181. A few of these may be kept about any cottage, for they are kept even in towns by labourers and artizans. They cause but little trouble. They take care of their own young ones; and they do not scratch, or do any other mischief in gardens. They want feeding with tares, peas, or small beans; and buck-wheat is very good for them. To _begin_ keeping them, they must not have _flown at large_ before you get them. You must keep them for two or three days, shut into the place which is to be their home; and then they may be let out, and will never leave you, as long as they can get proper food, and are undisturbed by vermin, or unannoyed exceedingly by lice.
182. The common dove-house pigeons are the best to keep. They breed oftenest, and feed their young ones best. They begin to breed at about _nine months old_, and if well kept, they will give you eight or nine pair in the year. Any little place, a shelf in the cow shed; a board or two under the eaves of the house; or, in short, any place under cover, even on the ground floor, they will sit and hatch and breed up their young ones in.
183. It is not supposed that there could be much _profit_ attached to them; but they are of this use; they are very pretty creatures; very interesting in their manners; they are an object to delight _children_, and to give them the _early habit_ of fondness for animals and of _setting a value_ on them, which, as I have often had to observe before, is a very great thing. A considerable part of all the _property_ of a nation consists of animals. Of course a proportionate part of the cares and labours of a people appertain to the breeding and bringing to perfection those animals; and, if you consult your experience, you will find that a labourer is, generally speaking, of value in proportion as he is worthy of being intrusted with the care of animals. The most careless fellow cannot _hurt_ a hedge or ditch; but to trust him with the _team_, or the _flock_, is another matter. And, mind, for the _man_ to be trust-worthy in this respect, the _boy_ must have been in the _habit_ of being kind and considerate towards animals; and nothing is so likely to give him that excellent habit as his seeing, from his very birth, animals taken great care of, and treated with great kindness by his parents, and now-and-then having a little thing to _call his own_.