Page:Australian enquiry book of household and general information.djvu/263

 few drops of carbolic acid and pour into the egg shell. When dry, you have a good and also a useful nest egg, as lice will not go near it on account of the carbolic.

Get the farmer to plough up a patch of ground for the young pullets to scratch over.

The following is a good mixture to give fowls occasionally: Sulphate of iron, 8 ounces; sulphuric acid, half a fluid ounce. Put into a gallon of water, first the iron, and when that is dissolved add the acid. Half a pint for every 40 head of fowls is the dose, mixed with the drinking water. It is an excellent tonic during the moulting season.

Meat is a necessity for little chickens, at least, every two days. You can buy enough scraps from the butcher to do a week for two-pence. Boil them down to rags and feed to them with their usual food.

Keep the fowl house clean, and all about it. Wash the roosts occasionally and then whitewash with lime.

Jalap is a valuable medicine for sick fowls, 14 grains made into a pill is the dose for a full-grown bird.

Make friends of your hens; they are wonderfully intelligent if you only knew it.

Have a good sized bowl filled with water and put the eggs in one at a time, those that are fresh will sink to the bottom, and the stale ones will float. According to the degree of staleness they will float near the bottom or near the top. For instance, a very fresh egg will lie on the bottom, one a few days old will not quite touch it, and so on till a very stale or bad egg will float on the top. An experienced cook can generally tell by the feel of an egg whether it is fresh or stale.

When eggs are only 6d. or 8d. per dozen it is best to save and preserve them till they are a better price. There are dozens of recipes for preserving eggs, many of them excellent in their way, but best of all I have found lime water, without salt or anything else. Some people say that they can notice a distinct flavour of lime in eggs so preserved, others say that the eggs become too salty. On the other hand, I have sold eggs which have been in lime seven weeks, and have been complimented upon their freshness and new laid flavour. I am a great believer in the old saying, “What the eye don’t see the heart don't grieve for,” and if people know that your eggs are preserved they will fancy that there is a flavour. If you supply a large number regularly to any one family