When a paddock is used as a run for a large number of poultry, it should be enclosed either by a wall or paling, but not by a hedge, as the fowls can get through it, and will also lay their eggs under the hedge. The paddock should be well drained, and it will be a great advantage if it contains a pond, or has a stream of water running through or by it. Mowbray advises that the grass run should be sown "with common trefoil or wild clover, with a mixture of burnet, spurry, or storgrass," which last two kinds "are particularly salubrious to poultry." If the grass is well rooted before the fowls are allowed to run on it, they may range there for several hours daily, according to its extent and their number, but it should be renewed in the spring by sowing where it has become bare or thin. A dry common, or pasture fields, in which they may freely wander and pick up grubs, insects, ants' eggs, worms, and leaves of plants, is a great advantage, and they may be accustomed to return from it at a call. Where there is a cropped field, orchard, or garden, in which fowls may roam at certain seasons, when the crops are safe from injury, each brood should be allowed to wander in it separately for a few hours daily, or on different days, as may be most convenient. "A garden dung-heap," says Mr. Baily, "overgrown with artichokes, mallows, &c., is an excellent covert for chickens, especially in hot weather. They find shelter and meet with many insects there." When horse-dung is procured for the garden, or supplied from your stables, some should be placed in a small trench, and frequently renewed, in which the fowls will amuse themselves, particularly in winter, by scraping for corn and worms. When fowls have not the advantage of a grass run they should be indulged with a square or two of fresh turf, as often as it can be obtained, on which they will feed and amuse themselves. It should be heavy enough to enable them to tear off the grass, without being obliged to drag the turf about with them. CHAPTER IV. FOOD. The following table, which first appeared in the "Poultry Diary," will show at a glance the relative constituents and qualities of the different kinds of food, and may be consulted with great advantage by the poultry-keeper, as it will enable him to proportion mixed food correctly, and to change it according to the production of growth, flesh, or fat that may be desired, and according to the temperature of the season. These proportions, of course, are not absolutely invariable, for the relative proportions of the constituents of the grain will vary with the soil, manure used, and the growing and ripening characteristics of the season.