Oats are dearer than barley by weight. The heaviest should be bought, as they contain very little more husk than the lightest, and are therefore cheaper in proportion. Oats and oatmeal contain much more flesh-forming material than any other kind of grain, and double the amount of fatty material than wheat, and three times as much as barley. Mowbray says oats are apt to cause scouring, and chickens become tired of them; but they are recommended by many for promoting laying, and in Kent, Sussex, and Surrey for fattening. Fowls frequently refuse the lighter samples of oats, but if soaked in water for a few hours so as to swell the kernel, they will not refuse them. The meal contains more flesh-forming material than the whole grain. The meal of wheat and barley are much the same as the whole grain, but oatmeal is drier and separated from a large portion of the husk, which makes it too dear except for fattening fowls and feeding the youngest chickens, for which it is the very best food. Fine "middlings," also termed "sharps" and "thirds," and in London coarse country flour, are much like oatmeal, but cheaper than the best, and may be cheaply and advantageously employed instead of oatmeal, or mixed with boiled or steamed small potatoes or roots. Many writers recommend refuse corn for fowls, and the greater number of poultry-keepers on a small scale perhaps think such light common grain the cheapest food; but this is a great mistake, as, though young fowls may be fed on offal and refuse, it is the best economy to give the older birds the finest kind of grain, both for fattening and laying, and even the young fowls should be fed upon the best if fine birds for breeding or exhibition are desired. "Instead of giving ordinary or tail corn to my fattening or breeding poultry," says Mowbray, "I have always found it most advantageous to allow the heaviest and the best; thus putting the confined fowls on a level with those at the barn-door, where they are sure to get their share of the weightiest and finest corn. This high feeding shows itself not only in the size and flesh of the fowls, but in the size, weight, and substantial goodness of their eggs, which, in these valuable particulars, will prove far superior to the eggs of fowls fed upon ordinary corn or washy potatoes; two eggs of the former going further in domestic use than three of the latter." "Sweepings" sometimes contain poisonous or hurtful substances, and are always dearer, weight for weight, than sound grain.