"It becomes," says Miss Harriet Martineau, "an interesting wonder every year why the rural cottagers of the United Kingdom do not rear fowls almost universally, seeing how little the cost would be and how great the demand. We import many millions of eggs annually. Why should we import any? Wherever there is a cottage family living on potatoes or better fare, and grass growing anywhere near them, it would be worth while to nail up a little penthouse, and make nests of clean straw, and go in for a speculation in eggs and chickens. Seeds, worms, and insects go a great way in feeding poultry in such places; and then there are the small and refuse potatoes from the heap, and the outside cabbage leaves, and the scraps of all sorts. Very small purchases of broken rice (which is extremely cheap), inferior grain, and mixed meal, would do all else that is necessary. There would be probably larger losses from vermin than in better guarded places; but these could be well afforded as a mere deduction from considerable gains. It is understood that the keeping of poultry is largely on the increase in the country generally, and even among cottagers; but the prevailing idea is of competition as to races and specimens for the poultry-yard, rather than of meeting the demand for eggs and fowls for the table." With the exception of prizes for Dorkings, which are chiefly bred for market, our poultry-shows have always looked upon fowls as if they were merely ornamental birds, and have framed their standards of excellence accordingly, and not with any regard to the production of profitable poultry, which is much to be regretted. Martin Doyle, the cottage economist of Ireland, in his "Hints to Small Holders," observes that "a few cocks and hens, if they be prevented from scratching in the garden, are a useful and appropriate stock about a cottage, the warmth of which causes them to lay eggs in winter--no trifling advantage to the children when milk is scarce. The French, who are extremely fond of eggs, and contrive to have them in great abundance, feed the fowls so well on curds and buckwheat, and keep them so warm, that they have plenty of eggs even in winter. Now, in our country (Ireland), especially in a gentleman's fowl yard, there is not an egg to be had in cold weather; but the warmth of the poor man's cabin insures him an egg even in the most ungenial season." Such fowls obtain fresh air, fresh grass, and fresh ground to scratch in, and prosper in spite of the most miserable, puny, mongrel stock, deteriorating year after year from breeding in and in, without the introduction of fresh blood even of the same indifferent description. Many an honest cottager might keep himself and family from the parish by the aid of a small stock of poultry, if some kind poultry-keeper would present him with two or three good fowls to begin with, for the cottager has seldom capital even for so small a purchase.