and
cabbages to throw away. Nothing is attended with so little trouble as
these geese. There is hardly any body near London that has not room for
the purposes here mentioned. The reader will be apt to exclaim, as my
friends very often do, "Cobbett's Geese are all _Swans_." Well, better
that way than not to be pleased with what one has. However, let gentlemen
try this method of fatting geese. It saves money, mind, at the same time.
Let them try it; and if any one, who shall try it, shall find the effect
not to be that which I say it is, let him reproach me publicly with being
a deceiver. The thing is no _invention_ of mine. While I could buy a goose
off the common for half-a-crown, I did not like to give seven shillings
for one in London, and yet I wished that geese should not be excluded from
my house. Therefore I bought a flock of geese, and brought them home to
Kensington. They could not be eaten all at once. It was necessary,
therefore, to fix upon a mode of feeding them. The above mode was adopted
by my servant, as far as I know, without any knowledge of mine; but the
very agreeable result made me look into the matter; and my opinion, that
the information will be useful to many persons, at any rate, is sufficient
to induce me to communicate it to my readers.
DUCKS.
169. No water, to _swim_ in, is necessary to the old, and is _injurious_
to the very young. They never should be suffered to swim (if water be
near) till _more than a month old_. The old duck will lay, in the year, if
_well kept_, ten dozen of eggs; and that is her best employment; for
common hens are the best mothers. It is not good to let young ducks out in
the morning to eat _slugs_ and _worms_; for, though they like them, these
things kill them if they eat a great quantity. Grass, corn, white
cabbages, and lettuces, and especially buck-wheat, cut, when half ripe,
and flung down in the haulm. This makes fine ducks. Ducks will feed on
garbage and all sorts of filthy things; but their flesh is _strong_, and
bad in proportion. They are, in Long Island, fatted upon a coarse sort of
_crab_, called a horse-foot fish, prodigious quantities of which are cast
on the shores. The young ducks grow very fast upon this, and very fat; but
wo unto him that has to _smell_ them when they come from the spit; and, as
for _eating_ them, a man must have a stomach indeed to do that!
170. When young, they should be fed upon barley-meal, or _curds_, and kept
in a warm place in the night-time, and not let out _early_ in the morning.
They should, if possible, be kept from water to _swim_ in. It always does
them harm; and, if intended to be sold to be killed _young_, they should
never go near ponds, ditches, or streams. When you come to fat ducks, you
must take care that they get at _no filth_ whatever. They will eat garbage
of all sorts; they will suck down the most nauseous particles of all those
substances which go for manure. A dead rat three parts rotten is a feast
to them. For these reasons I should never eat any ducks, unless there were
some mode of keeping them from this horrible food. I treat them precisely
as I do my geese. I buy a troop when they are young, and put them in a
pen, and feed them upon oats, cabbages, lettuces, and water, and have the
place kept very clean. My ducks are, in consequence of this, a great deal
more fine and delicate than any others that I know any-thing of.
TURKEYS.
171. These are _flying_ things, and so are _common fowls_. But it may
happen that a few hints respecting them may be of use. To raise turkeys in
this chilly climate, is a matter of much greater difficulty than in the
climates that give great warmth. But the great enemy to young turkeys (for
old ones are hardy enough) _is the wet_. This they will endure in _no
climate_; and so true is this, that, in America, where there is always "_a
wet spell_" in April, the farmers' wives take care never to have a brood
come out until that spell is passed. In England, where the wet spells come
at haphazard, the first thing is to take care that young turkeys never go
out, on any account, except in dry weather, till the _dew be quite off the
ground_; and this should be adhered to till they get to be of the size of
an old partridge, and have their backs well covered with feathers. And, in
wet weather, they should be kept under cover all day long.
172. As to the _feeding_ of them, when young, various nice things are
recommended. Hard eggs chopped fine, with crumbs of bread, and a great
many other things; but that which I have seen used, and always with
success, and for all sorts of young poultry, is milk _turned into curds_.
This is the food for young poultry of all sorts. Some should be made
_fresh every_ day; and if this be done, and the young turkeys kept warm,
and especially _from wet_, not one out of a score will die. When they get
to be strong, they may have meal and grain, but still they always love
the curds.
173. When they get their _head feathers_ they are hardy enough; and what
they then want is _room_ to prowl about. It is best to breed them under a
_common hen_; because she does not _ramble_ like a hen-turkey; and it is a
very curious thing that the turkeys bred up by a hen of the common fowl,
_do not themselves ramble much when they get old_; and for this reason,
when they buy turkeys for _stock_, in America, (where there are such large
woods, and where the distant rambling of turkeys is inconvenient,) they
always buy such as have been bred under the hens of the common fowl; than
which a more complete proof of the great powers of _habit_ is, perhaps,
not to be found. And ought not this to be a lesson to fathers and mothers
of families? Ought not they to consider that the habits which they give
their children are to stick by those children during their whole lives?
174. The _hen_ should be fed _exceedingly well_, too, while she is
_sitting_ and _after_ she has hatched; for though she does not give
_milk_, she gives _heat_; and, let it be observed, that as no man ever yet
saw healthy pigs with a poor sow, so no man ever saw healthy chickens with
a poor hen. This is a matter much too little thought of in the rearing of
poultry; but it is a matter of the greatest consequence. Never let a poor
hen sit; feed the hen well while she is sitting, and feed her most
abundantly when she has young ones; for then her _labour_ is very great;
she is making exertions of some sort or other during the whole twenty-four
hours; she has no rest; is constantly doing something or other to provide
food or safety for her young ones.
175. As to _fatting_ turkeys, the best way is, never to let them be poor.
_Cramming_ is a nasty thing, and quite unnecessary. Barley-meal, mixed
with skim-milk, given to them, fresh and fresh, will make them fat in a
short time, either in a coop, in a house, or running about. Boiled carrots
and Swedish turnips will help, and it is a change of sweet food. In
France they sometimes _pick turkeys alive_, to make them _tender_; of
which I shall only say, that the man that can do this, or order it to be
done, ought to be skinned alive himself.
FOWLS.
176. These are kept for two objects; their _flesh_ and their _eggs_. As to
_rearing them_, every thing said about rearing turkeys is applicable here.
They are best _fatted_, too, in the same manner. But, as to _laying-hens_,
there are some means to be used to secure the use of them in _winter_.
They ought not to be _old hens_. Pullets, that is, birds hatched in the
foregoing spring, are, perhaps, the best. At any rate, let them not be
more than _two years old_. They should be kept in a _warm_ place, and not
let out, even in the day-time, in _wet_ weather; for one good sound
wetting will keep them back for a fortnight. The dry cold, even in the
severest cold, if _dry_, is less injurious than even a little _wet_ in
winter-time. If the feathers get wet, in our climate, in winter, or in
short days, they do not get dry for a long time; and this it is that
spoils and kills many of our fowls.
177. The French, who are great egg-eaters, take singular pains as to the
_food_ of laying-hens in winter. They let them out very little, even in
their fine climate, and give them very stimulating food; barley boiled,
and given them warm; curds, _buck-wheat_, (which, I believe, is the best
thing of all except curds;) parsley and other herbs chopped fine; leeks
chopped in the same way; also apples and pears chopped very fine; oats and
wheat cribbled; and sometimes they give them hemp-seed, and the seed of
nettles; or dried nettles, harvested in summer, and boiled in the winter.
Some give them ordinary food, and, once a day, toasted bread sopped in
wine. White cabbages chopped up are very good in winter for all sorts of
poultry.
178. This is taking a great deal of pains; but the produce is also great
and very valuable in winter; for, as to _preserved_ eggs, they are things
to run _from_ and not after. All this supposes, however, a proper
_hen-house_, about which we, in England, take very little pains. The
_vermin_, that is to say, the _lice_, that poultry breed, are the greatest
annoyance. And as our wet climate furnishes them, for a great part of the
year, with no _dust_ by which to get rid of these vermin, we should be
very careful about _cleanliness_ in the hen-houses. Many a hen, when
sitting, is compelled to quit her nest to get rid of the lice. They
torment the young chickens. And, in short, are a great injury. The
fowl-house should, therefore, be very often cleaned out; and sand, or
fresh earth, should be thrown on the floor. The nest should not be on
_shelves_, or on any-thing fixed; but little flat baskets, something like
those that the gardeners have in the markets in London, and which they
call _sieves_, should be placed against the sides of the house upon pieces
of wood nailed up for the purpose. By this means the nests are kept
perfectly clean, because the baskets are, when necessary, taken down, the
hay thrown out, and the baskets washed; which cannot be done, if the nest
be made in any-thing forming a part of the building. Besides this, the
roosts ought to be cleaned every week, and the hay changed in the nests of
laying-hens. It is good to _fumigate_ the house frequently by burning dry
herbs, juniper wood, cedar wood, or with brimstone; for nothing stands so
much in need of cleanliness as a fowl-house, in order to have fine fowls
and plenty of eggs.
179. The _ailments_ of fowls are numerous, but they would seldom be seen,
if the proper care were taken. It is useless to talk of _remedies_ in a
case where you have complete power to prevent the evil. If well fed, and
kept perfectly clean, fowls will seldom be sick; and, as to old age, they
never ought to be kept more than a couple or three years; for they get to
be good for little as layers, and no _teeth_ can face them as food.
180. It is, perhaps, seldom that fowls can be kept conveniently about a
cottage; but when they can, three, four, or half a dozen hens to lay in
_winter_, when the wife is at _home_ the greater part of the time, are
worth attention. They would require but little room, might be bought in
November and sold in April, and six of them, with proper care, might be
made to clear every week the price of a gallon of flour. If the labour
were great, I should not think of it; but it is _none_; and I am for
neglecting nothing in the way of pains in order to ensure a hot dinner
every day in winter, when the man comes home from work. As to the
_fatting_ of fowls, information can be of no use to those who live in a
cottage all their lives; but it may be of some use to those who are born
in cottages, and go to have the care of poultry at richer persons' houses.
Fowls should be put to fat about a fortnight before they are wanted to be
killed. The best food is barley-meal wetted with milk, but not wetted too
much. They should have clear water to drink, and it should be frequently
changed. Crammed fowls are very nasty things: but "_barn-door_" fowls, as
they are called, are sometimes a great deal more nasty. _Barn_-door would,
indeed, do exceedingly well; but it unfortunately happens that the
_stable_ is generally pretty near to the barn. And now let any gentleman
who talks about sweet barn-door fowls, have one caught in the yard, where
the stable is also. Let him have it brought in, killed, and the craw taken
out and cut open. Then let him take a ball of horse-dung from the
stable-door; and let his nose tell him how very small is the difference
between the smell of the horse-dung, and the smell of the craw of his
fowl. In short, roast the fowl, and then pull aside the skin at the neck,
put your nose to the place, and you will almost think that you are at the
stable door. Hence the necessity of taking them away from the barn-door a
fortnight, at least, before they are killed. We know very well that ducks
that have been fed upon fish, either wild ducks, or tame ducks, will scent
a whole room, and drive out of it all those who have not pretty good
constitutions. It must be so. Solomon says that all flesh is grass; and
those who know any-thing about beef, know the difference between the
effect of the grass in Herefordshire and Lincolnshire, and the effect of
turnips and oil cake. In America they always take the fowls from the
farm-yard, and shut them up a fortnight or three weeks before they be
killed. One thing, however, about fowls ought always to be borne in mind.
They are never good for any-thing when they have attained their full
growth, unless they be _capons_ or _poullards_. If the poulets be old
enough to have little eggs in them, they are not worth one farthing; and
as to the cocks of the same age, they are fit for nothing but to make soup
for soldiers on their march, and they ought to be taken for that purpose.
PIGEONS.
181. A few of these may be kept about any cottage, for they are kept even
in towns by labourers and artizans. They cause but little trouble. They
take care of their own young ones; and they do not scratch, or do any
other mischief in gardens. They want feeding with tares, peas, or small
beans; and buck-wheat is very good for them. To _begin_ keeping them, they
must not have _flown at large_ before you get them. You must keep them for
two or three days, shut into the place which is to be their home; and then
they may be let out, and will never leave you, as long as they can get
proper food, and are undisturbed by vermin, or unannoyed exceedingly by
lice.
182. The common dove-house pigeons are the best to keep. They breed
oftenest, and feed their young ones best. They begin to breed at about
_nine months old_, and if well kept, they will give you eight or nine pair
in the year. Any little place, a shelf in the cow shed; a board or two
under the eaves of the house; or, in short, any place under cover, even on
the ground floor, they will sit and hatch and breed up their young ones
in.