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Classic
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page 269
To choose Butter at Market.
Put a knife into the butter if salt, and smell it when drawn out; if there is
any thing rancid or unpleasant, it is bad. Being made at different times, the
layers in casks will vary greatly, and you will not easily come at the goodness
but by unhooping the cask, and trying it between the staves. Fresh butter ought
to smell like a nosegay, and be of an equal colour all through: if sour in smell
it has not been sufficiently washed; if veiny and open, it is probably mixed
with staler or an inferior sort
POULTRY-YARD.
Management of Fowls.
In order to have fine fowls, it is necessary to choose a good breed, and have
proper care taken of them. The Dartford sort is thought highly of; and it is
desirable to have a fine large kind, but people differ in their opinion of which
is best. The black are very juicy; but do not answer so well for boiling, as
their legs partake of their colour. They should be fed as nearly as possible at
the same hour and place. Potatoes boiled, unskinned, in a little water, and then
cut, and either wet with skimmed milk or not, form one of the best foods.
Turkies and fowls thrive amazingly on them. The milk must not be sour.
The best age for setting a hen, is from two to five years; and you should remark
which hens make the best brooders, and keep those to laying who are giddy and
careless of their young. In justice to the animal creation, however, it must be
observed, there are but few instances of bad parents for the time their nursing
is necessary.
Hens sit twenty days. Convenient places should be provided for their laying, as
these will be proper for sitting likewise. If the hen-house is not secured from
vermin, the eggs will be sucked, and the fowls destroyed.
Those hens are usually preferred which have tufts of feathers on their heads;
those that crow are not looked
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