MEMORIAL POULTRY LIBRARY 
 
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Cornell University Library 
 SF 487.W26T 1902 
 
 200 eggs a year per hen:how to get them 
 
 3 1924 003 058 801 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924003058801 
 
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 200 Eggs a Yea% 
 Per Hen: 
 
 How To Get Them. 
 
 Price, SO Cents. 
 
 PUBUSHJEP BY 
 
 EDGAR L WARREN, Wolfeboro, N. H. 
 1902. 
 
•M*IMWMIMMMMMW<WlMIMMMM>MMMMWMWnMI« 
 
 Have You Seen I 
 The New MANN'S? I 
 
 You don't know what a bone cutter really is, 
 until you see 
 
 Mann's 1902 Model 
 
 Different From All Others. 
 
 You cannot afford to get along without a good 
 bone cutter, and you cannot afford to buy one until 
 after you have investigated the Mann's 1902 Model, 
 especially as you can get one on 
 
 TEN DAYS FREE TRIAL. 
 
 No money asked for until you prove our guarantee 
 on your own premises, that our 1902 model will 
 cut all kinds of bone, with adhering meat and 
 gristle, easier and faster and in better shape than 
 any other type of bone cutter. If you don't like it 
 send it back at our expense. 
 New design, open hopper, enlarged table, new device to control feed. You 
 can set it to suit any strength. Never clogs. This is the- newest machine cov- 
 ered by latest patents. It embraces all the best features of the old reliable Mann's 
 and a dozen radical improvements which have increased its efficiency fully 100%. 
 Compare its self-regulating feed with the crude devices of other types. Compare 
 its products with that of others. Compare its ease of operation and then decide 
 for yourself 
 
 The Mann's is the only machine which cuts hard bones without any more 
 exertion than is required for soft bones. The only machine which you can reg- 
 ulate to suit the strength of the operator. The machine which does not clog nor 
 stall ; the machine which cuts not only bone, but any bone and all bone, meat 
 and gristle. Try it for yourself and see. Our new catalogue explains all. 
 
 F. W. MANN CO., Box W, Milford, Mass. 
 
 Manufacturers of Clover Cutters, Feed Trays, Granite Crystal Grit, eto. 
 
\f]arrtu,> Edqfri'., /&-<■ 
 
 STANDARD EDITION. 
 
 200 Eggs a Year Per Hen: 
 How to Get Them. 
 
 A Practical Treatise 
 
 on 
 
 Egg Making and Its Conditions 
 
 and 
 
 Profits in Poultry. 
 
 Price 50 Cents. 
 fam The Library of 
 
 PUBLISHKD BY 
 
 EDGAR I*. WARREK, Wolfeboro, [K H. 
 1902. 
 
sr 
 
 W<26 T 
 E 8247 
 
 COPYKIGHT 1899, 1900, 1902, 
 
 Hy EDGAR L. WARREN. 
 
THE TWO HUNDRED EGG HEN. 
 
 |We hear a good deal said in these days about the 200 egg 
 hen. Some are disposed to deny her existence, and to class her 
 with such fabulous or semi-fabulous birds. as the phcenix and 
 dodo. Others admit that she has appeared in isolated instances, 
 but is by no means common. Others contend that i"f she should 
 appear in large numbers it would be a misfortune rather than 
 otherwise, for such excessive egg production would weaken her 
 system so that her eggs would not hatch healthy and vigorous 
 chicks ; and the 200 egg hen would be in constant danger 
 of extinction from her own success. 
 
 One thing is certain, however, the 200 egg hen is no myth. 
 There are many of them scattered about, and the tribe is on the 
 increase. My reputation for truth and veracity is reasonably 
 good ; yet I am willing to make oath that I had a flock of 
 14 White Wyandottes that from October to October gave me a 
 total of 2999 eggs, an average of a little better than 214 eggs 
 apiece. There are others who can beat this. Men are already 
 talking of the 250 egg hen, and before we realize it she will be 
 here. 
 
 I do not see how a man can draw an arbitrary line, and say 
 how many eggs a hen may or may not lay in a year. The hen 
 in her wild state lays about 30; the average farmer's hen not 
 over 100; while on egg farms the average is raised to 150. But 
 why stop here? There are 365 days in a year; and I do not see 
 why a pullet that is fully matured, that comes from an egg pro- 
 ducing strain, that is properly fed and cared for and kept 
 steadily at work, may not lay at least 200 eggs in that time. 
 
 I am prepared to admit that a hen will not lay 200 eggs a 
 year without constant and intelligent care. I am also prepared 
 to admit that in some cases the number of eggs extra a hen will 
 lay where she has this constant and intelligent care will not pay 
 for the time consumed, and that it may be more profitable to get 
 an average of say 150 eggs a year than a larger number. But 
 I believe that in the poultry business, as in every other, it is well 
 to have a high ideal. The man who inscribes on his banner, 
 "Two Hundred Eggs a Year Per Hen," and then comes as near 
 it as he can, will make more money and have more fun than will 
 the man who is content to take what comes along. 
 
THE HEREDITY OF THE TWO HUNDRED EGO HEN. 
 
 When I was a boy a mile in 2:40 was regarded as a great 
 performance for a trotting horse. There were horses that had 
 trotted under 2 .-40, much under, but they were few. I remember 
 it was the custom for us urchins to cry out whenever a man 
 drove by at a slashing gait, "Go it, 2 140 !" I am not an old man 
 yet by any means — my wife tells me that I am young — but I 
 have lived to see the trotting record come down and down until 
 it is perilously near the two minute mark. A horse that cannot 
 trot in less than 2 40 is regarded as a good horse for a woman 
 to drive, but out of place on the track. 
 
 What has brought the record down and down until men are 
 looking for the two minute horse? Heredity and handling! 
 A trotting horse now has a pedigree as long as a European 
 monarch. The blood of generations of trotters flows in his 
 veins. It may be the ancestral lines converge in the great 
 Messenger himself. 
 
 Heredity and handling! These two things are as necessary 
 for the 200 egg hen as for the two minute horse. Men do not 
 gather grapes from thorns nor figs from thistles. The 200 egg 
 hen must be bred to lay. She must come from an egg-producing 
 strain. No matter how scientifically a man may feed or how 
 hygienically he may house, he cannot take a flock of hens of any 
 old breed or no breed and get 200 eggs a year apiece from them. 
 It is impossible. By carefully following the instructions of this 
 book he can largely increase the egg yield of such a flock, but 
 he must not expect to get 200 eggs a year apiece. I cannot 
 impress it too strongly upon the reader's mind that if he expects 
 to get 200 eggs a year apiece from his hens he must start in 
 with a great laying strain. 
 
 WHAT BREED IS BEST? 
 
 There is an old Latin proverb, De gustibus non est disputan- 
 dum, which I will take the liberty to translate for the benefit of 
 those who have been out of school for some time. Its meaning is 
 this: In matters of taste there is no argument. This is as true 
 in the poultry business as it is elsewhere. Other things being 
 equal that breed is the best for a man which he likes best. There 
 is no breed that combines all the excellences and has none of the 
 defects. There is no breed that does not have its admirers. In 
 general it may be said that the most profitable breeds are to be 
 
found in the Asiatic, American and Mediterranean classes, as fol- 
 lows : In the Asiatic class the Light Brahmas, Black Langshans, 
 Buff and Partridge Cochins; in the American class the Barred, 
 Buff and White Plymouth Rocks, all the Wyandottes and the 
 Rhode Island Reds; in the Mediterranean class the Black 
 Minorcas, Brown, White and Buff Leghorns. These are the 
 great money-making varieties. The Asiatics are excellent table 
 fowls and prolific layers of dark brown eggs. They are good 
 sitters and mothers, although somewhat clumsy. They are 
 inclined to be sluggish and readily take on fat. They stand cold 
 well, and make good winter layers. The Mediterraneans are 
 egg machines, turning out great quantities of white-shelled eggs. 
 They do not stand cold as well as the Asiatic and American 
 breeds, and are not as good fowls for the table. The Americans 
 on the whole are the favorites. They are all-round birds, good 
 layers of brown eggs, excellent for the table, good sitters and 
 mothers. They stand cold well, and are the birds for farmers 
 and breeders. The danger with every breed is that it will get 
 into the hands of the fanciers and be bred for points rather than 
 for utility. Stamina is the important thing, and not the show 
 card. It will be a great day for the poultry business when far- 
 mers keep more pure-bred fowls, for then the great standard 
 varieties may be kept up without danger of deterioration. 
 
 HOW MANY VARIETIES SHALL I KEEP? 
 
 After studying the matter carefully, I have come to the con- 
 clusion that it is better for the average poultryman to confine 
 himself to one variety. He will get better results and make 
 more money if he concentrates his energies than he will if he 
 dissipates them. After a man has made a success with one 
 variety he may perhaps add another, and even a third; but the 
 best poultrymen do not handle many varieties, and some of the 
 most successful confine themselves to one. Where several 
 varieties are kept I would suggest that there be some principle 
 of unity determining the choice. Let the birds all be of one 
 color — say white, black or buff — or let them all be of one family 
 like the Leghorns, Wyandottes or Plymouth Rocks. Where the 
 fowls are all of one family they will have the same characteristics 
 and respond to the same treatment. In case of an accidental 
 mix-up the damage is reduced to a minimum, for the birds are 
 all of the same size, comb and contour. 
 
HOW MANY EGO RECORDS ARE WRECKED. 
 
 Some time ago I received a letter from a young woman who 
 is an enthusiastic poultrywoman, in which she said that she was 
 getting a goodly number of eggs, but that her record was 
 lowered because she had kept over half a dozen hens which had 
 laid well the year before. She said that she knew better, but 
 could not resist the temptation. I mention this case because it 
 is so typical. More egg records are wrecked by keeping old 
 hens in the flock than in any other way ! There is always a 
 temptation when a hen has laid well to keep her the second 
 year. This temptation must be resisted if one is in quest of a 
 big egg record. The fact that a hen has laid well for one year 
 since coming to maturity incapacitates her from ever laying so 
 well again. She has drained her system, and requires recu- 
 peration before she can lay even moderately. You may set it 
 down as an axiom that it is the pullets that give the big e'gg 
 records. If you have in your flock some hens that you desire to 
 keep a, second year as a reward for past services, or for breeders 
 and mothers, put them in a pen by themselves and do not look 
 for more than a moderate egg production from them. It is the 
 pullets that lay, and the early-hatched pullets at that. Get out 
 your chickens in March, April or May, according to the breed, 
 if you want winter layers. 
 
 Another way in which many egg records are wrecked is by 
 harboring loafers in the flock. Not every early-hatched pullet is 
 a layer. The loafers must be weeded out in some way or they 
 will reduce your average. Suppose you have two hens in a pen, 
 and one lays 200 eggs a year and the other none. The average 
 for the two is 100 eggs apiece. The loafer has reduced her com- 
 panion's egg record one-half. Many poultrymen are now using 
 a trap nest box or some other similar contrivance and keeping 
 individual records. 
 
 TO PICK OUT THE LAYERS. 
 
 Sometimes a person cannot afford to go to the expense of a 
 patent nest box, or does not care to keep individual records, but 
 would like to be assured that every pullet in the pen is a layer. 
 There is a very simple and inexpensive way to do this. Partition , 
 off one corner of the pen into a little cage, and into this put the 
 pullets one by one. Give the pullet the same food that is being 
 given the rest, and keep a dish of, water near her. Let her 
 
remain in the pen until you are satisfied that she does or does not 
 lay. Sometimes three days are sufficient for a test, sometimes a 
 week, and sometimes two weeks are needed. If a pullet is old 
 enough to lay and does not lay in two weeks, or lays only two or 
 three eggs in that time, she should be killed and eaten. Other- 
 wise she will reduce your egg record. I repeat what I have just 
 said, that one cannot afford to harbor loafers. Sometimes the 
 handsomest pullets are the poorest layers. I had a pullet once, 
 perfect in form and plumage, which failed to respond to the test 
 and was killed. I did not find any trace of an egg in her. She 
 was absolutely barren. It costs a dollar a year to feed a hen, and 
 this money is thrown away if the hen does not lay. Therefore, 
 test your pullets. If you do not care to go to the trouble of par- 
 titioning off a place in the pen, an old dry goods box with slatted 
 toft will answer. But I would strongly recommend that this 
 inside cage or pen form a feature of every compartment in your 
 hen house. Its uses are many. I have already referred to its 
 value as a place to test pullets. If you alternate cocks the one 
 that is resting may be confined in this pen. Broody fowls may 
 be kept there. It is an excellent place in which to set hens, and 
 the chickens may be kept in the pen with their mothers until they 
 are old enough to be put out of doors. 
 
 THE THREE CONDITIONS OF EQQ PRODUCTION. 
 
 After the idle and sluggish birds have been weeded out and 
 the pens made up, we are in a position to strike for a big egg 
 record. In order for us to realize our ambition it will be neces- 
 sary for Us at the outset to understand the conditions of egg pro- 
 duction. It was a maxim of Lord Bacon, one of the greatest 
 men that ever lived, that Nature is the great teacher, and that in 
 order to learn we must interrogate Nature. If we study 
 Nature with open eyes she will often give us suggestions of great 
 value and fruitfulness. The poultryman must continually go to 
 Nature, the great teacher, and he will not go in vain. In the 
 state of Nature in which wild fowls live, or in the state of semi- 
 Nature in which the farmer's fowls are kept, what is the season 
 of egg production? Summer. Why? Because in summer the 
 conditions of egg production are present. What are these con- 
 ditions? Warmth, proper food and exercise. Reproduce these 
 conditions at any season of the year and the fowl must lay. The 
 poultryman should keep this fact in mind and govern himself 
 accordingly. 
 
THE HEN HOUSE. 
 
 The style of house a man builds will depend upon his means 
 and inclinations. Variety is one of the fundamental laws of the 
 human mind. There are poultry houses costing thousands of 
 dollars, and there are poultry houses that were built for less than 
 a dollar a running foot. It is not always the most expensive 
 house that gives the most eggs. Some of the most successful 
 poultrymen in the country began with houses knocked together 
 out of dry goods boxes or piano cases. Such houses will do tem- 
 porarily, while the poultryman is getting experience; but in the 
 end he will need houses that are substantial and convenient, if not 
 expensive. 
 
 Before the prospective poultryman lays out his plant, I would 
 advise him to visit several successful poultrymen in his neighbor- 
 hood and see if he cannot learn something from them. Before 
 comi'rig away ask each man what changes, if any, he would make 
 if he were laying out his plant over again. In this way one may 
 sometimes stumble upon information that is of great value. In 
 laying out a plant one or two principles should be held firmly in 
 mind. The laying stock should be in houses convenient of access, 
 and these houses should be permanent and supplied with yards. 
 The young stock should be on fresh ground, for best results. 
 Consequently their houses should be movable. 
 
 A house that suits me well for laying stock is one 60 
 feet long, 12 feet wide, 6 feet posts, double pitch roof, 9 feet from 
 ridgepole to floor. This house may be divided into four com- 
 partments of 15 feet each, should have eight small windows, a 
 door at each end, with a small slide door in each pen for the hens, 
 leading into their yard. This house rests on a stone or brick 
 foundation, and has a cement or gravel floor. The sills are 4x4, 
 the studding and rafters each 2x4. 
 
 A house of this style may be built of any length. I do not 
 favor a walk in the rear, as it seems a useless waste of space. 
 Where there are double swing doors between the pens, it is no 
 trouble to pass from one pen to another, as the doors open with 
 the slightest pressure and close to themselves. There should be 
 a V-shaped trough for every two pens, one side opening into one 
 pen and the other side into the other. This trough should have 
 compartments for oyster shells, grit, charcoal, beef scraps, or any- 
 thing you choose to put into them. There should be a pan of water 
 set in a slot near the trough, so that one pan will accommodate 
 the hens in two pens. The roosts should lie next the back wall, 
 
■with a platform underneath to catch the droppings. The plat- 
 form should in no case be more than three feet from the floor, 
 and in the case of heavier birds two feet and a half is better. The 
 nests should be under the roost platform. The roosts themselves 
 should be of joists, 2x4, planed and with edges rounded a little, 
 and so arranged that they can be easily removed. The roosts 
 should be one foot above the platform. There should be two of 
 them, and they should be on the same level and parallel with each 
 other. Once a week, in summer, the roosts should be painted 
 with kerosene, to keep down the red mites; and once a month, 
 after the kerosene has been applied, each roost should be taken 
 outside the house and run through a pile of burning shavings or 
 paper in order that it may be purified by fire. 
 
 Such a house may be built of any material; but I think that 
 "siding," which the mills up here turn out in great quantities, is 
 the cheapest and best. Each piece of siding is of pine, £ of an 
 inch thick, grooved on one side and with a flange on the other. 
 This flange joins into the groove in the next piece, and by match- 
 ing them together a perfectly tight wall is secured. In this cold 
 climate a double wall on the north side is advisable, but to the 
 south of us no double wall is needed. The roof should be of hem- 
 lock boards, covered with tarred paper, and then shingled. 
 
 MORE ABOUT THE HEN HOUSE. 
 
 The house must be dry. Dampness is fatal to fowls. They 
 will stand considerable cold without injury, but succumb speedily 
 to dampness. Roup, rheumatism and kindred evils go with a 
 •damp house. — The house should be warm. Nature has provided 
 the hen with an ample covering of feathers, and she will not 
 freeze even if the temperature goes far below zero. But under 
 such circumstances she will lay but few eggs, flow can she? 
 All her food goes toward making caloric, and there is no surplus 
 for anything else. In a properly constructed house there is no 
 need of artificial heat. A house should be so built that in the 
 coldest weather water will not freeze solid in it. If it is warm 
 as this it is warm enough. The house should be sunny. Fowls 
 love the sun. See them stand in the path of sunlight in the morn- 
 ing of a clear, bright winter day. The house should be so situ- 
 ated that the sun will shine into it the most hours every day. 
 There should not be too many windows ; for the windows let the 
 heat pass out as easily as they let it pass in, and the difference in 
 temperature between day and night is too great. 
 
10 
 
 THE TOILET OF THE HOUSE. 
 
 Hens will not lay unless they are fairly comfortable. How 
 can a hen lay eggs in a cold, damp house with a swarm of para- 
 sites sucking her blood? I said a few sections back that if you 
 want an egg record you must harbor no loafers. The worst 
 loafers you can harbor are swarms of lice that suck the life-blood 
 of your hens and yield nothing in return. And yet it is compar- 
 atively easy to keep a flock clear of lice. I seldom find them. 
 Why? Because I do away with the conditions that favor them. 
 I keep my houses clean. In order to keep your birds free from lice 
 you must start right. Perhaps you have on your place an old 
 ramshackle house in which hens have been kept for years. It is 
 impossible to keep fowls free from lice in such a house. Why? 
 Because the house is haunted. Lice lurk in every crack and 
 crevice, and it is almost impossible to exterminate them. You 
 may fumigate, you may burn sulphur; but some will escape to 
 hatch out their pestilential brood. The best way is to tear down 
 the old house, burn the boards, and start in again. Build a new 
 house of clean, sweet-smelling lumber, and make up your mind 
 that it shall not be polluted with lice. , 
 
 Before putting your birds into your new house dust them 
 thoroughly with some good insecticide. Sprinkle some of it in 
 the nest boxes. Take an old can half full of kerosene, and with 
 a paint brush go over the roosts. This should be done in sum- 
 mer at least once a week. Provide the hens with a sand bath, 
 remove the droppings every few days, keep the cobwebs swept 
 down, sprinkle air-slacked lime about freely, and you will have 
 little trouble with lice. 
 
 TO RID A HOUSE OF VERMIN. 
 
 Sometimes through carelessness or neglect a house becomes 
 infested with vermin, and then radical measures are necessary. 
 In the first place the house should be thoroughly fumigated. 
 Close every door and window, and see that there are no cracks or 
 apertures to admit air. Burn a pound of sulphur for every ioo 
 square feet of floor space in the house : thus a house 10 x 10 will 
 require one pound of sulphur, one 20 x 10 two pounds, one 30 x 
 10 three pounds, and so on. The sulphur must be burned in iron 
 vessels, which must be set on gravel or sand, so that there can be 
 no danger from fire. Into each vessel put a handful of carpen- 
 
11 
 
 ter's shavings saturated with kerosene, and upon these sprinkle 
 the sulphur. Place the vessels in position, apply a match to the 
 shavings, and hastily leave the house, closing the door behind 
 you. Do not open the house again for five hours, when every 
 door and window should be thrown wide open. In case you feel 
 any anxiety about fire, you can look in through a window once in 
 a while to see that everything is going well. 
 
 After the fumes of sulphur have been driven out, with a 
 hand sprayer go through the house sending a spray of kerosene 
 everywhere. These sprayers can be bought for half a dollar each, 
 will last for years, and are simpy invaluable. All the time you 
 have been at work the hens have been in the yard outside, without 
 food, and are now anxious to return to their home. Let them in 
 one by one, and as each enters catch her and dust her well with 
 some good insecticide. Tobacco dust, which can be bought at 
 the florist's for five cents a pound, is cheap and effective. 
 
 You have now freed your house and birds from vermin for 
 the time being, but have not destroyed the eggs, and in a week 
 another swarm will hatch out. Accordingly it will be necessary 
 to repeat the process once or twice before the pests are exter- 
 minated. You can tire them in time ; but before you get 
 through you will have learned the truth of the old saying, that 
 an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. 
 
 A CHEAP HOUSE FOR RENTERS. 
 
 There are many who would like to keep a few hens for amuse- 
 ment and to supply the table with fresh eggs, who are deterred 
 from doing so by the fact that they do not own their place. They 
 do not wish to go to the expense of putting up a house on land 
 belonging to another to leave behind them — a dead loss in case 
 they move in a year or two. It has occurred to me that a small, 
 light house that could be easily moved, that would remain the 
 property of the tenant and not revert to the owner of the land, 
 that could be converted into any one of a half dozen things in case 
 it was no longer wanted for a hen house, would be a great boon 
 to a good many people. 
 
 Up in New Hampshire where I live such houses are built by 
 the score. One of the most picturesque features of winter life is 
 the colony of fish houses on the ice in the harbor. As soon as the 
 bay is securely frozen over they begin to appear, and in a few 
 weeks there is quite a little city where one would suspect only an 
 Arctic solitude. 
 
VI 
 
 These houses are of all sizes, and range in pretentiousness 
 from a mere shell to quite a pretty little fishing box. The one 
 pictured here is six feet by nine, six feet posts, and six feet six 
 inches from floor to apex of roof. There are two small windows. 
 The house is built throughout of matched pine. The sills, posts 
 and plates are two-by-four inch joists. There are no studs, but 
 the frame is stiffened by a two-by-two inch scantling running 
 from post to post, half way between the plates and the sills. 
 Diagonal braces run from the center of the scantling to each cor- 
 
 
 
 
 m 
 p. 
 
 ■ * 
 
 
 
 > 
 
 1W(* 
 
 
 
 
 
 A FISHING BOX IN WINTER — A HOUSE FOR THE CHILDREN TX 
 
 SUMMER. 
 
 ner of the wall, above and below. The house when completed 
 is very light and strong, and will stand almost any amount of buf- 
 feting and strain. 
 
 What is the cost of such a house? It is small. The boards 
 cut with little waste, there are so many lengths. The floors, if 
 you have them, may be hemlock. If a man is handy with tools, 
 and can do the work himself, a house six by nine feet — ample to 
 shelter 50 chickens in summer or a cock and a dozen hens in win- 
 ter — can be built for $12. This includes everything, lumber, 
 hardware, paint, windows, etc. If you employ a carpenter of 
 course the cost will be somewhat increased. 
 
13 
 
 HOUSES MADE FROM PIANO BOXES. 
 
 Possibly there are some who desire even a cheaper house than 
 the one I have described. It may be they expect to remain but a 
 short time where they are, or wish a house for young stock, and 
 do not care to invest even $12 in a building. To such I would 
 say that a good temporary house can be made from two piano 
 boxes at a cost of about $3. The simplest way to make such a 
 house is as follows : On a level place lay down two joists eight 
 feet long. Take the boxes and carefully remove the boards on 
 
 aftr""" 
 
 THREE DOLLAR POULTRY HOUSES. 
 
 the tallest side. Spike the boxes to the joists, so that the open 
 ends will face each other. With the boards you have taken out 
 close up the gap between the boxes on the back and roof. Put a 
 door in front, a pane of glass on either side of the door, or two 
 panes in the door itself, complete laying the floor, put in a roost, 
 cover the building with good roofing paper, and you have a house 
 that will accommodate a dozen hens at a trifling cost. 
 
 There are other ways of building these piano-box houses. 
 Remove the top of each box, raise the height about a foot with 
 boards, keeping the general shape, and put a double pitch roof 
 over the whole. This makes a house tall enough to allow one to 
 
14 
 
 enter and stand upright in, which of course makes it much easier 
 to do the work. Or a house may be built with a single roof and 
 adjustable hood front, like the one shown in the cut. I have a 
 friend who has a city lot containing three-quarters of an acre of 
 
 HOOD FRONT PIANO BOX POULTRY HOUSE. 
 
 land, and in houses such as I have described he has cared for 300 
 chickens and old stock and raised some as fine fowls as could be 
 raised on farm range. 
 
 WHITEWASH FOR HEN HOUSE. 
 
 The hen house should receive a liberal coat of whitewash at 
 least once a year. There is no better whitewash than that used 
 by the United States government for public buildings, which is 
 made as follows : Take half a bushel of unslacked lime and slack 
 it with boiling water, covering during the process to keep in 
 steam. Strain the liquid through a fine sieve or strainer, and add 
 a peck of salt previously dissolved in warm water; three pounds 
 of ground rice boiled to a thin paste and stirred in while hot; 
 half a pound of Spanish whiting, one pound of clean glue. 
 Before the glue is added it should be dissolved in cold water and 
 
]S 
 
 then brought to a state where it will flow freely by being placed 
 over a slow fire in a small pot set in a larger one, — the larger 
 pot being filled with water. Add five gallons hot water to the 
 mixture, stir well, and let it stand a few days where no dirt can 
 get into it. Apply hot. One pint of this whitewash will cover 
 one square yard. 
 
 Coloring matter may b'e added as desired. For cream color 
 add yellow ochre ; for pearl or lead color add lampblack or ivory 
 black; for fawn color add proportionately four pounds of umber 
 to one pound of Indian red and one pound of common lampblack ; 
 for common stone color add proportionately four pounds of raw 
 umber to two pounds lampblack. 
 
 Another very good recipe is as follows: Simply take the 
 burned lime, slack it slowly, and wet it enough to make it into a 
 thick putty. Let it stand in this shape a few hours or a few days, 
 and then reduce it with water to the thickness desired to be applied 
 with a brush. When whitewash is desired for the interior of hen 
 houses add one pint crude carbolic acid to each twelve-quart pail- 
 ful of whitewash. This combination is death to lice; it is used 
 by nearly all successful poultrymen. 
 
 TO DUST A HEN. 
 
 With your left hand grasp the hen by the legs, and lay her 
 breast-down upon a newspaper. The powder should be in a tin 
 box with a handle and a perforated cover. Sprinkle the powder 
 into the feathers around the vent, rubbing it in well. Work the 
 powder into the feathers about the neck. Work the powder into 
 the feathers on the sides and under the wings. Let the hen stand 
 a moment, keeping your hands lightly around her so that she can- 
 not get away. Return her to the roost and take another. After 
 going through the pen shake the powder that has fallen on the 
 newspaper back into the can or package. One application kills 
 the lice that are on the hen at the time, but in a week there will be 
 another brood. The best poultrymen recommend dusting a hen 
 at least three times, at intervals a week apart, and never admitting 
 a strange hen into the pen without first dusting her thoroughly. 
 One lousy hen will contaminate all the rest, and so it is necessary 
 to be on one's guard all the time. 
 
16 
 
 FEEDING FOR EGGS: WHAT TO FEED. 
 
 We now have our hens in a dry, warm, sunny and comforta- 
 ble house, have supplied them with facilities for keeping clean, 
 and of course want them to lay. What shall we feed and how 
 much? This is the most momentous question that confronts the 
 poultryman. Unless a hen is supplied with material for egg pro- 
 duction she cannot lay. She can no more produce eggs without 
 the proper food than a factory can turn out the finished product 
 without raw materials. What shall we feed and how much shall 
 we feed, therefore? 
 
 Let us again follow Lord Bacon's advice and interrogate 
 Nature. Suppose we take a hen as she comes up to the house at 
 the close of a long day in summer from foraging in the fields, kill 
 her, take out her crop and analyze its contents. If we do so it is 
 obvious that we shall obtain at least a part of the information we 
 are after, for a hen lays in summer or not at all. 
 
 What do we find as the result of our analysis ? The crop we 
 are dissecting has about as many articles in it as the average small 
 boy's pocket, and they are equally miscellaneous. We find grains 
 of corn that the hen has picked up about the barn, pieces of bread 
 and table waste that she has found under the sink spout, clover 
 leaves and tips of grass blades, bugs, worms and a mass of matter 
 that we cannot resolve into the original elements. The first thing 
 that impresses us as the result of our analysis is that the hen seeks 
 variety. The second is, that this variety admits of classifica- 
 tion. This mass of miscellaneous matter that we found in the 
 hen's crop can be arranged in three divisions: i. Grain. 2. 
 Green food and vegetables. 3. Animal food — in the form of 
 bugs, worms and so forth. The conclusion is irresistible, that 
 these three elements must be combined if we would have a perfect 
 ration. 
 
 How shall we combine them ? The answer is not so difficult 
 as one would at first suppose. There are many ways. The hen 
 makes a new combination every day. Perhaps the ideal way is to 
 have no stereotyped method, but to study variety. If we combine 
 grain, green food and meat in the daily ration, the hen can hardly 
 fail to respond with a goodly output of eggs. 
 
 There is no article of food that is so much abused as corn. 
 Coin has its place, and an important place, in the bill-of-fare of 
 fowls. But a hen cannot be properly nourished on corn alone. 
 She needs a balanced ration. The men who get results in egg 
 production are the men who pay great attention to feeding, and 
 seek variety. 
 
17 
 
 FEEDING FOR EGGS: HOW MUCH. 
 
 The problem, as every poultryman knows, is not what to feed, 
 but how much. If you do not believe this write to the editor of 
 your favorite poultry paper and ask him how much food you 
 shall give a flock of 15 hens, and see what he will say. It takes a 
 great deal of skill to steer between overfeeding on the one hand 
 and underfeeding on the other. I believe however that there is a 
 scientific principle underlying the matter, and think that after a 
 great deal of study and experimentation I have discovered the 
 principle. 
 
 In order to determine how much we should feed we must again 
 interrogate Nature. Before we began to dissect the crop of the 
 hen we had killed, suppose we had put it in the scales to ascertain 
 its weight. If the hen from which the crop was taken was of an 
 American breed, if she had been running in the fields all day and 
 just before she had been killed had been given all the corn that 
 she would eat, her crop with its contents would weigh not far from 
 six ounces. Allowing that two ounces of food have passed from 
 the crop into the gizzard during the day, and from the gizzard 
 into the intestines, it will be seen that when a hen is on the range, 
 supplied with abundance of food, she will consume about eight 
 ounces of food in the course of 24 hours. It would seem there- 
 fore that this is about the amount a hen needs to supply all the 
 demands of her system and leave a margin for egg production. 
 But before we settle down to this conclusion there are some things 
 to be taken into consideration. On the range the hen has had 
 plenty of exercise, and needs more food to supply the tissue lost 
 than when in confinement. On the range food is more bulky and 
 less nutritious than the food the hen receives in her pen. It con- 
 tains a larger proportion of grass and vegetables. It is probable 
 that in the pen, where the hen does not exercise so freely as she 
 does on the range and where her food is more concentrated, she 
 does not need so much food by one-fourth as she does when at 
 liberty. Six ounces of food a day ought therefore to be ample 
 to supply all the needs of a hen in confinement. 
 
 Suppose we try a little experiment to verify this conclusion. 
 Let us take a laying hen a year old and shut her up in a pen by 
 herself, feeding her but once a day, but giving her all she will eat 
 at this meal. The food we set before her is a mash containing all 
 the elements for nutrition and egg production. We shall find 
 that the hen will continue to thrive and lay eggs on six ounces of 
 
18 
 
 food a day. There will he a falling off in egg production, owing 
 to the close confinement and change in methods of feeding, but 
 the hen will live and lay on six ounces of food a day. We are 
 now confirmed in our conviction, that in the American breeds six 
 ounces of food a day is about the normal amount for a hen in con- 
 finement. Whether she needs a little more or a little less must be 
 determined by individual experimentation. 
 
 Six ounces of food a day for a hen weighing six pounds seems 
 at first sight an enormous quantity. In the same ratio a man 
 weighing 1 60 would consume 10 pounds of food every 24 hours. 
 But before we dismiss the matter as absurd let us consider a 
 moment. The hen's food is not so concentrated as the man's. It 
 contains far less nutriment in proportion to bulk. A consider- 
 able proportion of it will be voided in the form of excrement 1 . 
 Then the hen has a task to perform such as is imposed upon few 
 other creatures. She is expected 'to lay an egg weighing not less 
 than two ounces ; and an egg, as everyone knows, is one of the 
 richest of food products. Deduct from the six ounces of food 
 two ounces for waste and two ounces for egg production, and it 
 will be seen that only two ounces are left to repair the tissues and 
 maintain the temperature of the body. The laying hen needs a 
 generous diet, and those doctrinaires who advocate keeping her in 
 a state of semi-starvation have no support in reason for their 
 theory. 
 
 FEEDING FOR EQQS: AUTHOR'S METHOD. 
 
 Having given my readers the principles that apply to feeding, 
 I propose now to tell them how I put these principles into prac- 
 tice. I desire to state here that I have no patent methods. I aim 
 to apply common sense to the problem of egg production, as I do 
 to other things ; but I do not claim to have a monopoly of wisdom. 
 There are doubtless other methods as good as mine. As I said 
 in a preceding section, there are many possible combinations that 
 will produce good results. I give you mine, and leave you to 
 adopt it or not as you think best. 
 
 I aim to hatch out my chickens early in the spring, so that 
 they will get to laying before cold weather; and by the first of 
 October begin to make up my laying pens for the winter. In 
 each pen there are 18 or 20 pullets ; but the number will ultimately 
 be reduced to 15, as the pullets are tested and the inferior ones 
 thrown out. The pen when complete will contain one male and 
 15 females. 
 
19 
 
 From October to May I feed as follows: A mash the first 
 thing in the morning. This mash is made as I am about to 
 describe. At the mill I buy corn and oats ground and mixed 
 together. The basis of the mash is this mixture combined with 
 wheat bran or middlings, in the proportion of one scoopful of 
 corn and oats to one of bran or middlings. About 
 two-thirds of the mash is made up in this way. I next 
 put ■ in one-half ounce of green ground bone for each fowl. 
 I am aware that this is a much larger proportion of green ground 
 bone than is generally recommended, but it is no larger proportion 
 of animal food than Nature furnishes when the fowls have free 
 range. So great is my faith in green ground bone, that I have 
 ventured to give expression to it as follows : 
 
 To make hens lay 
 Two eggs a day, 
 Feed green ground bone 
 In the mash at morn. 
 
 It is perhaps needless to state that into the mash go the scraps 
 from the table, which otherwise would be burned. I aim to intro- 
 duce some green food every morning, and to give as large a 
 variety as possible, believing this to be Nature's way. One day 
 I feed clover, the next cabbage, the third onions, the fourth 
 apples, the fifth potatoes, and so on. These vegetables are 
 chopped fine or run through a root cutter, and fed raw. I feed 
 clover once a week, or oftener, and regard it as the green food 
 par excellence. 
 
 The mash is salted about as I would salt it if it were intended 
 for human consumption, and in the coldest weather I sprinkle in 
 a little red pepper. The mash is mixed with boiling water, and is 
 allowed to remain on the stove until the whole mass is steaming. 
 I do not take it off until the fire underneath has warmed the kettle 
 so that it begins to feel uncomfortable to the hand. I aim to 
 have the boiling water thoroughly incorporated, so that there will 
 be no dry streaks, and to have the mash in what might be called 
 a granulated state — that is, crumbly but not sloppy. As I feed it, 
 the mash is neither raw nor cooked; but half way between. 
 
 My feed troughs are pine boards four feet long and one foot 
 wide, rimmed with laths to keep the mash from being scattered 
 over the floor. I feed the mash warm, not scalding hot ; and feed 
 what the hens will eat in 10 minutes. If anything is left on the 
 boards at the end of 10 minutes it is scraped back into the kettle, 
 
20 
 
 and the boards stood up against the wall where they will be 
 out of the way. 
 
 One day in seven I give my hens a thanksgiving breakfast; 
 that is, I give them all they will eat, not removing the surplus 
 until the last hen has turned away. The philosophy of this 
 thanksgiving breakfast lies in the fact that under my system of 
 feeding, where I aim to keep the birds in good appetite, there is 
 danger that I shall underfeed; and this thanksgiving breakfast 
 is designed to meet this danger. There are always one or two 
 hens in a flock less aggressive than the rest, and these do not 
 get their share and are underfed. But one morning in seven all 
 can regale themselves to the utmost, and the timid hens and the 
 hungry hens can be filled. 
 
 At ii o'clock in the forenoon I feed a grain ration — wheat, 
 oats, or barley — consisting of one-half ounce to each head. In 
 each house I keep an iron rake, and with this I rake the grain into 
 the sand which forms a carpet to the floor. It takes but a 
 moment and in digging it out the hens get the best of exercise; 
 for for every kernel a hen finds she buries two. Mornings when 
 I feed the thanksgiving breakfast I omit this lunch at II o'clock. 
 
 The latter part of the afternoon I feed two ounces per head of 
 cracked corn. Sometimes I vary by feeding an equal amount by 
 weight of whole wheat or scalded oats. (The oats are weighed 
 before scalding.) In the shortest days of winter I feed but 
 twice, — all the mash they will eat in 15 minutes in the morning 
 and two ounces or more of corn and wheat mixed at night. In 
 the very coldest weather I feed whole corn at night. 
 
 I do not wish to give the reader the impression that I weigh 
 the grain every day, as this might seem too laborious a method. 
 After a little while the eye becomes accustomed to quantities and 
 can judge with sufficient exactness. I do not weigh the grain or 
 measure the mash once a month ; and, when I do, find I have 
 judged quantities with surprising accuracy. 
 
 From May to October I feed differently. The weather is such 
 that the hens are able to be out in their yards, where they can pick 
 up at least a part of their living. I have my garden and lawn 
 to look after, as well as my professional duties to attend to; and 
 try to arrange so that the care of my hens will be as little burden 
 as possible. I feed no green food, as they get plenty of that in their 
 runs, and less green ground bone than in winter. I feed the mash 
 at night, and give them all they will eat. I reduce the grain 
 ration, throwing in a few handfuls of oats morning and noon. If 
 
21 
 
 I were a farmer, and my hens had free range, I would feed 
 •nothing but oats in summer, and not many of these, — perhaps 
 an ounce per head as my hens came up to the barn at night. 
 
 Summer and winter I keep plenty of pure water before my 
 hens, and this water is given them in clean vessels filled at least 
 twice a day. In the winter I give warm water instead of cold. 
 A laying hen is a thirsty creature and should be well supplied 
 with drink. 
 
 FEEDING FOR EQQS: AUTHOR'S ALTERNATE METHOD. 
 
 It sometimes happens that a method of feeding that has given 
 good results will suddenly fail, leaving the poultryman in the 
 lurch. The reason doubtless is that the fowls have grown tired 
 of the combination and crave a change. It may be that in their 
 bill of fare certain elements appear to excess, while others are 
 omitted. Where there is a falling off in egg production and the 
 cause does not appear on the surface, look to the diet. A com- 
 plete change in the bill of fare and method of feeding for a few 
 weeks may bring them round. My alternate method of feed- 
 ing is as follows : 
 
 Sunday I give the thanksgiving breakfast, as described in the 
 preceding section, omitting the green ground bone or meat scraps 
 and putting in more vegetables than usual. No dinner. Supper, 
 two ounces a head, or thereabouts, of wheat and corn. Monday, 
 regular quantity of mash in the morning, omitting meat scraps 
 or green ground bone. (For reasons that will soon appear these 
 articles are omitted from the mash all through the week.) About 
 ii o'clock I place in each pen bones with meat adhering, and let 
 the hens pick them as much as they please. Afternoon, wheat and 
 oats. Tuesday, same as Monday. Wednesday, mash in the 
 morning. Clover cut in short lengths or cabbage or onions 
 chopped fine at noon. Corn at night. Thursday, same as 
 Wednesday. Friday, mash in the morning. Green ground bone 
 or meat scraps at noon, all they will eat. Scanty feed of oats at 
 night. Saturday, same as Friday. If the change in diet has 
 worked well continue to feed as described two or three weeks. I 
 am a great believer in throwing bones with meat adhering into 
 the pens for the fowls to pick. They will pick away at a bone 
 until every particle of meat is removed. When the bone is clean 
 run it through the bone-cutter and feed the chips. Hang up a 
 cabbage in each pen once in a while — not too high — to give the 
 birds exercise and amusement. 
 
22 
 
 FEEDING FOR EGOS: A WOMAN'S WAY. 
 
 "In the morning I feed a mash made of about two parts bran 
 to one part ground oats. For every 50 hens I put in two quarts, 
 good measure, of green ground bone; also some vegetable, well 
 cooked and mashed. This latter I vary as much as possible, 
 using water in which vegetables have been cooked to moisten the 
 mash, providing it is not so strongly flavored as to be disagree- 
 able to the hens, as sometimes happens if turnips have been 
 cooked in it. The proportion of vegetable matter given to hens 
 in winter is much smaller than that given in summer, and also 
 smaller than the other ingredients in the mash. In summer cut 
 grass or clover and vegetable tops are substituted for the roots 
 given in winter and are fed separately whenever convenient. 
 Dried beef scraps are substituted in summer for the ground bone 
 in winter and are fed in smaller quantities, perhaps half the 
 amount. I season with salt rather less than I would for my 
 family. I never use pepper, but occasionally ginger. When 
 using pepper and seasoning highly with salt, I have always had 
 more or less hens die of liver trouble in spring. My mash is 
 always thoroughly scalded and frequently well cooked, as in 
 winter I often mix it the night before and let it remain in the oven 
 over night. Animal meal I consider a cheap food which will 
 make hens lay; but I cannot use it, even in much smaller quanti- 
 ties than the rule. 
 
 "My hens always have warm water in clean drinking vessels 
 in winter and cool water in summer. 
 
 "The second and last feed comes after dinner, when I hoe or 
 rake into the litter on hen house floor two parts whole oats to one 
 part wheat. The litter is six or eight inches deep, and the feed 
 is given generously enough to make them feel rewarded for 
 scratching up to the next afternoon. 
 
 "Oyster shells I prefer to throw in fresh every day, especially 
 in the latter part of the winter, when they get too busy laying 
 to eat the proper amount of lime. 
 
 "A neighbor adopted my way of feeding, but with pullets 
 bought of me failed to get like results. I attribute the failure to 
 the fact that he was afraid of wasting feed, and if he could possi- 
 bly find a grain would not feed more. In the morning I feed 
 all the hens will eat with a relish." — Miss L. M. S., Auburn, Me. 
 
23 
 
 FEEDING FOR EGGS: NOTE. 
 
 In what goes before I have given my methods of feeding, but 
 these methods will need to be varied in individual cases. Some 
 flocks will require more ; some less. The poultryman must watch 
 his birds and use his judgment. Never give fowls more food 
 than they can eat up clean in a reasonable time. Never give them 
 so much, if possible, but that they will come to their meals with 
 good appetite and eat with a relish. If the birds seem sluggish 
 and when you lift them feel like "lumps of lead," you are feeding 
 too much and the ration should be reduced. If on the other 
 hand the birds seem restless and half-starved, you are feeding too 
 little and the ration should be increased. In general it may be 
 said that in these days there is less clanger of over-feeding than 
 under-feeding, so many warnings having been given against the 
 former. I never force my breeding stock ; but culls, and hens that 
 are kept solely for eggs, I push for all they are worth, even at the 
 risk of having some die on my hands. 
 
 The reader must not conclude that because I speak so highly 
 of green ground bone I consider it the whole thing. Meat meal 
 or meat scraps make an excellent substitute when it is not easy 
 to procure green ground bone. My whole system of feeding is 
 connected with my system of handling broody hens, and the 
 reader should study in this connection the section on that subject. 
 
 THE GOLDEN RULE FOR FEEDING. 
 
 Give the hen a sufficient variety and quantity to meet all the 
 needs of her system and leave a margin for egg production. A 
 warm mash in the morning, all she will eat with good relish in 10 
 or ij minutes. Enough grain during the day so that she will go 
 to roost with a crop moderately full, — neither distended on the 
 one hand nor nearly empty on the other. Green food, either 
 in mash or separately. More heating food in winter and more of 
 it than in summer. In general it may be said, that one ounce of 
 food a day for each pound she weighs is about right for the aver- 
 age hen. 
 
 $100.00 IN GOLD: HOW MR. S. D. FOX WON IT. 
 
 In the autumn of 1892 the manufacturers of Sheridan's Con- 
 dition Powder, I. S. Johnson & Co., 22 Custom House Street, 
 Boston, Mass., advertised a "Gold Coin Premium Contest," in 
 which $200.00 in gold was to be given to 16 contestants. There 
 was one first prize of $100.00, five prizes of $10.00 each, and ten 
 
24 
 
 prizes of $5.00 each. The contest was open to the world. The 
 conditions were that each contestant must keep not less than 12 
 liens, must buy at least one dollar's worth of Sheridan's Condition 
 Powder, and must make a full four months' trial. The time for 
 the close of the contest was set at April 1, 1893. The first prize 
 was won by Mr. S. D. Fox of Wolfeboro, N. H. Unfortunately 
 Mr. Fox kept no records other than those he sent in, and in a 
 general clearing up of the Boston office a short time since all 
 records relating to the contest were destroyed. Consequently I 
 am unable to give the figures, but it may be enough to state that 
 out of hundreds of contestants Mr. Fox won the first prize. I 
 will give his methods, as nearly as possible in his own words. 
 
 "That fall," said Mr. Fox, "I had a master fine lot of hens, — 
 White Wyandottes, with just a dash of Leghorn blood in 'em to 
 make 'em lay. They were hatched early, and I began to get eggs 
 from them in October. When I saw the contest advertised I 
 thought I would enter. I didn't expect to get the first prize, but 
 thought possibly I might get one of the others. So I bought a 
 dollar's worth of Sheridan's Condition Powder of C. W. Hicks, 
 who then kept the Wolfeboro Drug Store, and started in. I 
 remembered reading in an old book the following sentence : 'There 
 is nothing that will make hens lay equal to cayenne pepper and 
 milk.' I had a cow that came in that fall, which was giving 
 about 16 quarts of milk a day. I made up a pen of 20 of the like- 
 liest looking pullets, and started in. I fed them in the morning 
 a mash made of equal parts of corn meal, ground oats, and bran. 
 I didn't know anything about meat meal or ground bone in those 
 days, and so I put in instead a handful of linseed meal and what 
 scraps we had left from the table. I mixed this mash up with 
 warm skim milk. Two or three times a week I shook into 
 Ihe milk a teaspoonful of cayenne pepper. I gave the hens all the 
 mash they would eat up clean. At noon I fed oats, and at night 
 corn. I gave the hens all the milk they would take. I gave it 
 to 'em sweet ; I gave it to em sour ; I gave it to 'em in the form of 
 curd. There were days when they had no water — nothing but 
 milk. Lay? You never saw anything like it! I wish I could 
 remember how many they laid. Anyway they laid enough to 
 bring me the first prize of $100.00. Give me cayenne pepper and 
 •skim milk, and I'll risk but what I can make hens lay every time." 
 
25 
 
 EGG FOOD AND TONIC. 
 
 "I can give you a recipe for an egg food and tonic that will 
 do the business," said Mr. Fox. "I sent off once for an egg 
 food that was highly advertised, and the first thing I knew it 
 had killed five hens. No, I guess I won't give you the name. 
 Maybe I was a little too anxious to have 'em lay, and fed too 
 much of it. But this one I can vouch for. I fed it one winter 
 to 72 hens, and one day got 68 eggs. Five days in succession 
 from the same flock I got 64 eggs. Take ten pounds bone meal, 
 ten pounds beef scraps, five pounds fenugreek, two pounds sul- 
 phur, two pounds charcoal, one-half pound cayenne pepper, one- 
 half pound salt. Mix and keep. Put a half pint in the mash 
 every morning, for 20 hens. .When you feed this egg food, feed 
 no meat meal or meat scraps, and do not salt the mash. You 
 will get the mixture right if you remember that the combined 
 weight of the ingredients is 30 pounds. It costs about a dollar 
 to make it." 
 
 HOW THE BIG EGG RECORDS ARE MADE. 
 
 Every now and then we read of an egg record that seems 
 almost incredible. It may be made by an individual hen or it 
 may be made by a flock. But it is way beyond anything we have 
 reached. Many of these stories, no doubt, are not to be 
 believed ; they are fairy tales, pure and simple. Others are 
 true. It is not difficult to get a big egg record when one goes 
 about it the right way. In order to get a big egg record three 
 things are necessary: 1. We must start with pullets, and early- 
 hatched pullets at that. 2. Every pullet in the pen must be a 
 layer. 3. The pullets must be fed heavily, and fed for eggs. 
 
 Mr. Fox's experience tallies with what I have said. The 
 year he won the prize offered by the manufacturers of Sheridan's 
 Condition Powder he got out his pullets early, he tells us, and 
 by the first of October they had begun to lay. By the first of 
 December, when he entered the contest, they were under full 
 steam, and every pullet was doing her level best. Mr. Fox fed a 
 highly stimulating ration, one that would either produce eggs or 
 kill the birds. It is a fact known to all experienced poultry 
 keepers that it is practically impossible to overfeed laying hens. 
 They will make away with a quantity of food that would make 
 non-laying hens "fat as hogs" in a few weeks or bring on liver 
 complaint. 
 
 Do I advise handling hens this way ? That depends. If you 
 
26 
 
 want a big egg record for the time being and care nothing for 
 the future, I do. But I would not advise you to handle hens 
 this way that you expect to breed from. The hens that have been 
 checked rather than encouraged in egg production are the ones 
 that give the highly colored eggs that hatch the hardy chicks. 
 
 CLOVER AS A FOOD. 
 
 Clover is the green food, par excellence. Second-crop clover 
 is best. It should be cut just as it is coming into bloom, or a 
 little before, when there is a profusion of tender green leaves 
 and the stalks have not become woody and dry. Great care 
 should be taken in curing the crop. Clover for hens should be 
 cut into short lengths, say one-fourth of an inch, and may be fed 
 alone at noon. Or it may be mixed in the morning mash with 
 boiling water. It is not necessary to steep it over night as some 
 do. Clover meal is excellent, but somewhat expensive. 
 
 A NEST BOX FOR INDIVIDUAL RECORDS. 
 
 (Within the past few years the poultry business has been 
 almost revolutionized by the introduction of a nest box for indi- 
 vidual records. It is a fact well known to all breeders of 
 animals, that desirable traits may be transmitted, and by careful 
 matings a strain may be permanently established. Among cows 
 some breeds are noted for the production of butter, others for 
 milk, and others for beef. Among hens there are some breeds 
 that excel as egg producers, and in all breeds there are strains 
 that lay better than others. It is obvious that if we are to build 
 up a great egg-producing strain we must breed from great layers. 
 
 How may these great layers be picked out? There are two 
 ways. One is by the testing pen ; the other, by the trap nest box. 
 The former makes the pen the unit ; the latter, the individual 
 bird. The former is the way I myself proceed. My laying pens 
 are made up of birds that have been carefully tested in solitary 
 confinement, as described in a preceding section. If every bird 
 in the pen is a layer, and the average of the pen in egg production 
 is satisfactory, I do not hesitate to breed from that pen. This is 
 a great labor-saving method. The birds do not require the con- 
 stant attention that is demanded where individual records are 
 kept. Each bird is tested at the beginning of the season, and 
 marked with a leg-band- if she meets the test. Otherwise she is 
 put in the pen for culls or dispatched. 
 
27 
 
 Some poultrymen desire to make the individual bird the unit, 
 and not the pen ; and for their purpose a nest box is necessary. 
 There are many of these boxes on the market. The right to use 
 these boxes, with plans for their construction, costs from one to 
 three dollars. Through the courtesy of Mr. G. M. Gowell, agri- 
 culturist of the Maine Experiment Station, I am able to present 
 my readers with the plan for a nest box free of charge. The nest 
 box here described was made by Mr. Gowell after a careful study 
 
 SINGLE NEST BOX. 
 
 of the various nest boxes on the market, and is intended to com- 
 bine their excellences and avoid their defects. This is the box 
 that is illustrated here, and the description of it is in Mr. Gowell's 
 own words. : 
 
 "The nest box is very simple, inexpensive, easy to attend, 
 and certain in its action. It is a box-like structure, without end 
 
)H*' 
 
 ^ 
 
 or cover ; and is twenty-eight inches long, thirteen inches wide 
 and thirteen inches deep — inside measurements. A division 
 board with a circular opening seven and one-half inches in diam- 
 eter is placed across the box twelve inches from the back end and 
 fifteen inches from the front end. The back section is the nest 
 proper. Instead of a close door at the entrance, a light frame of 
 inch by inch and a half stuff is covered with wire netting of one 
 inch mesh. The door is ten and one-half inches wide and ten 
 inches high and does not fill the entire entrance, a space of two 
 and a half inches being left at the bottom and one and a half 
 inches at the top, with a good margin at each side to avoid fric- 
 tion. If it filled the entire space it would be clumsy in its action. 
 It is hinged at the top and opens up into the box. The hinges are 
 placed on the front of the door rather than at the center or back, 
 the better to secure complete closing action. 
 
 "The trip consists of one piece of stiff wire about three-six- 
 teenths of an inch in diameter and eighteen and one-half inches 
 long, bent as shown in drawing. A 
 piece of board six inches wide and just 
 long enough to reach across the box 
 inside is nailed flatwise in front of the 
 partition and one inch below the top of 
 the box, a space of one-fourth of an inch 
 being left between the edge of the board 
 and the partition. The purpose of this 
 beard is only to support the trip wire in 
 place. The six-inch section of the trip 
 wire is placed across the board and 
 the long part of the wire slipped 
 through the quarter inch slot, and 
 passed down close to and in front of the 
 center of the seven and a half inch cir- 
 cular 'opening. Small wire staples are 
 driven nearly down over the six-inch 
 section of the trip wire into the board 
 so as to hold it in place and yet let it roll sidewise easily. 
 
 "When the door is set, the half inch section of the wire 
 marked A comes under a hard wood peg or a tack with a large 
 round head, which is driven into the lower edge of the door 
 frame. The hen passes in through the circular opening and in 
 doing so presses the wire to one side, and the trip slips from its 
 
 ■/;>* 
 
 / 
 
 i 
 
29 
 
 connection with the door. The door promptly swings down and 
 fastens itself in place by its lower edge striking the light end of 
 a wooden latch or lever, pressing it down and slipping over it; 
 the lever immediately coming back into place and locking the 
 door. The latch is five inches long, one inch wide and a half 
 inch thick, and is fastened loosely one inch from its center to the 
 side of the box, so that the outer end is just inside the door when 
 it is closed. The latch acts quickly enough to catch the door 
 before it rebounds. It was feared that the noise arising from 
 the closing of the door might startle the hens, so instead of 
 wooden stops pieces of old rubber belting were nailed at the out- 
 side entrances for the door to strike against. 
 
 "The double box with nest in the rear end is necessary, as 
 when a bird has laid and desires to leave the nest, she steps to the 
 front and remains there until released. With one section only, 
 she would be likely to crush her egg by standing upon it." 
 
 /ffi^j^r^^jjjljg 
 
 NEST BOXES IN POSITION. 
 
30 
 
 KEEP THE HENS AT WORK. 
 
 The hen at liberty is a great forager, on the move from morn- 
 ing until night. She needs a chance to exercise when in confine- 
 ment, or she will take on fat and become useless as an egg pro- 
 ducer. Connected with each house there should be a yard of 
 generous size. The yard should be at least 10 times the size of 
 the house : thus a house 10 x 10 will take a yard 10 x ioo ; one 
 20 x 10 a yard 20 x 100 ; and one 30 x 10 a yard 30 x 100. These 
 yards are the best places in the world for fruit trees. It is sur- 
 prising how fast trees will grow and how heavily they will bear 
 when enriched by the droppings of fowls. There are two 
 orchards in this town, standing side by side on the same soil, the 
 trees of which were bought of the same agent on the same day. 
 One of these orchards is used as a hen yard ; the other is not. 
 The trees in the orchard that is used as a hen yard have made 
 double the growth and bear four times the fruit of the trees in the 
 other. These two orchards are a good object lesson right here 
 at home of the value of planting fruit trees in poultry runs. 
 The trees furnish shade for the hens in summer, which is an 
 important consideration. 
 
 In winter when the hens are in their house they should be 
 made to work. The floor should be covered to the depth of six 
 inches or a foot with litter ; the grain should be thrown into it 
 and the hens made to dig it out. The litter should be shaken up 
 with a fork once a week, and renewed once a month. If the floor 
 of your house is carpeted with dry sand you do not need to pro- 
 vide a litter except in the very coldest weather. Rake the grain 
 into the sand, and make the hens scratch for it. 
 
 QRIT, CHARCOAL AND OYSTER SHELLS. 
 
 Nature has not provided fowls with teeth, and consequently 
 they cannot masticate their food as can the higher animals. The 
 food passes from the crop into the gizzard, where it is prepared 
 for the intestines by trituration ; that is, as the food passes through 
 the gizzard it is triturated, or ground up, by the little flinty parti- 
 cles which line that member. Unless the fowl is well supplied 
 with grit the food passes into the intestines improperly prepared, 
 and the result is indigestion. It is a great mistake not to keep 
 the fowls well supplied with grit. Charcoal is an alterative and 
 tonic, and should be before the hens all the time. Oyster shells 
 are necessary to supply the lime needed for the egg shells, and 
 should be supplied in abundance. 
 
:u 
 
 DON'T CROWD YOUR BIRDS. 
 
 There is a snare spread for beginners in the poultry business 
 which catches nearly all : it is to crowd the birds. The prospec- 
 tive poultryrnan has kept a small flock and they have laid well. 
 He begins to reason like this: "I have kept 12 hens in this pen 
 the past year and they have netted me two dollars apiece. All I 
 have to do to increase my income is to increase the number of my 
 birds. If 12 hens have paid me $24, 50 hens will pay me $100." 
 This seems logical, and the prospective poultryrnan goes to work 
 and puts in 50 birds, only to find at the end of the year that the 
 50 birds have not paid him so well as the 12 did. They have laid 
 no more eggs, and sickness has been rife among them. More 
 men lose money and retire from the poultry business in disgust 
 from losses brought about by putting too many birds into one pen 
 ■than from any other cause. 
 
 The farmer would not think of putting two cows in one stall. 
 He would not plant his potatoes in rows one foot apart. He 
 would not shut up his family in one room. Why should he not 
 display the same good sense in dealing with his fowls? Experi- 
 ence has shown that 10 square feet of floor space is about the 
 amount needed by each hen if she is to do her best. Where the 
 house is kept perfectly clean, and where the hens have a chance 
 to get out doors every pleasant day, they can get along with a 
 somewhat smaller space. But for the best results in egg produc- 
 tion there must be plenty of room. The year I made the phenom- 
 enal record with my White Wyandottes — 214 eggs apiece from 
 October to October — I knocked out the partitions between two 
 pens and gave the flock double room. 
 
 BEST SIZE FOR A FLOCK. 
 
 The size of a flock will depend something upon circum- 
 stances. Experience has shown that a large number of birds 
 kept together do not do so well as a smaller number. Twenty- 
 four females and one male are as many as should ever be put in 
 one pen, and even then there should be 10 square feet of floor 
 space to each bird. The ideal number to a pen, I think, is one 
 male and fifteen females. Where this number is kept it makes it 
 easy to feed the grain in the proportion I have elsewhere recom- 
 mended, — one ounce to each bird making just one pound to the 
 flock. It takes moral courage to cut down the size of the pens, 
 but the man who does it will have his reward. 
 
32 
 
 INTRODUCE NEW BLOOD. 
 
 In order to keep up the quality of the flock new blood must 
 be introduced from time to time. I am aware that much less is 
 said in these days against inbreeding than was the case a few 
 years ago, and that inbreeding is systematically practiced by 
 many poultrymen with apparently no harmful results. But I do 
 not believe in it. It is against Nature, and must eventually 
 result in deterioration. Why is it that many breeds once famous 
 have lost their popularity? It is because the stamina has been 
 bred out of them. Hawthorne, who was a keen observer, as well 
 as one of the greatest masters of English prose that ever lived, 
 in "The House of Seven Gables" has a paragraph showing the 
 deterioration that came to a famous breed of fowls from too close 
 inbreeding. "Nor must we forget to mention a hen-coop of very 
 reverend antiquity," he says, "that stood in the further corner of 
 the garden, not a great way from the fountain. It now contained 
 only Chanticleer, his two wives, and a solitary chicken. All of 
 them were pure specimens of a breed which had been transmitted 
 down as an heirloom in the Pyncheon family, and were said, 
 while in their prime, to have attained almost the size of turkeys, 
 and, on the- score of delicate flesh, to be fit for a prince's table. 
 . . . . Be that as it might, the hens were scarcely larger 
 than pigeons, and had a queer, rusty, withered aspect, and a 
 gouty kind of movement, and a sleepy and melancholy tone 
 throughout all the variations of their clucking and cackling. It 
 was evident that the race had degenerated, like many a noble race 
 besides, in consequence of too strict a watchfulness to keep 
 it pure." 
 
 BUYING STOCK AND EQQS. 
 
 New blood can most conveniently be introduced through the 
 male, and males may be procured in two ways : through purchase 
 outright, through eggs bought of reputable dealers. The for- 
 mer method is the more satisfactory, the latter the less expensive. 
 In purchasing a full-grown bird the buyer takes no risks. He 
 may ascertain in advance just what he is to buy. Any dealer will 
 send description of his birds, and some will send photograph or 
 blue print. If the bird is not as represented it may be returned. 
 The element of uncertainty is practically eliminated. In buying 
 eggs it is different. The most careful and conscientious breeder 
 cannot guarantee that any given per cent, of the eggs he sends 
 
33 
 
 out will produce chickens. There is no way of determining, even 
 by the Roentgen ray, whether there is a germ of life in an egg or 
 not until it has been incubated a few days. After the eggs leave 
 the breeder's hands they may be chilled, if in winter, and roughly 
 handled at any season of the year. The customer may have bad 
 luck. He may not know how to run an incubator; the hen may 
 leave her nest or may break some of the eggs under her feet. 
 The business of selling eggs for hatching, which on the surface 
 seems so profitable, is really very unsatisfactory, and many 
 breeders have abandoned it altogether. 
 
 If three eggs out of a sitting incubate, and the buyer gets 
 three strong, sturdy chicks, he has no cause for complaint; but, 
 on the contrary, has made a good bargain. Suppose he pays two 
 dollars for the sitting, and in the fall has a trio, — a male and two 
 females. The man who sold him the eggs would charge him ten 
 dollars for birds equally good. One must not expect eggs 
 shipped in the dead of winter, subjected to all the exigencies of 
 travel, to hatch equally well with eggs procured about home 
 in June. 
 
 INCUBATOR OR HEN, WHICH? 
 
 Sooner or later the poultryman must face the question with 
 which this paragraph is headed, and it is my purpose now to help 
 him to an answer In this matter, as in most others, there' is 
 something to be said on both sides. In favor of the natural 
 method there is first of all economy. It costs at least $25 to 
 install an outfit for artificial incubation, and this is an expense 
 that many can ill afford. Chickens brooded by hens have more 
 stamina and are subject to fewer diseases than chickens brooded 
 in any other way. There is no mother for a brood of young 
 chickens that can equal an old hen. Some of the most progres- 
 sive poultrymen in the country use hens exclusively, setting hun- 
 dreds of them at a time. 
 
 The disadvantage of the natural method is that it is never 
 completely under one's control. Whatever mental qualities a hen 
 may or may not possess, she has a full-grown, large-sized will; 
 and no method has yet been discovered to make a hen sit when 
 she does not want to. To realize the largest profits in poultry, 
 chickens must be hatched early and kept growing from the day 
 they leave the shell. It is not always possible to have a supply 
 of sitting hens on hand. The sitting hen is liable to leave her 
 
34 
 
 nest before her task is done, and no amount of persuasion will 
 induce her to return. Sometimes she crushes eggs or young 
 chicks under her clumsy feet. At the best she can bring out but 
 a few chickens at a time. After a while the up-to-date poultry- 
 man is almost certain to come to the conclusion that he must 
 have an incubator. 
 
 The advantage of the artificial method is that it is so com- 
 pletely under one's control. The incubator may be started at any 
 time. The best machines are so adjusted that the element of 
 chance is practically eliminated, and every fertile egg may be 
 incubated. The trouble comes in rearing the chickens. Brooder 
 chickens require much more attention and are more subject to 
 diseases than chickens brooded under hens. The per cent, of 
 loss is greater. Especially among beginners there is sometimes a 
 "slaughter of the innocents" that is frightful. 
 
 To sum up: If one wants early chickens and wants them in 
 quantities and has the time to give to them, he should by all 
 means get an incubator. Otherwise he would best stick to 
 the hen. 
 
 GET A GOOD INCUBATOR OR NONE. 
 
 In purchasing an incubator remember that the best is the 
 cheapest. A poor machine is dear at any price. Beware of the 
 home-made incubator. Sometimes they work satisfactorily, but 
 oftener they do not. I know a young man of more than ordinary- 
 ingenuity who constructed an incubator from plans that he found 
 in a paper. By visiting the machine at intervals during the 
 day and by getting up two or three times a night to trim the lamp 
 or to pull out plugs so that the surplus heat might escape, he was 
 able to keep the temperature somewhere near where it ought to 
 be. But one warm Sunday, while he was at church, the temper- 
 ature took a leap upward, and when he returned at noon the 
 thermometer registered 120 degrees. As a consequence 180 
 chickens were prematurely roasted, and nearly three weeks of 
 valuable time lost. The young man has lost confidence in incu- 
 bators, and now hatches his chickens with hens. An incubator 
 should be bought at least a month before it is to be started on 
 eggs, in order that the operator may become thoroughly familiar 
 with the machine and know how to run it right. 
 
35 
 
 A NATURAL HEN INCUBATOR. 
 
 Under the hap-hazard method of keeping fowls, which too 
 often prevails, hens are set in any place and in any way that may 
 seem the most convenient. Sometimes they are set in the cellar, 
 sometimes in the barn chamber, and sometimes in the hen house, 
 in the midst of the laying stock. Old boxes, baskets and even 
 pails are used as nests. It is no wonder that under such condi- 
 tions hens break eggs and leave their nests, and that the owner's 
 patience becomes completely exhausted long before the hatching 
 season is over. 
 
 The work of caring for sitting hens may be reduced to a min- 
 imum by the construction of what I may call a natural hen incu- 
 bator, the design for which is shown here. 
 
 "\ 
 
 X 
 
 ^f^^ ^**^ ^^ „X1 
 
 s\ ^ 
 
 i ^7*7 ■ ■ — CZ3 
 
 / 
 
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
 
 
 
 i a 
 
 / 
 
 A NATURAL HEN INCUBATOR. 
 
 This natural hen incubator may be of any length ; but should 
 be two feet deep, two feet high, and divided into compartments 
 18 inches wide. Some prefer a door to each compartment, but 
 I find it more convenient to have the doors somewhat longer, so 
 that one may enclose a number of divisions. The top should be 
 hinged at the back, so that it can be lifted up if desired, as 
 shown in the cut; but ordinarily it is shut down. The door in 
 front is covered with chicken wire. Each compartment should 
 be in two divisions, so if a hen wishes to leave her nest tempora- 
 rily she can do so. 
 
 If possible, enough hens should be set at one time to utilize 
 all the compartments behind a door. The door should be kept 
 latched except in the morning when it is opened, the hens taken 
 off, fed and watered and left to dust. In from 10 to 20 minutes, 
 according to the weather, the hens should be driven back. As 
 
36 
 
 the hens are all set at the same time it makes no difference which 
 compartment a. hen enters. She will find eggs ready for her. 
 
 Under this arrangement the hens cannot interfere with each 
 other. Eggs are not broken by hens jumping down upon them, 
 as the hens all walk into the compartments from a level. One 
 hundred sitting hens can be cared for with comparatively 
 little trouble. 
 
 The comfort of a sitting hen should be scrupulously looked 
 after. Before she is placed on the nest she should be thoroughly 
 dusted with some good insect powder and again just before she 
 brings off her brood. She should be taken off the nest, fed and 
 watered and given a chance to dust herself every day. Sitting 
 hens should be fed on whole corn, as that is slowly digested and 
 is a heat-forming food. 
 
 TO SET A HEN. 
 
 Where incubation is carried on by the natural method it is 
 important to have a supply of sitting hens on hand in March, 
 April and May, in order that the chickens may be hatched early. 
 While it is true that no method has yet been discovered to make 
 a hen sit at will, it is also true that the instinct may be encour- 
 aged. As soon as we understand the philosophy of incubation 
 we may go to work to bring about the desired result. In a state 
 of Nature when does the hen sit? In summer. Why in sum- 
 mer? Because the reproductive instinct has been stimulated by 
 the hot weather. Because she has laid her litter out. Because 
 she has become fat and sluggish. It is evident that if we can 
 reproduce these conditions we can hasten incubation. 
 
 Old hens make the best sitters, because they are not so active 
 as young ones. The treatment of hens that are kept for sitters 
 should be radically different from the treatment of hens that are 
 kept for layers. They should be confined more closely and fed 
 differently. Corn should form an important part of their food. 
 As soon as a hen shows symptoms of broodiness she should be 
 encouraged. She should be taken at night and placed in a nest 
 prepared for her in a dark, quiet place. This nest should contain 
 china eggs, and should be covered with a burlap bag to make it 
 dark. The next morning the bag should be removed and the hen 
 let out for food and water. If she goes back it is safe to entrust 
 her with real eggs. 
 
37 
 
 THE MANAGEMENT OF BROODY HENS. 
 
 I am more and more convinced that the management of 
 broody hens is the key to the whole situation where a big egg 
 record is desired, and am surprised that so little attention has 
 been paid to the subject. Some of the methods that are resorted 
 to to break up broody hens are cruel in the extreme, and not only 
 cruel but unprofitable. The hen does not get over them and get 
 to laying again for weeks. This serves the owner right, and if 
 he was the only one concerned I would not say a word; but the 
 poor hen is the chief sufferer, and I write this section largely for 
 her benefit. 
 
 Reproduction is the great purpose of the hen's life. It is the 
 design of Nature that she shall propagate her kind. Accord- 
 ingly Nature has been at work for weeks preparing her for 
 incubation and motherhood. In order that the hen may be 
 nourished during her prolonged task and the temperature of her 
 body maintained at the right degree, Nature has been storing 
 away food and fuel in the shape of fat. Then Nature has tired 
 her out by egg production so that she needs rest. In order to 
 break up a broody hen and get her to laying again as soon as 
 possible, we must humor Nature a little. 
 
 I know a man who takes his broody hens, puts them in a pen 
 by themselves, and gives them nothing to eat until they cease to 
 "cluck." (He keeps water before them all the time.) This 
 may seem a harsh method, but it is efficacious, and the man 
 claims that he can break up a broody hen and get her to laying 
 again quicker in this way than in any other. I am too tender 
 hearted to starve my hens, so I put the broodies in a pen by them- 
 selves and feed lightly until they are cured. I give a mash in 
 the morning, — about half the usual amount, — a little green 
 food at noon, and nothing at night. I am in no hurry to break 
 them up. They have been working hard and living high, and a 
 little rest and diet will do them good. If at the end of a week 
 they seem cured I let them out, but if they continue to "cluck" I 
 keep them shut up a while longer. There are no nests in the pen. 
 Of course I keep water before them all the time. 
 
 jWhere broody hens are treated in this way, the poultryman 
 need have little fear of feeding too high. If he should overfeed 
 the rest and regimen his hens receive when broody will counter- 
 act this fault. I feed high, but seldom have a sick hen or a hen 
 die on my hands. 
 
38 
 
 THE LAW OF SEX: MALES OR FEMALES AT WILL. 
 
 One of the most interesting problems that confronts the 
 biologist is that of sex. What are the conditions that produce 
 a male organism and what the conditions that produce a female? 
 It is obvious that in a world where everything is by law sex is 
 not by chance, but what the law is we do not fully know. Still 
 many facts have been gathered, and we are nearing the goal. 
 The poultry business offers a peculiarly favorable field for inves- 
 tigation. When you reflect that perfect organisms may be 
 produced in any number in the short space of 21 days, that the 
 parent fowls may be kept under such conditions as the inves- 
 tigator may wish and that these conditions may be varied at will, 
 that the embryo may be followed through all the stages of its 
 development, — you realize at once what a field the poultry 
 business presents for a study of the problem of sex, and the 
 business takes on a new dignity and interest. 
 
 The difference between male and female is both physical and 
 psychical. The most striking physical difference is the repro- 
 ductive organs. Then there are secondary differences such as 
 size, color, skin, skeleton and the like, which signalize sex. The 
 psychical difference between the sexes is the habit of life. 
 Almost without exception the male is more active and aggressive, 
 the female more passive and domestic. This distinction seems 
 to extend to the very beginnings of life. The male egg cell or 
 spermatozoon differs from the female egg cell or ovum : the for- 
 mer is small, active, poorly nourished ; the latter is large, passive, 
 well fed. The physical and psychical difference between the 
 sexes are well summed up in these words from Geddes and 
 Thomson's book, "The Evolution of Sex:" "In phraseology 
 that will presently become more intelligible and concrete, the 
 males live at a loss, are more katabolic, — disruptive changes tend- 
 ing to preponderate in the sum of changes in their living matter 
 or protoplasm. The females on the other hand live at a profit, 
 are more anabolic, — constructive processes preponderating in 
 their life, whence indeed the capacity of bearing offspring." 
 
 Some very important facts bearing on sex have been gathered. 
 The point on which investigators are more fully agreed is that 
 nutrition has a profound influence upon sex. Beginning with 
 insects it has been found that if caterpillars are starved before 
 entering the chrysalis state the resultant butterflies or moths 
 are males, while others of the same brood highly nourished are 
 
39 
 
 females. With bees, too, the relation between nutrition and sex 
 seems equally well established. The three kinds of inmates of a 
 hive, as everybody knows, are queens, workers and drones; or 
 females, imperfect females and males. Drones are believed to 
 be produced from eggs which have not been fertilized. But why 
 should some fertilized eggs develop into queens and others into 
 non- fertile working females ? It is all a matter of diet. "Royal 
 diet and plenty of it develops the future queens. . . . If a 
 larva on the way to become a worker receives by chance some 
 crumbs from the royal superfluity, the reproductive function 
 may develop, and what are called 'fertile workers' .... 
 result; or, by direct intention, a worker grub may be reared into 
 a queen bee." Experiments with tadpoles, which were supplied 
 with a diet steadily increasing in sumptuousness, showed a steady 
 and corresponding increase in the number of females produced. 
 The proportion of females to males, which was originally 57 to 
 43, rose steadily as the diet became more and more highly nutri- 
 tious, until out of 100 tadpoles 92 were females and 8 males. 
 Coming up in the scale of life it has been found that among 
 mammals the same principle holds, although of course other 
 influences come in more than among the lower orders. 
 
 Statistics show that among human beings the proportion of 
 female children is smaller among the poor than among the well 
 to do. There are those who believe that the time is at hand 
 when the sex of the child will be determined at the parents' 
 pleasure, and the mother's diet during pregnancy will be governed 
 by her desire to give birth to either a boy or a girl. 
 
 Another feature that is believed to have an influence upon sex 
 is the time of impregnation. The fresher the ovum when fertil- 
 ized the greater the likelihood that the offspring will be a female. 
 This holds true of plants, of animals, and of mankind. It has 
 been ascertained that female flowers fertilized as soon as they are 
 able to receive pollen tend to produce female offspring. 
 Breeders of cattle have claimed to be able to control the sex of 
 calves dropped in this way, and to obtain a preponderance of 
 heifers. Data collected by the medical fraternity show that the 
 closer conception follows the close of the menstrual period the 
 greater the likelihood that the child will be a girl. Some author- 
 ities extend this principle to the male element as well. Says one : 
 "A very favorable condition of both ovum and sperm will prob- 
 ably lead to the formation of a female. According to its condi- 
 
 ft 
 
40 
 
 tion a sperm may either insufficiently corroborate the favorable 
 state of the ovum, or constitutionally strengthen an ovum less 
 satisfactorily conditioned." 
 
 The relative age of the parents is believed to have an influ- 
 ence upon sex. Where the male parent is the older the offspring 
 are preponderatingly male ; and where the ages are even, or where 
 the mother is the superior in age, the preponderance is the other 
 way. I find that this is a theory quite generally held. I some- 
 times receive letters from would-be purchasers asking for eggs 
 from hens mated with cockerels. It is a theory very easy to test, 
 and the reader should give it a trial in his yards. 
 
 Temperature is also a feature to be reckoned with. I have 
 noticed in my own yards that in the cold months the proportion of 
 pullets hatched is smaller than it is later in the season. Tempera- 
 ture and nutrition are factors difficult to separate, as food is more 
 abundant during the warm months. Take the plant lice which 
 multiply so rapidly upon the rose-bushes, fruit-trees, and the like, 
 and which are known to science as aphides. "During the 
 warmth of summer, when food is abundant, these insects produce 
 parthenogenetically nothing but females, while in the famines of 
 later autumn they give birth to males. In striking confirmation 
 of this fact it has been proved that in a conservatory where 
 aphides enjoy perpetual summer, the parthenogenetic succession 
 of females continued to go on for four years, and stopped only 
 when the temperature was lowered and food diminished. Then 
 males were at once produced. It will no longer be said that 
 science is making no progress with this unique problem when it is 
 apparently able to determine sex by turning off or on steam in a 
 green house." 
 
 In my own experiments and observations I have found several 
 things influencing sex that I have not found mentioned by the 
 authorities. One of these is affinity. I have found that where 
 there is perfect affinity and the birds are happy and contented, the 
 conditions are right for the production of females ; but where the 
 birds are not well mated and frequent quarrels ensue the offspring 
 are likely to be largely males. Another thing is freedom from dis- 
 turbance and fear. Where hens are kept stirred up by the pres- 
 ence of strangers or shifted frequently from place to place their 
 eggs are quite sure to hatch an excess of males. The quieter you 
 can keep your hens the more pullets you will get. Some years 
 ago I had a quarrelsome, pugnacious cock with a pen of pullets. 
 
41 
 
 I was compelled to shift them about from place to place during 
 the breeding season, with the result that in some hatches every 
 chick was a male. The greater the number of females to a male 
 the more pullets. I know a man who mated two roosters to 118 
 hens, and out of 135 chickens hatched 107 were females. 
 
 Now let me sum up all that has been said in the language of 
 another: "Such conditions as deficient or abnormal food, low 
 temperature, deficient light, moisture and the like, are obviously 
 such as would tend to induce a preponderance of waste over 
 repair, — a katabolic habit of body, — and these conditions tend to 
 result in the production of males. Similarly, the approved set of 
 factors, such as abundant and rich nutrition, abundant light and 
 moisture, favor constructive processes, that is, make for an 
 anabolic habit, and these conditions result in the production of 
 females. With some element of uncertainty we may also include 
 the influence of the age and of physiological prime of either sex, 
 and of the period of fertilization. But the general conclusion is 
 tolerably secure, that in the determination of sex influences induc- 
 ing katabolism tend to result in the production of males, as those 
 favoring anabolism similarly increase the probability of females." 
 
 This is the law of sex, so far as it can be stated at present. 
 
 The reader who desires to pursue the subject further will find 
 quite an extensive literature in English and German. The most 
 widely read book on the subject is "The Evolution of Sex," by 
 Geddes and Thomson, published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 
 the Contemporary Science Series. The best encyclopedias con- 
 tain sections on "Biology," "Reproduction," and "Sex." The 
 reader may also be able to make original contributions to the sub- 
 ject from his own experiments and observations. 
 
 FERTILE EQQS AND HOW TO GET THEM. 
 
 All around me my neighbors are complaining of poor hatches. 
 One man tells of putting 200 eggs into an incubator and bringing 
 out only four chicks. Some sittings have been entirely infertile. 
 Two or three chicks to a sitting has been about the average. The 
 fertility is better now, as the season is later, but it is still low. 
 With me the fertility has never been more satisfactory. In some 
 sittings every egg has incubated. My neighbors look upon me 
 with wonder, and think I must be in possession of some strange 
 secret. Not at all. I simply have applied a little thought to the 
 problem and have found it easy of solution. 
 
 Reproduction draws upon the vital forces as no other act does. 
 
42 
 
 The tree that is laden with fruit this year so that its boughs have 
 to be propped up to sustain the weight of golden apples, will not 
 bear again so luxuriantly for several seasons. Reproduction is 
 possible only when the vitality is highest, and when the individ- 
 ual is neither too young nor too old. 
 
 In order to get fertile eggs three things are absolutely neces- 
 sary : maturity, vitality, comfort. The conditions in the breeding 
 pen must be such as to promote maximum vitality. Where the 
 male is immature, where the house is so cold that all the food eaten 
 goes to maintain the caloric, where the fowls are alive with ver- 
 min or rotten with disease, the fertility will be low. Inbreeding 
 also tends to infertility. So does lack of exercise and overfat 
 condition of fowls in the breeding pen. 
 
 Doubtless diet has an important effect upon fertility. Unless 
 every element needed for the embryo is present, the egg will be 
 infertile or the chick will die in the shell. There are some kinds 
 of food that stimulate the genital organs and promote sexual 
 activity. Raw onions chopped fine and fed in the mash twice a 
 week are excellent during the breeding season. Clover is also a 
 valuable food for fertility. 
 
 Where fertile eggs are wanted the hen must not be pushed too 
 hard for egg production. My own method is to push my hens 
 the first year. I reserve the best layers to breed from, and do not 
 push them the second year; but let them take things easy. They 
 have made their record and deserve a rest. When the breeding 
 season comes they are in prime condition, and lay large, highly 
 colored eggs which hatch hardy chicks. 
 
 It pays to alternate males where high fertility is desired, allow- 
 ing three males for two pens, keeping two in active service and 
 the third shut up to rest. Cocks have their favorites, and where 
 one male runs with a flock some hens are neglected ; but where 
 males are alternated all are likely to be served. 
 
 Many eggs fail to hatch because they are not properly cared 
 for. It takes but little to kill the germ. One reason farmers get 
 such poor results in winter is that they are not careful to gather 
 their eggs several times a day. The opinion is common among 
 them that an egg must be frozen hard enough to crack the shell 
 before it is unfit to put under a hen. Eggs should be gathered 
 when warm and kept in a temperature of from 40 to 60 degrees. 
 In shipping eggs to customers they should be moved in the mid- 
 dle of the day and protected from extremes of temperature as 
 much as possible. 
 
43 
 
 THE BEST MATING FOR VIGOR. 
 
 In another section of this book I have insisted strongly that 
 we must look to pullets for large egg production. The produc- 
 tion of eggs however is not all there is to the poultryman's trade. 
 He must raise young stock in order to supply the market with 
 poultry and to replenish his supply of layers. It is a well-known 
 fact that eggs from year-old hens are larger and produce more 
 vigorous chicks than eggs from pullets. The best mating for 
 vigor is undoubtedly a cockerel to year-old hens, and next to this 
 a cock to mature, well-grown pullets. I would advise the 
 poultryman to keep over enough year-old hens to make up his 
 breeding pens. Those that are kept over, being the pick from a 
 large number, will be his choicest birds, and by breeding from 
 them his stock will steadily improve. Pullets for layers; but 
 year-old hens for breeders and mothers! 
 
 TO KEEP CHICKS FROM DYINQ IN THE SHELL. 
 
 Chicks die in the shell from two causes. The first is weak 
 germs. The number of deaths from this cause may be reduced' 
 to a minimum by increasing the vitality of the fowls and so of the 
 germs. The other cause is lack of moisture. Millions of chicks 
 die every year that might have been saved with a little care. 
 
 It is a fact well known to all physiologists that a human being 
 will suffer more and die quicker from thirst than from hunger. 
 There are well authenticated cases where a man has gone with- 
 out food for several weeks, but no case is recorded where a man 
 has gone that length of time without water. The embryo in the 
 shell needs a large supply of water, and Nature has arranged 
 to meet this need by putting 78 per cent, of water into the egg. 
 
 Under the hen, as in the incubator, evaporation goes steadily 
 forward. Moisture percolates through the shell, and unless the 
 loss is made good the embryo is deprived of water and becomes 
 less vigorous if it do.es not die. 
 
 Nature takes care that when incubation goes on in accord- 
 ance with her laws the eggs shall be liberally supplied with 
 moisture. The hen in her wild state makes her nest upon the 
 ground where the eggs come in contact with the moist earth. 
 Every day or two the hen leaves her eggs and goes out in search 
 of food, coming back with her feathers wet with dew. When a 
 hen steals her nest the same thing happens. The hen comes off 
 every now and then, burrows in the damp earth, races through 
 
44 
 
 the wet grass and comes back to her eggs as wet as if she had 
 been in the river. After a while she brings out a dozen lively- 
 chicks, and her owner wonders how she does so when the hen he 
 sets brings out only two or three. 
 
 Where a sitting hen does not have a chance to get out doors, 
 her owner should supply moisture to make good the loss to the 
 eggs by evaporation. Eggs should be sprinkled on the 7th and 
 on the 14th day. Remove the hen from the nest and with a whisk 
 broom sprinkle the eggs thoroughly with water of a temperature 
 of 95 degrees. On the 19th day the eggs should be given a bath. 
 Fill a pail with water of the temperature of 95 degrees, and after 
 it has become still drop the eggs in it one by one, letting them 
 remain from one to three minutes. If there is a lively chick in 
 the egg in a minute or two it will begin to bob up and down as 
 a float does on the water when a fish is nibbling at the bait below. 
 Take the egg out and put it back in the nest, wiping it with a 
 towel if it is winter but letting the surplus water remain if it is 
 summer. In case an egg does not show any movement after 
 being in the water three minutes — if it does not "jump" — you 
 might as well throw it away, as it will not incubate. Chicks from 
 eggs treated in this way come out strong and clean and make a 
 surprising growth. 
 
 REARING THE CHICKS. 
 
 In order to get the 200-egg hen we must start with the chicks. 
 They must come of good stock. That like begets like is an axiom 
 well known to breeders. The eggs for hatching should be of 
 medium size, symmetrical in shape, and free from excrescences. 
 They should be handled as little as possible after being gathered 
 and during incubation. It is a good plan to test the eggs on the 
 seventh day and remove the infertile ones. These will be per- 
 fectly clear. If hens are used for hatching it is a good plan to 
 lift them up carefully from time to time to see that no eggs are 
 broken under them. The larger varieties are greater sinners 
 in this respect than the smaller ones, as they are more clumsy. 
 In case eggs are broken they should at once be removed, and the 
 soiled eggs in the nest washed in blood-warm water and wiped 
 dry with a soft cloth ; for if this is not done the pores in the shells 
 will become clogged and the chicks inside die of suffocation. 
 
4S 
 
 I suppose there is no subject on which poultrymen differ so 
 much as on the proper feeding and care of chicks. Some pre- 
 scribe a bill-of-fare as elaborate as that of a first-class hotel, while 
 others recommend a more moderate menu. I know a man who 
 raises chicks with good success who feeds nothing but dry Indian 
 meal. I know another who feeds nothing but cracked corn. 
 Another who feeds whole wheat. The fact is, I suspect, there is 
 a wide range of diet suitable for healthy chicks, and no hard and 
 fast rule can be laid down. 
 
 REARING THE CHICKS: CRACKED CORN METHOD. 
 
 The first method I recommend is what I call the cracked corn 
 method. It is for those whose time is limited, who wish to raise 
 .healthy chicks with as little trouble as possible. It consists in 
 keeping fine cracked corn before the chicks all the time, and let- 
 ting them help themselves whenever they feel like it. Some of 
 the finest chicks I have ever seen have been raised in this way. 
 To the success of this method it is absolutely essential that cool, 
 fresh water be kept before the chicks all the time, and that they 
 have free range out-of-doors. This is the method for farmers 
 who have little time to bother with chicks, but who wish to raise 
 enough to replenish their flock. Chicks brought up in this way 
 are seldom troubled with sickness, and make rapid growth. 
 
 REARING THE CHICKS: AUTHOR'S METHOD. 
 
 I do not disturb the hen or chicks for 24 hours after the last 
 egg has hatched, which may be 48 hours after the first chick broke 
 the shell. Then I lift the hen off the nest, put the chicks in a 
 basket, take the hen under my left arm, and convey hen and 
 chicks to the brooder house where I deposit them gently on the 
 floor. The floor of the brooder house is sand and gravel, six to 
 eight inches deep, with a substratum of rocks, and is always per- 
 fectly dry. 
 
 The first week or ten days I feed rolled oats and nothing else, 
 — just the same kind of rolled oats that I use on my own table. 
 I feed them dry. I feed them in little troughs made for the pur- 
 pose, and keep oats before the chicks all the time. Every day or 
 two I take the troughs and empty the oats remaining in them into 
 the hens' dish, and brush out the troughs with a whisk broom. 
 
46 
 
 It may s.eem extravagant to feed rolled oats at five cents a pound ; 
 but I believe the foundation of a chick's constitution and future 
 growth is laid in the first few weeks of its life, and it is cheaper 
 in the end to feed as I do and have the chicks live and thrive 
 than to feed something else and have them stunted and die. 
 
 At the end of a week or ten days I begin to introduce a little 
 variety. I take wheat and cracked corn — one part wheat to two 
 parts corn — and feed a small quantity of this in place of the 
 rolled oats. I increase the quantity of wheat and corn from day 
 to day and decrease the quantity of rolled oats, so that when the 
 chicks are a month old I have weaned them from the rolled oats 
 and am feeding them on whole wheat and cracked corn. When 
 the chicks are ten days old I begin to give them green food, — a 
 little at first, but increasing in amount from day to day. I feed 
 onion tops, cabbage chopped fine, clover tips, or if I can get noth- 
 ing better a potato baked and cut in two. I give meat in small 
 quantities two or three times a week. Into a kettle of boiling 
 water I put a piece of cheap meat or a soup bone with considerable 
 meat adhering, and keep it there until well cooked. Then I pour 
 off the liquid and take the meat and chop it up into fine bits, or 
 grind up the bone in my bone cutter, and throw a little to the 
 chicks. They eat it greedily. I put a little salt in the water so 
 that it will get into the fibres of the meat, because I think chicks 
 need a certain amount of salt. 
 
 I feed in this way until the chicks are "feathered out," when 
 I begin to feed them much as I do my hens, — a warm mash, 
 and two or three feeds of grain a day. Until my chicks are 
 "feathered out" I keep food before them all the time, letting them 
 help themselves when they will. I ought to add that I am careful 
 to keep cool fresh water before them from the very first, and also 
 charcoal and grit. 
 
 I keep the chicks in the brooder house until the weather is 
 warm and dry, when I colonize them out of doors, where they will 
 have practically free range. My brooder house is divided into 
 pens 15 feet long, and I keep four hens and from 50 to 60 chicks 
 in a pen. If the hens quarrel I tie them so that they cannot get 
 at each other. I keep the brooder house scrupulously clean, 
 removing the droppings from time to time and using my sprayer 
 freely everywhere. 
 
 Note. Make no sudden changes in the diet of chicks. Intro- 
 duce new elements gradually. 
 
47 
 
 REARING THE CHICKS: EDITOR HUNTER'S METHOD. 
 
 The third method I call Editor Hunter's method, as it is recom- 
 mended by that veteran poultryman. "For the first 24 hours after 
 hatching chicks do not need food, as the portion of yolk that has 
 just been taken into the abdomen has not been fully digested; and 
 then too the chick should get accustomed to the fact that he has 
 'just been borned' before his little crop is started on its seldom 
 empty journey through life. When the hatch comes off let the 
 little fellows have a drink of pure fresh water (not too cold) ; 
 this invigorates them and helps clear the digestive organs of the 
 waste from digested yolk. 
 
 "The first food should be bread crumbs and hard boiled egg, 
 or johnnycake. To each pint of food add a sprinkling of chicken 
 grit. The food for the first few weeks should be johnnycake, 
 rolled oats, coarse oatmeal, and bread or cracker cumbs. A little 
 well cooked meat finely minced three times a week, and a liberal 
 supply of fresh green food, grit, charcoal, and pure water, are 
 essential to health. When the chicks get to be six weeks old they 
 should have a cooked mash for supper six nights in the week. 
 For other food they should have hulled oats, wheat and a little 
 cracked corn — fresh green food always. 
 
 "From the first have a litter of chaff or cut clover and sand for 
 the chicks to scratch in; exercise is essential to good digestion. 
 Give them sunny quarters, and provide a shelter in case the- sun is 
 too hot, and for protection in stormy weather. When warm 
 weather comes be sure that they can have plenty of freedom and 
 exercise on the green bosom of 'Old Mother Earth.' Keep them 
 busy, happy and hungry. Be careful not to overfeed. If you 
 must coop them up, make the coops large enough to give them 
 plenty of room to exercise and grow. Change the location of 
 such coops often, to give them fresh ground to run on." 
 
 WHEN TO HATCH THE CHICKS. 
 
 Chicks of the Asiatic breeds should be hatched in March, 
 chicks of the American breeds in April, and chicks of the Medi- 
 terranean breeds in May, for winter egg production. Poultrymen 
 who want eggs all the year round will do well to keep getting out 
 chicks from March to June and then start in again in September. 
 
48 
 
 TO START PULLETS TO LAYING IN THE FALL. 
 
 When pullets are old enough to lay and do not lay they need 
 some slight shock or change to start them in. The majority of 
 those who rear chickens give them free range, or as near free 
 range as possible, during the summer months. This is correct. 
 But after they get their growth their energies need to be directed 
 to egg production and not run off in useless exercise. Accord- 
 ingly as early as October 1st — if not before — the pullets should be 
 taken from the range and put into the laying houses. Here their 
 range should be restricted. More meat meal or ground bone may 
 be advantageously- introduced into their ration, and a stimulant 
 may be given in the shape of cayenne pepper or condition powder. 
 This treatment soon induces egg production, if they are of the 
 "bred-to-lay" kind. 
 
 HOW AND WHERE TO MARKET THE PRODUCT. 
 
 Producing the eggs and rearing .the chicks form but a part, 
 and perhaps the smallest part, of the poultryman's business. In 
 order to make money he must market the product to the best 
 advantage. It is here, I am convinced, that the majority of 
 poultrymen fail. They are not good business men. They work 
 hard enough, but do not calculate closely and do not sell at the 
 right time or at the right place. In these days when competi- 
 tion is so close and the margin for profit so narrow, the differ- 
 ence between profit and loss in the poultry business may consist in 
 the manner in which the product is put on the market. 
 
 The man who keeps but a few hens and does not make poultry 
 raising his principal occupation, will probably do better to sell his 
 eggs and poultry to his regular grocer than to hunt up private 
 customers. It is true that he may receive a cent or two a dozen 
 more if he sells at houses, but this is more than offset by the loss 
 in time. The grocer is not so particular about his eggs, so long 
 as they are fresh, as is the private customer, and will take eggs of 
 all sizes and colors. It is true he does not wish to pay in cash, 
 but the profit on his goods is about the only profit he makes on 
 the transaction ; for the grocer is often compelled to sell eggs for 
 just what he gave for them. The grocers are the great buyers of 
 eggs throughout the land. 
 
 The man who keeps hens on a larger scale, and who wants to 
 make the most out of the business with the least trouble, will do 
 well to make an arrangement with a city grocer to ship him a 
 
49 
 
 certain number of cases each week throughout the year. The 
 poultryman should go to the city and see the grocer personally. 
 The chances are he will get an order. This is far more profitable 
 than selling to the local grocer. In the town where I live I have 
 never known eggs to go above 30 cents a dozen, and they remain 
 at this figure but a short time ; while in the cities to the south of 
 us they sometimes sell as high as 45 or 50 cents. 
 
 The poultryman who produces a gilt-edged product can often 
 market to private customers to advantage. The hotels will take a 
 limited number of fancy fresh eggs. They do not take so many 
 as one would think, because in cooking they use cold storage eggs. 
 Clubs are good customers, and will pay a fancy price for a fancy 
 article. Druggists use a large number of brown eggs in connec- 
 tion with their soda trade, and will often pay a good price for fresh 
 eggs of good color. There are private families that will gladly 
 pay the poultryman the same price they have to pay for eggs at 
 the store, and pay in cash. The advantage of having private cus- 
 tomers is, that one can sell them beside eggs, poultry, vegetables, 
 cream, berries and other products of the farm and garden. 
 
 How may these private customers be obtained ? I know of no 
 better way than by advertising. A card in the local paper or a 
 few hundred postals sent through the mails will be sure to bring 
 results. I believe in postal card advertising, and give an idea for 
 a card to send out. 
 
 FANCY FRESH EGGS 
 
 DELIVERED AT YOUR DOOR. 
 
 Why go to the store and take your chances on 
 eggs which may or may not be fresh when you can 
 have strictly fresh eggs delivered at your door twice 
 a week? Every egg dated and guaranteed. A 
 postal card will bring me. 
 
 EDGAR L. WARREN, 
 
 Pleasant View, 
 
 Wolfeboro, N. H. J 
 
50 
 
 The town where I live is a noted summer resort, hundreds of 
 people coming here every season. The shore of the lake is dotted 
 with camps and cottages. So far as I know there is not a farmer 
 in town who advertises. A card like this sent to campers would 
 be heard from : 
 
 To Campers. 
 
 One of the delights of going into the country is 
 to have strictly fresh eggs, vegetables and cream. 
 I make it a point to supply campers with fancy fresh 
 eggs, broilers and roasters, cream, berries, fruits 
 and early vegetables. I deliver every morning. A 
 postal will bring me. 
 
 EDGAR L. WARREN, 
 
 Pleasant View, 
 
 Wolfeboro, N. H. 
 
 The poultryman who keeps from 300 to 500 head of laying 
 stock will have a good deal of poultry to dispose of, especially if 
 he follows my advice in this booklet to keep pullets, principally, 
 for layers. It will be quite a problem to dispose of this stock to 
 the best advantage. In passing I would remark that the poultry- 
 man should keep his own table well supplied. Plump and juicy 
 broilers and roasters are just as good for him as they are for any 
 one else. There is no reason why the poultryman's table should 
 not rejoice once a week with broilers or roasters. If the poul- 
 tryman uses an incubator he can begin to reduce his stock in the 
 spring. There is no better time to kill a hen than when she wants 
 to sit, for then she is sure to be plump and in good condition. 
 During the summer there is in most towns a good market for 
 poultry. The poultryman should steadily cull from his flock, and 
 about moulting time have a grand "round up," selling the fowls 
 for what they will bring, — except those he wishes to keep over for 
 
SI 
 
 breeders. Quite a number of cockerels may be disposed of to 
 the farmers at a dollar apiece, if a postal card like this is sent 
 them: 
 
 I Choice Cockerels Cheap. 
 
 f I have a number of choice White Wyandotte 
 
 cockerels, which I will sell for one dollar each if 
 taken at once. If bought out of town cockerels like 
 these would cost from three to five dollars. Intro- 
 duce new blood and grade up your flock by pur- 
 chasing a cockerel of my heavy-laying strain. First 
 come first served. 
 
 EDGAR L. WARREN, 
 
 Pleasant View, 
 Wolfeboro. 
 
 Before taking leave of the subject I trust the reader will par- 
 don me if I give a few words of advice. Be strictly honest. The 
 poultry business offers opportunities for deception. Beware how 
 you yield to them. Let it be your ambition to be' known as "the 
 honest poultryman." Date and guarantee every egg you sell. 
 Be neat in your person, and have your goods fresh and attractive. 
 Be pleasant and accommodating. Make all the friends you can 
 without sacrifice of principle, for it is with his friends that a man 
 does business and not with his enemies. 
 
 KILLING AND DRESSING FOWLS FOR MARKET. 
 
 One of the most disagreeable tasks the poultryman has to per- 
 form is to kill and dress his fowls. It seems heartless after 
 making a bird a pet and gaining its confidence to take its life. 
 Still it has to be done. The Creator of the universe, in putting 
 man at the head of the animal kingdom, gave him dominion over 
 fish, fowl, cattle and all creeping things. Man has no right to 
 torture or maltreat any living thing; but he does have the right, 
 under certain circumstances, to take life. It is probable that the 
 animal escapes what to man is the most distressing feature of the 
 whole situation, the dread of death. It enjoys every moment of 
 
52 
 
 its existence, and the agony of dissolution is brief. It is far more 
 humane for the poultryman to kill his own fowls, even though 
 they have been his pets, than to consign them to the tender mer- 
 cies of the commission merchant ; for in the former case the fowls 
 are not packed in close and stuffy coops, jolted over stone pave- 
 ments in express wagons, left to suffer for food and drink. As 
 fowls must be killed it is well to know how to kill them humanely 
 and expeditiously, and the following instructions should be com- 
 mitted to memory. 
 
 i. Take the bird from the roost at night, 36 hours before it is 
 to be killed, and shut it up in comfortable quarters. The next 
 morning give it a good breakfast, but nothing more to eat after 
 this until it is killed. Let it have all the water it will drink. The 
 water will add greatly to the fowl's comfort and assist in evacuat- 
 ing the bowels. The confinement is for the purpose of having the 
 fowl at hand and of emptying the crop. 
 
 2. Suspend the fowl by the feet at a convenient height with a 
 soft cord, the upper end of which is secured to a hook or nail in 
 the ceiling or beam overhead. 
 
 3. Lock the wings together behind the back, to prevent flap- 
 ping. Do this carefully, so that they will not be dislocated. 
 
 4. Take the tip of the wings in the left hand, and with the 
 right strike the fowl a smart blow on the head with a stick or 
 cudgel. Strike hard enough to produce concussion of the brain 
 and unconsciousness. 
 
 5. Grasp the fowl by the comb or by the feathers at the back 
 of the head with the left hand, and with the right insert the blade 
 of a sharp knife in the neck just back of the ear lobe, on the under 
 side of the neck bone and parallel with it. Run the blade clear 
 through the neck. When you withdraw the blade twist it to 
 right angles with the neck bone, severing the artery in the throat, 
 and causing the blood to flow profusely. 
 
 6. Begin to pluck immediately. Pluck up the breast and 
 sides to tail. Remove tail feathers. Unlock the wings, and strip 
 them of long feathers. Remove feathers from around vent. 
 Pluck the feathers from back. Finish plucking. If done quickly 
 the feathers will come out easily and the skin will not be torn. 
 The bird should be entirely denuded of feathers in 10 minutes. 
 In case rents are made sew them up neatly with white thread. 
 
 7. If the fowl is to be drawn, with a sharp knife cut a slit 
 about an inch long back of the vent and parallel with it, through 
 
S3 
 
 which insert index finger, hooking it into the intestines. Remove 
 intestines. The lower end of the intestines and the egg sac may 
 be removed by enlarging the slit in the shape of a half circle, until 
 it joins the ends of the vent. This will make a round hole about 
 the size of a silver half dollar. After removing the intestines cut 
 off the fowl's head, then draw back the skin and take off about an 
 inch of the neck bone, pull the skin forward and tie. 
 
 8. "For the Boston and New England markets the poultry 
 should be picked perfectly clean. For the New York markets the 
 tip feathers of the wings are left on. Do not singe the bodies for 
 the purpose of removing any down or hair, as the heat from the 
 flame will give them an oily and unsightly appearance." 
 
 9. "Plumping is recommended by some dealers, and consists 
 in dipping the carcass as soon as thoroughly picked for 10 seconds 
 in water nearly or quite boiling hot, and then immediately into 
 ice-cold water. This makes the meat look plump and fat, con- 
 siderably improving its appearance." 
 
 10. "The laws of Massachusetts and New York do not 
 require poultry to be drawn. Jn the former State however the 
 crop must be drawn if there is food in it at the time of killing. 
 Custom, which is quite as potent as statute law, requires that 
 poultry marketed in Massachusetts be drawn; and carefully 
 drawn poultry will sell so much more readily and for so much 
 better prices, that it pays well to comply with this demand." 
 
 PACKING AND SHIPPING. 
 
 "Carefully sew up all rents or torn places on the skin, wash 
 clean in cool water, wipe dry and hang in a cool place until the 
 animal heat is entirely out, before packing. Pack in clean barrels 
 or boxes with clean straw, as follows: first a thin layer of 
 straw and then a layer of poultry in the same posture in which 
 they roost, then a layer of straw and another of poultry, and so on 
 until the barrel or box is quite full, finishing with a layer of straw 
 which should be tucked firmly into any crevices in the sides. Nail 
 the corners or heads on securely, and mark carefully with the name 
 and address of the dealer to whom you ship, not forgetting your 
 name and address as shipper ; and notify the dealer by postal or 
 letter that you have shipped him one or mote boxes or barrels of 
 dressed poultry by freight or express, as the case may be. 
 Always take a receipt from the freight or express agent, and ship 
 so as to reach the market not later than Friday." 
 
54 
 
 TO SCALD A FOWL. 
 
 Where the fowl is to be eaten at home, or where it is sold for 
 immediate consumption, many prefer to remove the feathers by 
 scalding. There is a right and a wrong way to do this. The 
 right way is as follows : Kill in the manner described in pre- 
 ceding section. After the blood has stopped dripping from the 
 wound take a wooden pail, or some other receptacle, fill it three- 
 fourths .full of boiling water, and into this pour a pint of cold 
 water to reduce the temperature a little below the boiling point. 
 Take the fowl by the neck and legs and dip it into the water 
 twice, — once with the breast downward and once with the back, — 
 getting it in and out of the water as quickly as possible. Hang the 
 fowl up again, and begin to pluck. When the feathers have been 
 removed and the intestines drawn, dip out two quarts of water 
 from the pail, putting two quarts of boiling water in its place. 
 Put the carcass into this, and let it stay 10 seconds, then take it 
 out and put it in water nearly if not quite ice cold, letting it stay 
 10 minutes. This, as has been explained, is "plumping," and gives 
 the carcass a very plump and inviting appearance. Put a table- 
 spoonful of salt into the cold water at the same time the fowl is 
 put in. Hang up the fowl in a cool place until it is to be cooked or 
 sold. Fowls treated in this way present an excellent appearance, 
 and will keep several days without discoloration. 
 
 TO KEEP EQGS A YEAR. 
 
 To keep eggs a year, or a longer time, two things are neces- 
 sary: I. To exclude all germs of life from within. 2. To 
 exclude all germs of life from without. One of these is as 
 important as the other. The germ of life within the egg is intro- 
 duced at copulation. It is a fact not generally known that eggs 
 from flocks in which there is no male keep much longer than eggs ■ 
 from flocks in which one or more males are kept. There is a pop- 
 ular superstition that hens lay better if a cock is allowed to run 
 with them. Such is not the case. The presence or absence of a 
 cock in a flock of laying hens has no influence one way or the other 
 upon egg production. After the breeding season is over males 
 should be killed, or shut up in a pen by themselves. 
 
ss 
 
 To exclude germs from without, eggs must in some way be 
 protected from the air. Any solution that closes the pores of the 
 shell and protects the egg from the air is good. Even so simple 
 a method as wrapping an egg in paper will postpone decay. The 
 two absolutely sure methods of keeping eggs a year are: i. To 
 keep them in lime water. 2. To keep them in soluble glass. 
 Eggs treated in this way will be nearly as good at the end of a 
 year as when laid down. 
 
 The process of keeping in lime water is as follows: Slack 
 four pounds lime, and then add four pounds salt, stirring 
 well together. Add eight gallons water. Stir and leave to settle. 
 The next day stir again. After the mixture has settled the second 
 time draw off or carefully dip out the clear liquid. Take two 
 ounces each of baking soda, cream of tartar, saltpetre, and a little 
 alum. Pulverize and mix, and dissolve in two quarts boiling water. 
 Add this to the lime water. Put the eggs in a stone jar, small 
 end down, one layer on top of another, and pour on the solution. 
 Set the jar away in a cool place. This process has been secret in 
 the past, and the recipe has been widely sold for $5. The method 
 is quite satisfactory, although not so good as the method of 
 preserving in soluble glass, as the eggs are liable to have a some- 
 what limy taste. 
 
 Soluble glass, or sodium silicate, is a liquid of a rather smooth, 
 slippery consistency, readily soluble in water. It is used by 
 physicians for coating bandages, where it is desired to protect the 
 injured part from the air, and may be obtained through any 
 druggist at a cost of about 75 cents a gallon. For preserving 
 eggs use one part soluble glass to about 10 parts pure water. 
 Put the eggs in a stone jar, small end down, one layer on top of 
 another until the jar is filled, then pour on the solution. If the 
 specific gravity of the solution is greater than that of the eggs, as 
 is sometimes the case, add water until the eggs will just sink. 
 
 Eggs kept in this way are hardly distinguishable from fresh 
 eggs at the end of six months and are good at the end of a year. 
 Do I advise selling these eggs for fresh laid ? Not at all. But I 
 do strongly advise the reader to lay down his own family supply 
 when eggs are at their lowest, and then when eggs go to a fair 
 price sell every fresh egg while he keeps the preserved eggs for 
 his own use. It costs about one cent a dozen to preserve eggs in 
 
 this way. 
 
 There are many however who desire a simpler method, and 
 to such I would recommend either wood ashes or salt. Wood 
 
56 
 
 ashes are excellent. Experiments conducted by the National 
 Agricultural School in Germany show that eggs may be kept a 
 year packed in wood ashes, with a loss of only 20 per cent. 
 Wood ashes are cleanly, convenient and always at hand. Salt 
 also is good. Use a grade of salt a little coarser than table salt, — 
 what is called coarse fine salt. Pack the eggs in a stone jar. 
 Put in first a layer of salt, then a layer of eggs, and so on until 
 the jar is filled. Stand the eggs upon the small ends, and do not 
 let them touch. Cover them completely with salt. Set the jar 
 in a cool place. I have known eggs packed in this way to keep 
 a year, and to be as good at the end of that time for cooking as 
 if laid but a few days before. 
 
 EQQ EATING: HOW TO PREVENT IT. 
 
 Egg eating is a vice that is much easier to prevent than to 
 cure. Where the eggs are gathered at frequent intervals, where 
 the hens are supplied with plenty of material for making shells, 
 where the hens are kept busy when not on the nests, egg eating 
 is practically unknown. 
 
 Egg eating, like many other bad habits, is formed more by 
 accident than by design. The hen lays a soft-shelled egg, and 
 before she leaves the nest crushes it under her feet. Her feathers 
 become smeared. To remove the sticky substance the hen picks 
 at it, and discovers that it is palatable. She not only picks the 
 particles from her feathers, but also eats the portion of the egg 
 that remains in the shell. The knowledge spreads, and soon egg 
 eating is common in the flock. 
 
 The only sure cure for egg eating is the hatchet. Before this 
 is applied however an effort should be made to stop the vice. Two 
 or more china eggs should be placed in each nest, and plenty of 
 these eggs strewn in the litter upon the floor. The nest should 
 be in a dark place, and should be so arranged that it is difficult 
 for the hen to get at the egg after she has laid. A nail keg makes 
 an excellent nest for egg-eating hens. I have known men to 
 make a double-decked nest, so that the egg after being laid would 
 drop through a small hole into the receptacle below. Raw salt 
 pork, chopped fine, is recommended for egg-eating hens ; but the 
 best thing is never to allow them to contract the vice. 
 
 Mr. S. D. Fox, to whom I have several times referred, has a 
 method of breaking hens of egg eating as novel as it is efficacious. 
 "My hens got to eating eggs one spring," he says, "and I went to 
 
S7 
 
 work to cure them. I got an egg, chipped off one end and took 
 out the yolk and white. Then I filled up the egg with soft soap, 
 sprinkled in a good stiff dose of cayenne pepper, stuck on the end 
 with white court plaster, and dropped the egg on the hen house 
 floor. They eat that egg. The next day I give 'em another. 
 They eat that. The next day I give 'em a third. They didn't 
 eat that, and they never eat another so far as I know. Didn't 
 like the flavor, I guess. Hurt 'em? Wall, no, I never see that it 
 did. Might have cleaned 'em out a little — soft soap is good for 
 that, you know— but it didn't rumple a feather, so far as I could 
 
 see. 
 
 THE HEALTH OF THE TWO HUNDRED EOQ HEN. 
 
 The 200 egg hen has troubles of her own. She is the product 
 of a high civilization and has to suffer the consequences. While 
 she escapes some of the ills to which the barnyard fowl is heir, 
 she has others of which the barnyard fowl knows nothing. 
 
 Physicians tell us that if mankind would observe a few simple 
 rules of health sickness would be comparatively unknown. The 
 average man however does not care to conform his life to a san- 
 itary schedule. He prefers to eat and drink what he likes, to go 
 and come at his will, to have what he calls "a good time," and 
 take the consequences. So doctors thrive. In dealing with fowls, 
 however, a man can keep them under sanitary conditions with 
 little inconvenience to himself, and he is foolish not to do so. 
 
 What are the conditions of health in fowls? They are five. 
 1. Good stock. "Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of 
 thistles ?" No. Neither do men gather hardy fowls from weak, 
 inbred, diseased stock. The poultry business divides into two 
 parts — market poultry and fancy. If you are after feathers and 
 frills that is one thing; if you are after eggs and meat that is 
 another. Personally I put stamina before style. I keep as near 
 the Standard as possible, and have better fowls in my yards than 
 I have seen at some of the great shows ; but I never sacrifice vigor 
 to beauty. New blood is introduced judiciously from time to 
 time; my chicks are hatched and brooded by hens, given free 
 range in clover fields and apple orchards, and are pictures of 
 health and vigor. 2. Cleanliness. The hen should be kept 
 clean, and so should her surroundings. Lice reduce a fowl's 
 vitality and weaken her power of resisting disease. The drop- 
 pings should be removed every few days. The house should be 
 
58 
 
 whitewashed once a year. The yards should be dry and clean. 
 
 3. Food. This should be abundant and nutritious, but not too 
 stimulating. No element necessary to health should be left out. 
 Clean food and pure water are as essential to hens as to men. 
 
 4. Ventilation. This should be by doors and windows and 
 not by means of spouts running up through the roof. 
 Ventilation is for the purpose of equalising the temperature as 
 well as changing the air. In a house with a great deal of glass 
 the mercury will climb to 80 or 90 on a sunny winter day, and 
 drop to zero or below at night. The windows should be opened 
 a little as soon as the sun shines in, to let out the warm and viti- 
 ated air and keep the temperature down. If the windows are 
 opened every day the fowls will not asphyxiate at night. If a 
 lantern will burn with a clean bright flame the air in the house is 
 all right. 5. Exercise. Hens need a reasonable amount of 
 exercise. Give them a good breakfast early in the morning, and 
 let them work for their dinner and supper. 
 
 Does it pay to doctor a sick fowl? That depends. If the 
 fowl is valuable it may. Sickness is a symptom, — a symptom 
 that something is wrong. If one fowl is sick others are liable to 
 be. Therefore when you discover a sick fowl in your flock quar- 
 antine her at once and search for the causes of her sickness. 
 Remove these or you will have other patients on your hands. 
 
 DISEASES OF CHICKS. 
 
 Lice. — These slay their thousands and tens of thousands. 
 Some time ago I received a letter from an old German who had 
 lost 600 out of 1800 chicks, and was almost in despair. The 
 chicks were picking themselves to death, he said. The trouble 
 was that after getting out his chicks he put them in old buildings 
 where fowls had been kept, that were literally swarming with lice. 
 These transferred themselves to the chicks, and a wholesale 
 tragedy was the result. In the matter of lice an ounce of pre- 
 vention is worth a pound of cure. Sitting hens should be well 
 dusted before being put on eggs, and again just before coming 
 off. Chickens should never be kept in buildings infested with lice. 
 If lice do get a start perhaps the best way to deal with them is 
 the old-fashioned one of putting lard on the chicks' heads, under 
 their wings, and around the vent. This is slow but sure. 
 
 Cramps and Rheumatism. Many persons who get out 
 early chicks have no proper facilities for handling them. Per- 
 
59 
 
 haps there is snow on the ground and the chicks cannot get out 
 doors, so they are left on a board floor or in a crowded brooder, 
 and in a few days their legs begin to draw up, the joints become 
 red and swollen, and the little things die. When cramps and 
 rheumatism get among the chicks transfer at once to dry and 
 roomy quarters where their feet can get on the earth, give green 
 food in variety, and rub their legs with witch hazel. Sprinkle 
 chaff about so that the chicks will have to scratch for their food. 
 Reduce the number of chicks in the brooder, if crowded. Give 
 them 15 grains of iodide of potassium in each quart of drinking 
 water. Remember if medicine is given in drinking water, the 
 water should be in earthen and not in metallic vessels. 
 
 DISEASES INCIDENT TO FEATHERING OUT. 
 
 Feathering out is a very trying period in the life of a chick, 
 corresponding to teething in the life of a child. There is a 
 double tax upon the chick's system : the ordinary demands of 
 growth must be met, and the little body must be covered with 
 feathers. It is a time when even the most careful poultryman 
 must expect some fatalities, and the careless or lazy poultryman 
 must not be surprised to see his flock melt away like snow before 
 the sun in springtime. When the poultryman goes to feed his 
 chicks he notices one or two, perhaps more, standing around in a 
 listless, dejected way, wings drooping or outspread, with possibly 
 a white threadlike substance which has just exuded from the 
 bowels clinging to the ■ fluff around the vent. The chick may 
 throw up its head and gape. In a few hours it will be dead. 
 Its digestive system is deranged, and it is suffering from what is 
 known as Chicken Cholera. 
 
 It is better, far better, to avoid this dread disease than to 
 attempt to cure it. The poultryman should realize what a critical 
 period feathering out is, and strive to meet it. Especially should 
 he be careful about what he feeds his chicks, making no sudden 
 changes in their bill of fare. Nor should he let them become 
 chilled or get drenched in a shower. If, in spite of all precau- 
 tions, chicken cholera makes its appearance, the house and brooders 
 should be thoroughly cleaned, all drinking vessels scalded, and 
 air-slacked lime sprinkled lightly about. Sulpho-carbolate of 
 zinc should be placed in the drinking water, one-eighth ounce to 
 one quart of water. 
 
60 
 
 Gapes. "Gapes are caused by small worms which attach 
 themselves to the membranes of the wind pipe of the chick. A 
 piece of camphor about the size of a grain of wheat, daily, and 
 io' drops of camphor or turpentine to each pint of drinking water, 
 is a favorite and effective remedy." A feather dipped in turpen- 
 tine and run down the chick's throat will dislodge the parasite. 
 
 DISEASES OF YOUNQ FOWLS. 
 
 Leg Weakness. — Where young fowls are forced forward for 
 broilers or soft roasters they are apt to develop "leg weakness," 
 the nature of which is sufficiently explained by the name. The 
 bird walks unsteadily, lurching from side to side, and sometimes 
 sits when eating its food. The remedy is very simple : Stop feed- 
 ing so much fat producing food. Give green ground bone or 
 bone meal in the mash. 
 
 Colds and Bronchitis. — After the young fowls are taken 
 from the range and placed in permanent quarters in the fall, they 
 are quite likely to be afflicted with colds. The change in their 
 manner of life has disturbed the equilibrium, and they are more 
 sensitive to climatic conditions. The symptoms of a cold are 
 sneezing, bubbling at the nose, watery eye and perhaps diarrhoea. 
 Colds generally cure themselves without any especial treatment, 
 but there is always a possibility that colds if neglected may run 
 into something serious. Twelve homoeopathic pellets of aconite in 
 a quart of drinking water is a good remedy for a common cold. 
 Here is another. Take equal parts cayenne pepper, sulphate of 
 quinine and sulphate of iron — mix together with extract gentian ; 
 mould into pellets about the size of a pea, and give one every 24 
 hours until cured. (This is not a bad remedy for human beings, 
 doubling or trebling the dose.) Bronchitis is a bad cold accom- 
 panied by coughing or rattling in the throat. The treatment is 
 the same as for a common cold. 
 
 DISEASES OF LAYING STOCK. 
 
 Nine-tenths of the diseases that afflict laying stock come from 
 derangements of the digestive organs and of the liver. In order 
 to get eggs it is necessary to feed highly, and this reacts upon the 
 health. 
 
 The poultryman must expect every now and then to lose a hen. 
 Fortunately the value of the individual hen is not great, and he 
 must not be disheartened if he finds one dead from time to time. 
 
61 
 
 When hens begin to drop off— as they will in the spring— the 
 poultryman must immediately begin to revise his methods. He 
 must feed a less stimulating ration, give more green food, and 
 compel his hens to take exercise. A teaspoonful of sulphate 
 magnesia to each pint drinking water, given for a week, then 
 followed for a month by adding one-fourth grain sulphate 
 strychnia to two quarts water, is a good tonic. Where the liver 
 is affected, as will be shown by the color of the comb — purple, 
 becoming dark and even black — give a teaspoonful of castor oil 
 once a day, instead of the sulphate of magnesia and strychnia. 
 
 Crop Bound. — This condition is sufficiently described by the 
 name. The bird mopes around, dejected in appearance, and upon 
 examination her crop feels as if she had swallowed a base ball. 
 Give her a table-spoonful of castor oil and put in a pen by herself 
 for 12 hours, when the mass may pass away. If it does not it will 
 be necessary to operate. You will need someone to assist you. 
 With a sharp knife make a longitudinal incision three-quarters of 
 an inch in length in the upper part of the crop, first plucking out 
 any feathers that may be in the way. Take a small hardwood 
 skewer, such as butchers use, and begin to remove the contents 
 of the crop. It will take some time. To make sure that every- 
 thing has been removed and that there is no obstruction insert 
 your little finger into the outlet of the crop, where the food passes 
 into the gizzard. Rinse out the crop with warm water. Sew up 
 the opening in the crop with silk thread, making each stitch by 
 itself, tying and cutting the thread before making another. Do 
 the same thing to the outside skin. Put the bird back in the pen 
 by herself, and feed lightly on soft food for a few days. 
 
 THE DREAD SCOURGE— ROUP. 
 
 Roup seems to be an infliction sent by Providence to prevent 
 too many men from making fortunes in the poultry business. If 
 a man can go through a siege of roup and keep his enthu- 
 siasm, he has taken his third degree in poultry keeping and is 
 ready to travel in foreign countries and command master's wages. 
 Like many other things that grow to vast proportions, roup often 
 starts from small and obscure beginnings. The biddies in one 
 house seem to be afflicted with colds. Ten cents worth of aconite 
 would cure them ; but the poultryman thinks they will get well if 
 left to themselves, and does nothing. The days pass on. Then 
 the poultryman notices that one of the hens is moping round. She 
 
62 
 
 does not take much interest in her meals. "I am feeding too 
 high," her owner thinks. He picks up the hen, and makes a dis- 
 covery. Her comb is dark and has lost its brightness, her eye is 
 watery, there is slime in her mouth, and there is a most offensive 
 smell. The hen has the roup ! The poultryman is now up 
 against the most serious proposition he has ever met, and must 
 not give sleep to his eyes or slumber to his eyelids until he has 
 stamped out the disease. 
 
 Roup when it is first discovered is generally so far advanced 
 that it does not pay to try to save the victim's life, and the only 
 thing to do is to kill- and bury her. Roup is said not to be conta- 
 gious, — that is, not to be communicated by touch, but disseminated 
 by the slime which drops from the sick bird's mouth and poisons 
 all around. The house should be thoroughly cleansed — the drop- 
 pings removed, the litter thrown out, the feed boards washed, the 
 drinking vessels scalded out and baked, the roost kero- 
 sened, and sulphur burned. The poultryman is then prepared to 
 begin his fight directly with the disease. 
 
 Each new case as it comes up should be isolated. Roup may 
 be discovered in two ways. A roupy bird generally sleeps with 
 her head under her wing, and by going through the pen at night 
 with a lantern one may easily find her. The other way in which 
 a roupy bird may be told is by a slight moisture in the lower corner 
 of her eye, or perhaps little bubbles there. All suspects should be 
 quarantined, fed lightly on a warm mash in which there is a little 
 ginger, and given their drinking water in disinfected vessels. 
 Two or three times a day spray their nostrils and mouths with the 
 following solution: Extract witch hazel, four tablespoonfuls ; 
 water, two tablespoonfuls ; carbolic acid, three drops. Use an 
 atomizer, and squeeze the bulb five times for each nostril and 
 twice for the mouth. The bird will often recover under this 
 treatment. 
 
 Should the disease go further more heroic measures will be 
 necessary. It is a question whether it pays to doctor a severe case 
 of the roup. Even if the bird lives she will be worthless as a 
 breeder, and it will be some time before she comes into shape to 
 lay again. A sharp hatchet is about the best cure for roup that I 
 know of. Still, if you want to give the bird a chance, try the kero- 
 sene treatment, — in my judgment, the simplest and best treatment 
 known. Take a wooden pail and fill it two-thirds full of water, 
 and then pour on one-half cupful of oil. Take bird by the feet and 
 
1 63 
 
 dip her head under water, letting it stay there while you count 
 three. Wipe the bird well with a piece of soft cloth, and return 
 to the hospital. Some of the kerosene will percolate through the 
 outer skin, and some will be taken into the bird's mouth as she 
 tries to clean up her feathers. The kerosene uniting with the pus 
 coagulates it, and in a few days the mass scales off, leaving the 
 tongue pink and clean. The patient is still weak, and should be 
 kept in the hospital a while longer before she is returned to her 
 mates. 
 
 The best diet in roup is bread moistened with milk. The 
 throat is so tender that hard food cannot be swallowed. I had a 
 roupy bird that I had kerosened. She seemed to be doing well, 
 but had no appetite. I tried to tempt her with a warm mash, but 
 to no avail. I put her out doors to see if the warm sunshine would 
 not hasten her cure. Soon I noticed her about the sink spout 
 picking up the crumbs that ran down when my wife washed the 
 dishes. I took the hint and gave her bread soaked in milk. She 
 ate heartily and made a fine recovery. 
 
 I would advise the poultryman to keep some standard roup 
 remedy on hand, and when the disease breaks out to use the medi- 
 cine according to directions. In purchasing a remedy select one 
 that can be administered in the food or water, and do not bother 
 with pills or powders that you have to give to the individual bird. 
 
 CAUSES OF DISEASE. 
 
 The more troublesome diseases of fowls, with their causes, 
 may be summed up as follows: Roup — a neglected cold. 
 Cholera — caused principally by overcrowding. Diarrhoea — damp 
 houses, filthy houses and runs, overcrowding. Canker — damp- 
 ness and filth. Diphtheria — roosting in draughts, also damp 
 houses. Ulcerated throat — same. Consumption — neglected cold. 
 Apoplexy, vertigo and epilepsy — overfeeding. Sore eyes — damp 
 houses. Costiveness and constipation — improper food. Soft and 
 swelled crop — overfeeding. Indigestion and dyspepsia — same. 
 Pip — damp quarters. Bronchitis — same. Black rot — result of 
 indigestion. Soft-shelled eggs — overfeeding. Gout, rheumatism 
 and cramp — damp houses. Leg weakness — inbreeding and over- 
 feeding. Bumble foot — high perches. Scaly legs — filthy and 
 damp quarters. 
 
64 
 
 THE FARMER'S HENS. 
 
 There is no man better situated to keep poultry at a profit 
 than the farmer. His hens need not be restricted to narrow runs, 
 but the greater part of the year may have the freedom of the 
 fields. The waste of the farm, and what the hens themselves 
 pick up on the range, goes a long way towards their support. It 
 would seem that if anyone could make money on hens the farmer 
 is the man. And yet one hears on every hand among farmers 
 the complaint that poultry keeping does not pay. It is safe to say 
 that the farmer might make two dollars off his hens where he now 
 makes one, and it is the purpose of this section to show him how 
 to do it. 
 
 i. There should be a better classification. The average 
 farmer's flock is made up of fowls of all breeds and varieties. 
 There are Leghorns, Plymouth Rocks, Light Brahmas, and hens 
 whose ancestry the most skillful genealogist could not determine. 
 This is a mistake. The different breeds require different treat- 
 ment. A Leghorn will keep at work and lay if confined in a space 
 two feet by four. A Light Brahma needs to be compelled to 
 work, or. she will take on fat and be worthless for egg produc- 
 tion. It is much better and more profitable to keep but one 
 variety, and to make a careful study of that variety. 
 
 There should be a better classification in respect to sex. There 
 is no sense in keeping half-a-dozen roosters running with a flock, 
 to eat their heads off, to worry the hens, and to continually fight 
 one with another. One rooster is enough. When the chickens 
 are 12 weeks old the males should be separated from the females 
 and put by themselves. There should be off in the fields a house, 
 which can be locked up nights, where the cockerels can have their 
 headquarters- They will do much better if separated from the 
 pullets, and they will get half their living off grasshoppers and 
 bugs. 
 
 There should be a better classification in respect to age. Pul- 
 lets and old hens should not be allowed to run together. If the 
 hens are fed as generously as the pullets they will get fat and stop 
 laying. The number of old hens should be reduced. I have 
 known farmers to keep hens until they were six or seven years old. 
 I believe that pullets are the great egg producers and that, theo- 
 retically, it is better to renew the flock every year. But practi- 
 cally this is not possible. Under no circumstances, however, 
 should hens be kept over two years, if profit is a consideration. 
 
6S 
 
 2. The farmer's hens should be better housed. Of all the 
 creatures on the farm the hen is the most neglected. The pig 
 has his pen in which he is supreme, the cow has her warm and 
 comfortable tie-up, the horse has his stall; but the hen is often 
 left to roost on the great beams of the barn, or thrust down into 
 that ill-smelling dungeon, the barn cellar, or compelled to live in 
 a house that is swarming with lice. The farmer neglects his 
 little feathered friend, and then complains because she does not 
 keep him supplied with eggs at all seasons of the year. 
 
 3. The farmer should get out his chickens earlier. Under 
 favorable conditions it takes from seven to eight months for a 
 pullet to mature. Where her growth is checked by cold weather 
 it takes longer. It is capable of mathematical demonstration there- 
 fore, that if a farmer wants eggs in the fall when they bring the 
 highest price he must hatch his chickens early. There is another 
 advantage in hatching chickens early : namely, the cockerels may 
 be sold for broilers. In July and August in the town where I live 
 the price for broilers is 25 cents a pound, and the supply does not 
 equal the demand. At Thanksgiving the market is oversupplied 
 with roasters, which can hardly be sold at 10 cents a pound. 
 
 4. The farmer should feed differently. The great staple 
 food on the farm is corn. This does well enough in summer, 
 when the fowls are on the range and can pick up the greater part 
 of their living; but in the winter they need variety. Corn is a 
 great fat-forming flesh-producing food, but does not contain all 
 the elements needed for egg production. In another section I 
 have given the principles that apply to feeding, and advise that 
 these principles be thoroughly mastered. 
 
 POULTRY MANURE: HOW TO PRESERVE AND 
 APPLY IT. 
 
 The town in which I live is largely an agricultural town, and 
 has as intelligent a class of farmers as is to be found anywhere. 
 These men spend thousands of dollars a year for commercial fer- 
 tilizers. While this money is by no means wasted and while the 
 farmers derive a certain benefit ' from these fertilizers, yet the 
 benefit is by no means in proportion to the expenditure. A few 
 simple principles well held in hand would enable them to spend 
 their money to much better advantage. 
 
 It is probable that the soil on most of our farms contains all 
 the elements that are needed for the production of any crop- 
 
66 
 
 Some of these elements are present in larger proportion than 
 others, but all are there. These elements are liberated by the 
 rains and frost, by ploughing and cultivation. There are certain 
 elements however that are not liberated as fast as needed. And 
 these elements are among the most important : they are nitrogen, 
 potash and phosphoric acid. As they are not supplied by the soil 
 as fast as they are needed they must be by the owner of the soil, 
 the farmer. 
 
 The perfect fertilizer is barnyard manure. This acts upon the 
 soil mechanically, making it lighter than it would otherwise be, 
 and also filling it with humus. The prepossession therefore that 
 farmers have in favor of barnyard manure is well founded, and 
 the practice is sound to consume the crop as far as possible at 
 home and apply the refuse to the soil. But barnyard manure is 
 somewhat slow in its operation. The crop needs in addition a 
 stimulant. This it is the province of commercial fertilizers or 
 their equivalent to furnish. 
 
 Hen manure is a highly stimulating manure. It is also a rich 
 plant food. Hen manure is highly concentrated. It is more 
 than, twice as valuable as sheep or hog manure, and more than 
 three times as valuable as ordinary stable manure, as the follow- 
 ing table will show : 
 
 u 
 _■ '•"■ u 
 
 u o ^ 45 Jj H 
 
 £ Pi Pi > 
 
 Per Cent. Per Cent. Per Cent. 
 
 Sheep 0.768 0.391 0.591 $3.30 
 
 Pigs 0.840 0.390 0.320 3.29 
 
 Cows 0.426 0.290 0.440 2.02 
 
 Horses 0.490 0.260 0-480 2.21 
 
 Hen Manure 0.800 to 0.500 to 0.800 to 7.07 
 
 2.000 2.000 0.900 
 
 Hen manure is so powerful that great care must be taken in 
 applying it. It should never be allowed to come into direct con- 
 tact with the roots of the growing plant. iWhen applied in the 
 hill it should be well mixed with the soil. 
 
 Hen manure supplies nitrogen in large quantities in the form 
 of ammonia, but ammonia being a highly volatile product is 
 rapidly dissipated. The problem of the poultrymen therefore in 
 
b'7 
 
 dealing with hen manure is to find some substance that will fix 
 the ammonia. Sifted earth is not good, for it is apt to contain 
 bacteria which act destructively on the ammonia compounds. 
 Wood ashes are worse than nothing, for they do not hold ammo- 
 nia, but drive it off by their caustic alkaline properties. 
 
 The best thing I have found to preserve the ammonia in hen 
 manure is gypsum or land plaster, which may be bought for 50 
 cents per 100 pounds. Scatter a few handfuls of plaster over 
 the droppings before you remove them in the morning, and see 
 that it is thoroughly incorporated. The result is a compound as 
 valuable as any commercial fertilizer. The droppings from a 
 fowl in one year, when treated in this way, are worth one-half 
 what it costs to feed her. 
 
 WHY THE POULTRY BUSINESS IS NOT LIKELY TO 
 BE OVERDONE. 
 
 Every now and then I come across a communication in some 
 newspaper from an anxious subscriber asking if there is not a 
 likelihood that the poultry business will be overdone. The 
 answer usually given is, that so long as we import into the United 
 States several million dollars worth of eggs and poultry each year 
 there is no danger. With all due respect for editorial sagacity 
 (and I have been an editor myself), it does not seem to me that 
 this answer is entirely satisfactory. The poultry products that 
 are imported into the United States come largely from that por- 
 tion of Canada that is contiguous to our own territory, and that 
 for purposes of commerce is practically a part of our own country. 
 The causes that operate to produce an increase of eggs and poul- 
 try on one side of the border operate to produce a similar increase 
 on the other- If the poultry business is not likely to be overdone 
 it must be for other and better reasons. 
 
 That there is a possibility that the poultry business may be 
 overdone is a proposition that I think no one will under- 
 take seriously to controvert. That there has been a large 
 increase in poultry raising in the past 10 or 15 years is patent 
 to everyone. The profitableness of poultry keeping has been 
 preached so assiduously by the agricultural and the poultry press, 
 that about every third man one sees thinks of starting a poultry 
 farm. Is not the business likely to be overdone and had not a 
 careful man better keep out of it ? 
 
 One reason why the poultry business is not likely to be over- 
 
68 
 
 done lies in the very nature of the business itself. There is no 
 business requiring more constant care and intelligent supervision. 
 
 The egg is the surplus which the hen throws off after all the 
 needs of her system have been supplied, the excess over and above 
 what is needed to repair waste and keep her in perfect health. In 
 order to produce eggs a hen must be of proper age, well nour- 
 ished, in the best of health and protected from extremes of tem- 
 perature. These conditions cannot be secured without constant 
 care and attention. The absence of any one of these conditions 
 means the lowering of the egg record. The majority of men who 
 engage in the poultry business will not devote the time and atten- 
 tion to it that is necessary, and consequently do not succeed. The 
 poultry business is a business that cannot be entrusted wholly to 
 the care of subordinates. It is almost impossible to get a salaried 
 man who has the intelligence and executive ability to successfully 
 supervise a large plant. Capitalists have turned their attention 
 to poultry more than once as to a field that offered rich returns, 
 only to find that they had underestimated the difficulties; and, 
 after sinking thousands of dollars, have retired in disgust. The 
 poultry business is the one business that cannot be con- 
 ducted at profit on an enormous scale. Consequently there will 
 always be room for careful men with some little capital. 
 
 Another reason why the poultry business is not likely to be 
 overdone lies in the fact that the demand for eggs and poultry is 
 constantly on the increase. 
 
 The United States doubles in population every 30 years. The 
 present population is not far from 80,000,000, and it will be 
 150,000,000 within the lifetime of many who read this book. How 
 shall this great multitude be fed ? The production of cereals and 
 vegetables can be increased indefinitely, but not the production 
 of beef. The great plains of the West and Southwest, over 
 which cattle formerly ranged in countless numbers, have been 
 cut up into ranches and farms. There has been a sharp advance 
 in the price of all kinds of meats, and the advance is likely to be 
 permanent. Fishermen return each year with smaller fares. 
 The American people will be driven by the failure of other food 
 supplies to an increased consumption of eggs and poultry. It is 
 probable that the present population could consume four times 
 the eggs and poultry it now consumes, were the prices lower. 
 The increase in population and the increase in consumption of 
 eggs and poultry, will make a good market for the poultryman's 
 products for years to come, so there is no need for anxiety. 
 
69 
 
 QUALIFICATIONS FOR A SUCCESSFUL POULTRYMAN. 
 
 What are the qualifications for a successful poultryman? 
 What equipment should a man have who wishes to engage in 
 poultry raising as a pursuit? First and foremost I would men- 
 tion a love for the business. The poultry business is made up 
 of innumerable details. While the work is not hard yet there 
 are a thousand and one things to look after. There is no creature 
 with which man has to do that so quickly responds to good care 
 and so quickly falls back when neglected as the hen. The ideal 
 poultryman is the man who finds his reward in his work rather 
 than in what the work brings in. He should have a real interest 
 in his hens, should like to be with them and study them, should 
 be sorry when the time comes that he must lock up for the night, 
 should be glad when the time comes that he can let them out in 
 the morning. The reason why women do better with hens than 
 men is because they have such a liking for them. Second, the 
 man who would succeed in the poultry business should have a 
 realization in advance of the difficulties he will have to meet. It 
 is easy to sit down with pencil and paper and figure out a profit, 
 but it is not so easy to make the profit materialize. The poultry- 
 man's path is not strewn with roses, by any means. From the 
 day the chicks emerge peeping from the shell to the day when the 
 fowls are dressed and sent to market, he has to fight cats, rats, 
 hawks, skunks, foxes, lice, disease, thieves and innumerable other 
 enemies. There are times when the courage of the most enthu- 
 siastic gives way, and he would be glad to sell out at a decided 
 discount. Third, the poultryman needs capital. He does not 
 need so much capital as he would to start a bank or open a 
 department store, but the more he has the better. The man with 
 cash can buy to better advantage, and hold his stock until it can 
 be sold at a profit. There are weeks when there is little or 
 nothing coming in, but hens have to be fed just the same. I 
 know men in the poultry business who are steadily losing money, 
 and if they were not backed by a bank account would have to 
 quit. Fourth, the poultryman must have some business ability. 
 He must know how to plan his work, how to buy and sell, how to 
 keep accounts. He need not be a college graduate, but he must 
 not be an ignoramus. If he is he will soon come to the end of 
 his career. 
 
70 
 
 WHY SO MANY FAILURES? 
 
 The poultry business has its due share of failures. Within a 
 few miles of where I write there are several plants that have 
 been converted to other uses, or, abandoned, have fallen into 
 decay. Every now and then I meet a man who has retired from 
 poultry keeping in disgust, and who consigns the business and 
 everything connected with it to the regions of unutterable woe. 
 
 Certainly it would seem to an onlooker that there is as good a 
 chance for success in the poultry business as in any other. The 
 poultryman deals in a product that always sells and sells for cash. 
 There is never a time when eggs do not command some market. 
 It would seem a very easy matter for a poultryman to arrange 
 his sales and expenses so that there will be a good margin of 
 profit. The manufacturer of eggs has an advantage over other 
 manufacturers, in that he can dispose of his worn-out 
 machinery — the laying stock — for about what it cost to install it. 
 Why then are there so many failures? 
 
 i. One reason is that men rush into the business without 
 experience. Other occupations require a long apprenticeship. 
 In law, medicine or the ministry a man has to study for years 
 before he is admitted to his profession. In manufacturing a 
 man must be familiar with every detail, and some of the most 
 successful manufacturers in the country came up from the work- 
 man's bench. In merchandising or banking it takes years to 
 come to the front. And yet men think they can go into the 
 poultry business without money, without experience, and make 
 a success from the start! 
 
 It is surprising how jauntily men assume that they know all 
 there is to know about the poultry business, and that there is 
 nothing for them to learn. Some time ago I was called upon to 
 advise some young men who had gone into the poultry business 
 and were not making a success of it. They were honest, hard- 
 working young fellows, had a good market for their eggs and 
 stock, and yet their ledger showed a balance on the wrong side. 
 "What poultry papers do you take?" I asked. "We take none 
 now," was the reply. "The poultry papers have the same things 
 over and over again ; we can learn nothing from them." 
 
 No matter how experienced a man may be it pays him to 
 take poultry papers, and to take a good many of them. If he 
 gets a new idea once in six months he will be amply repaid. 
 
71 
 
 Then it is worth something to keep up one's enthusiasm, without 
 which the work drags so that one is tempted to give it up. 
 
 The beauty of the poultry business is that one can go into it 
 in a small way at first, and learn it while he relies upon his regu- 
 lar occupation to give him his daily bread. No man should 
 expect to make poultry keeping his sole support until he has 
 mastered it in every detail. Then the chances of failure are 
 reduced to a minimum. 
 
 2. Another reason why there are so many failures in the 
 poultry business is poorly constructed and inconveniently 
 arranged plants. These young men of whom I spoke had one 
 of the worst arranged plants I ever saw. The houses were of all 
 sizes and were huddled together without any plan or system. 
 The yards were too small, and the ground had become polluted 
 with the droppings of generations of fowls. The houses were so 
 low that as one went through them he was in constant danger of 
 bumping his head or becoming stoop-shouldered. I was com- 
 pelled to tell them that before they could hope to make a success 
 they must completely remodel their plant, — remove the smaller 
 houses to new soil and build over the larger ones. 
 
 Curiously enough there are two diametrically opposite errors 
 made in the laying-out of plants : one is to make the plant too 
 costly; the other is to make it too cheap. The former error is 
 more likely to be made by wealthy men who engage in the busi- 
 ness partly as a diversion ; the latter by men with small capital 
 who wish to begin as cheap as possible. Hens will lay as many 
 eggs in a cheap house as they will in an expensive one, provided 
 it is clean, warm, snug and well-ventilated. But it is possible to 
 make the house so cheap that it is shabby and inconvenient. 
 
 3. Another reason why men fail in the poultry business is 
 lack of good management. As a boy I learned from one of the 
 most successful men of my acquaintance a. principle that has 
 been of great use all through life : Never do what the majority 
 of those about you are doing! I try to apply this principle in the 
 poultry business. I aim to hatch out my chickens either earlier 
 or later than my neighbors, and to have eggs when they have 
 none. In the summer when everybody's hens are laying and 
 eggs are cheap and poultry dear, I begin to kill off my stock; 
 and in the fall when eggs are worth something then my early- 
 hatched pullets begin to get in their work. In this way I get 
 the highest prices for what I have to sell, which makes a great 
 difference in the year's profits. 
 
72 
 
 COMBINATIONS IN POULTRY CULTURE. 
 
 One of the lessons a man learns in business is, that if he is to 
 be successful he must have no unproductive capital. The man 
 who puts up a block of stores as an investment finds his profits 
 seriously curtailed if one of the stores is left untenanted. The 
 general manager of a railroad soon discovers that he must load 
 his freight cars both ways if the road is to pay a dividend. The 
 superintendent of a factory learns that the same boiler that gen- 
 erates power to run the machinery will furnish surplus steam to 
 heat the rooms where the hands are at work and drive a dynamo 
 for electric lighting. There is no waste in connection with a 
 great modern business. Every by-product is utilized. Business 
 is done on such a close margin now-a-days that all leaks must be 
 stopped, or there will be no profits. 
 
 The up-to-date poultryman may learn a lesson from the way 
 great business enterprises are conducted. I suppose it would be 
 possible for a man to make a living from poultry alone. But the 
 man who should try to do this would be at a great disadvantage. 
 The land that he devotes to his poultry might at the same time 
 be used for something else. The food that he purchases might 
 in. part at least be produced at home. The time that he has on 
 his hands when his poultry do not require his attention might be 
 devoted to some other employment. "Don't put all your eggs in 
 one basket," is as good a rule for the poultryman as for any 
 other man. 
 
 I. Poultry culture may to a limited extent be combined with 
 general farming. The agricultural papers, almost without 
 exception, urge their readers to go into poultry raising more 
 extensively. This is a mistake. The farmer should keep better 
 stock, and should devote more attention to his poultry ; but should 
 not attempt to go into poultry raising on a large scale, unless his 
 farm is peculiarly adapted to it. The manufacturer of boots 
 and shoes does not think of changing over his machinery so that 
 he can turn out bicycles, and the superintendent of a woolen 
 mill does not attempt to manufacture watches. Each man uses 
 his plant for what it was intended. The section where I live is 
 largely a grass-growing, dairying country. The farms are large 
 and are fitted up for grass-growing and cattle raising. It would 
 be folly for farmers here to let their mowing machines rust and 
 their fields run to weeds and sell off their cows, to engage in 
 poultry raising. I have known a man to do this and drop a 
 
713 
 
 thousand dollars a year while he was learning his lesson. As I 
 have said, farmers should keep better stock and care for their 
 poultry more scientifically; but not every farmer should think 
 that it is his mission to start a poultry plant. 
 
 2. Poultry culture may be combined with market gardening. 
 The droppings from the fowls, properly taken care of, make a 
 valuable fertilizer; and the market gardener, as he goes his 
 rounds, can take his eggs and poultry along at the same time. 
 Market gardening must be carried on in the neighborhood of 
 some city or large town, and this is a good place to dispose of 
 the poultry product. 
 
 3. Poultry culture and bee keeping go well together. I do 
 not know of two occupations that so fit into each other as these. 
 The bee keeper's busy season comes in hot weather when the 
 poultryman is not steadily employed. Bee keeping and poultry 
 raising can be carried on in a village on a comparatively limited 
 area. There seems to be almost a natural connection between 
 the two occupations. 
 
 4. Poultry culture and fruit growing make a good combina- 
 tion. It is a well-known fact that fruit trees in poultry runs 
 make a more vigorous growth and produce a larger yield than 
 trees in other locations. The foliage of trees makes a grateful 
 shade for the fowls, and the wormy fruit as it falls to the ground 
 is eagerly devoured. The poultryman as he moves among his 
 birds :has his attention constantly called to his trees and can 
 watch them more carefully than he could if they were away by 
 themselves. 
 
 5. Poultry and pet stock make a good combination for a 
 specialist. The man who engages in this business must know 
 how to advertise. It would hardly pay him to sell his eggs and 
 fowls at market rates, when he could sell at much larger prices 
 for exhibition and breeding purposes. The pet stock business is 
 growing to mammoth proportions. I have a friend, a city 
 pastor, who receives nearly as much from the sale of his canaries 
 as from his salary. There is a man in Indiana who raises and 
 sells 3,000 Angora cats a year, and has 10 acres devoted to the 
 purpose. There is another man in the same state who has a 
 rabbit farm of 60 acres, and raises. 1,000,000 rabbits annually. 
 It is probable that the Belgian hare business, which is suffering 
 from the collapse of the artificial boom of a few years ago, will 
 again revive, and that there will be good money in raising these 
 beautiful creatures for exhibition and for the market. 
 
74 
 
 WHERE THE MONEY IS MADE. 
 
 In what goes before I have endeavored to take a conservative 
 view of the situation, and to avoid raising hopes that can never 
 be realized. I have known too many men to drop money in the 
 poultry business to advise anyone to go into it without careful 
 consideration. It is easy to exaggerate the profits. In the 
 majority of cases no books are kept and no account made for 
 labor or food. What comes in seems like so much clear gain. 
 If a strict account was kept it would be found that the profits 
 in many cases were microscopic. The poultry business is no 
 Klondike. There are a few men who make fortunes. The 
 majority of poultrymen however make only about "day pay,", 
 say from $9 to $12 a week. There is room in the poultry busi- 
 ness for quite a number of men to do much better than this, and 
 to build up a business that will pay them from $1000 to $2500 
 a year. 
 
 Such men must cater to an entirely different trade from that 
 catered to by the practical poultryman. They must appeal to a 
 wider public. There are many men of means who have a love 
 for fowls and will pay a large price for choice specimens. These 
 are the fanciers. There are men that make nothing of paying 
 $25 for a cock that strikes their eye, and double that sum for a 
 prize winner at a large show. There are many others who can- 
 not pay so much, but who do not consider $5 for a good cock at 
 all out of the way. Eggs for hatching from choice birds sell 
 from $2 to $5 per sitting. It will be seen that if a man can reach 
 and hold this trade his chances for making money are better than 
 in the more common and less amply rewarded departments of the 
 business. 
 
 How may this trade be reached? In the first place a man 
 must have something to sell. The public will pay a fancy price 
 only for a fancy article. There are millions and millions of fowls 
 in the country; and men are not going to pay $5 to $25 for a 
 cock and $2 to $5 a sitting for eggs, when they can get as good 
 around home for one-fifth the amount. That is, they will not 
 pay it long. The cheat is sure in the end to be discovered and 
 exposed. If a man expects fancy prices he must have fancy 
 stock. Then he must advertise. One may have the best birds in 
 the world, but if no one knows it one cannot expect to sell. 
 Printer's ink will draw customers as molasses draws flies. 
 
75 
 
 A FIELD NEAR HOME. 
 
 The man who does not have the capital to engage in the busi- 
 ness on a large scale, or who does not feel competent to compete 
 with breeders of established reputation, may largely increase his 
 profits by imitating their methods within a limited area. Farmers 
 are waking up to the importance of keeping thoroughbred stock. 
 The average farmer does not feel that he can afford to pay $2 or 
 even $1 for a sitting of eggs, but he will gladly pay 50 cents. 
 The man who introduces a new and promising variety into his 
 neighborhood, or who has a strain of any established breed noted 
 for egg production, can count on a large sale of eggs for hatch- 
 ing around home. It is more profitable to sell eggs to the 
 farmers for 50 cents a sitting than to sell them for double that 
 sum to customers out of town ; for in the latter case there is the 
 expense for advertising and baskets, the time consumed in pack- 
 ing the eggs and in correspondence. 
 
 POINTS TO KEEP IN MIND. 
 
 Never get too old to learn. 
 
 About as many failures in the poultry business come from 
 keeping 100 fowls where there is room for only 25, as from any 
 other source. 
 
 Sitting hens should not be allowed to dust in coal ashes, as 
 the fine particles clog the pores in the egg shells. Dry earth is 
 the best stuff for a sitting hen to dust in. 
 
 Kainit may be substituted for plaster to mix with the manure 
 in case a manure particularly rich in potash is wanted, and acid 
 phosphate may be substituted for a rich phosphatic manure. 
 
 It is a good plan for a poultryman to keep a few standard 
 remedies on hand all the time. Then if disease comes down 
 upon him like the wolf on the fold, he is in a measure prepared to 
 meet it. 
 
 Lice multiply upon a sick fowl, because its vitality is so 
 depleted that it cannot keep itself clean. Accordingly, when you 
 remove a sick fowl to the hospital for treatment give it a good 
 dusting with insect powder before you administer the medicine. 
 
 Introduce new blood from time to time, but do not introduce it 
 indiscriminately. Find a man who is working along the same 
 lines with yourself, and get your males from him. Breed in two 
 years, and the third year send away to the same man for more 
 males. 
 
76 
 
 Green ground bone is a grand food for fowls, but it must be 
 fresh and not fed in too great quantity. A correspondent writes 
 that she lost J"j out of a flock of 94 beautiful chicks in three 
 weeks by feeding ground bone that she bought of a local dealer. 
 Probably the bone was tainted, or she fed too much. 
 
 Rats are naturally granivorous, and prefer corn to anything 
 else. The poultryman should take advantage of this fact. Let 
 him scatter a handful of whole corn about each rat hole, and the 
 rat will not molest the chicks. It may seem rather expensive to 
 feed rats on corn, but it is not so expensive as it is to feed them 
 on chicken meat. The poultryman should keep his eye peeled 
 and his traps set for the rascals at the same time., 
 
 How long may eggs for hatching safely be kept? To find 
 out, go and ask the old hen that has stolen her nest. , She will tell 
 you that she has been hiding away eggs in the haymow or under 
 the barn for at least three weeks, and that she expects every egg 
 to hatch a chick. In a temperature of from 40 to 60 degrees, 
 eggs may safely be kept at least three weeks before they are put 
 in an incubator or under a hen. They should be turned ever}' 
 day. 
 
 The market now calls for a medium-sized fowl. There was a 
 time when the demand was for "old hoosiers," but that day has 
 gone forever. I will tell you why. A bird dressing ten pounds 
 has no more legs or wings than a bird dressing four or five. In 
 the case of a large fowl part of the meat is left uneaten on the 
 plate. In the case of a medium-sized fowl, a leg or wing is just 
 right for an order. Shrewd buyers have learned that it is more 
 profitable to buy two medium-sized fowls than one large one. 
 There is still an occasional call for a large fowl, but the smaller 
 ones are the better sellers. 
 
 Be gentle with your birds. The hen is naturally timid and 
 easily scared. When kindly treated however she becomes tame. 
 Much of the pleasure in keeping fowls comes from having them 
 so tame that they will let their owner work among them and even 
 handle them at his will. One should never lose his temper, no 
 matter how great the provocation. The hen is not a reasoning 
 creature and often sorely tries her owner's patience. But if he 
 never allows himself to get angry or treat her unkindly no matter 
 what she may do, poultry keeping becomes not only a source of 
 pleasure and profit but a means of moral discipline not to be 
 despised. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the 
 earth," is a beatitude as true in the poultry business as it is else- 
 where. 
 
77 
 
 IN CONCLUSION. 
 
 Corn in winter. 
 Oats in the summer. 
 Go to the fall fairs. 
 Take a good poultry paper. 
 The rooster is half the pen. 
 Lice and luck never go together. 
 Be sure there is shade in the yards. 
 Precocious pullets seldom make phenomenal layers. 
 Dry planer shavings make the best material for nests. 
 Select a breed of fowls as you do a wife — to please yourself. 
 Don't go into the poultry business unless you have a "call" 
 to it. 
 
 There is little danger of overfeeding hens after they begin 
 to lay. 
 
 Clear poultry manure, lightly sprinkled with coal ashes or 
 land plaster to fix the ammonia, is worth a dollar a barrel. 
 
 If your method of feeding gives good results don't change it 
 because you happen to read of someone else who feeds differently. 
 
 The fool knows it all to begin with. The wise man learns by 
 his experience. The wisest man learns by his experience and the 
 experience of others. 
 
 Read this book over time and time again until you have 
 thoroughly assimilated it. The closer you follow its teachings 
 the more dollars you will make. 
 
 The man who gets out a hundred chicks or more needs an 
 incubator. The man who gets out less than this number can get 
 along very well with sitting hens. 
 
 The trap nest box has its place in the poultryman's outfit, 
 although its place is not so prominent as some enthusiasts claim. 
 It is excellent to use to find out the early layers and to grade up 
 flocks, but to continue its use the year round is slavery. 
 
 To get rid of the neighbor's cat, explode a torpedo under her 
 tail whenever she comes around. This will scare the cat, but do 
 her no permanent harm. The neighbor will appreciate the joke, 
 and you will get rid of the cat and keep your neighbor's good will 
 at the same time. 
 
 After a hen has laid an egg she cackles. Go and do thou 
 likewise! If your birds have taken a prize at the county fair, 
 cackle. If they have made a big egg record, cackle. If you have 
 
78 
 
 some fine stock to sell, cackle. In these days publicity and pros- 
 perity go together. 
 
 Does it pay to caponize? About this, as about everything 
 else, there is a difference of opinion. It takes so long to bring 
 a capon to maturity that the gain in size is offset by the extra cost 
 for food, to say nothing of the care. Unless you have a special 
 market, better not bother with capons. 
 
 If you are in the business for eggs, and eggs alone, the sooner 
 you get rid of your surplus "crowers" the better. I know a man 
 who disposes of his cockerels, as soon as he can distinguish them 
 from the pullets, for 10 cents each. He claims he is better off to 
 sell them for this sum than to keep them. 
 
 Some think the shape of the egg determines the sex of the 
 chick that is to be hatched. This is a mistake. The shape of the 
 egg has no effect upon the sex of the germ it contains. A more 
 plausible theory is that the shape of the egg will influence the 
 shape of the chick that begins its life in it, — a long egg giving a 
 long, rangey chick, and a short, round egg a more blocky chick. 
 This is worth investigating. 
 
 Don't be in too much of a hurry to have your chicks begin to 
 roost. Put the roost in their house one foot from the floor and 
 let them find out what it is there for themselves. Some advent- 
 urous chick will discover it after a while and get upon it ; others 
 will follow, and after a few weeks the whole flock will be roost- 
 ing at night. Should there be any laggards drive them about 
 with the soft end of the broom one or two nights until they are 
 glad to get on the roost with the rest. 
 
 The worst feature of the poultry business is its slavery. The 
 poultryman must be on deck 365 days in a year, and in leap years 
 366. Sundays and holidays bring little relief ; for the stock must 
 be fed and watered, the eggs collected, and the chicks and sitting 
 hens looked after as well as at other times. On small plants it is 
 difficult to get a man to step in for a few days, who will not 
 demoralize the whole thing. No man should go into the poultry 
 business who does not have a real love for it; otherwise the 
 monotony and slavery will become intolerable. 
 
 What rewards may a well-equipped poultryman expect ? Not 
 a fortune. You can count on your fingers, almost, the men who 
 have made fortunes in the poultry business. And these men have 
 made their money by selling birds and eggs to breeders rather 
 than by catering to the regular trade. But a careful, industrious 
 
79 
 
 man, one who has a real liking for the work and has gone into it 
 intelligently, may reasonably expect a good living, a pleasant 
 home, health, and the independence that comes from being one's 
 own master. 
 
 Douglas Mixture is a first-class tonic, and if used judiciously 
 is of extreme value in the poultry yard. It is made as follows : 
 
 Sulphate of iron, 8 oz. 
 
 Sulphuric acid, \ oz. 
 
 Water, i gal. 
 Put into a bottle or jug one gallon water, add the sulphate of 
 iron; as soon as the iron is dissolved add the acid. When the 
 mixture is clear it is ready for use. Dose, a tablespoonful to every 
 quart of drinking water. The drinking vessels while using this 
 tonic, must be glass or glazed earthenware. 
 
 After you have tried every other method you can think of to 
 break up a hen, without avail, just tie a piece of red string or tape 
 to her tail. Tie it so that there will be two loose ends, each about 
 six inches long, to flutter behind. The hen will at once lose all 
 interest in a sedentary life, and will start out of the house as if 
 she was going to a fire. She will run until she is tired out, when 
 she will stop; then she will start in and after a short rest run 
 again. When night comes you will find her on the roost, cured. 
 Take the ribbon off her tail, if she has not got it off herself. This 
 may seem an heroic method, but as Shakspere observes : 
 
 "Diseases desperate grown 
 By desperate appliance are relieved, 
 Or not at all." 
 
 In preparing this book I have been governed by two consider- 
 ations : economy, practicability. By economy I mean not only 
 frugality in the use of money, but also frugality in the use of 
 time. I am aware that the great majority of those who keep 
 fowls are not able to devote their whole time to the business, but 
 must combine poultry keeping with other pursuits. I have had 
 this class in mind in writing this book, and have endeavored to 
 show how the maximum of profit may be obtained with the min- 
 imum of effort. Every statement in the book has been tested by 
 actual experience, and may be relied upon implicitly. I expect to 
 learn as long as I live and to modify details from time to time, 
 but never expect to depart radically from the principles laid down 
 in these pages. 
 
80 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 3 The Two Hundred Egg Hen. — 4 The Heredity of the Two Hundred 
 Egg Hen. — 4 What Breed is Best? — 5 How Many Varieties Shall I 
 Keep? — 6 How Many Egg Records are Wrecked. — 6 To Pick Out the 
 Layers. — 7 The Three Conditions of Egg Production.— 8 The Hen 
 House. — 9 More About the Hen House. — 10 The Toilet of the House. — 
 10 To Rid a House of Vermin.^— 11 A Cheap House for Renters. — 13 
 Houses Made from Piano Boxes. — 14 Whitewash for Hen House. — 15 To 
 Dust a Hen. — 16 Feeding for Eggs : What to Feed.— 17 Feeding for 
 Eggs: How Much. — 18 Feeding for Eggs: Author's Method. — 21 Feed- 
 ing for Eggs : Author's Alternate Method.— 22 Feeding for Eggs : A 
 Woman's Way. — 23 Feeding for Eggs : Note. — 23 The Golden Rule for 
 Feeding.— 23 One Hundred Dollars in Gold: How Mr. S. D. Fox Won 
 It. — 25 Egg Food and Tonic. — 25 How the Big Records Are Made. — 
 26 Clover as a Food. — 26 A Nest Box for Individual Records. — ■ 
 
 30 Keep the Hens at Work. — 30 Grit, Charcoal and Oyster Shells. — 
 
 31 Don't Crowd Your Birds. — 31 Best Size for a Flock. — 32 Intro- 
 duce New Blood. — 32 Buying Stock and ' Eggs. — 33 Incubator or Hen, 
 Which? — 34 Get a Good Incubator or None.— 35 A Natural Hen 
 Incubator. — 36 To Set a Hen. — 37 The Management of Broody Hens. — 
 38 The Law of Sex : ' Males or Females at Will. — 41 Fertile Eggs and 
 How to Get Them. — 43 The Best Mating for Vigor. — 43 To Keep Chicks 
 from Dying in the Shell. — 44 Rearing the Chicks. — 45 Rearing the 
 Chicks : Cracked Corn Method. — 45 Rearing the Chicks : Author's 
 Method. — 47 Rearing the Chicks : Editor Hunter's Method. — 47 When to 
 Hatch the Chicks.— 48 To Start Pullets to Laying in the Fall.— 48 How 
 and Where to Market the Product. — 51 Killing and Dressing Fowls for 
 Market.— S3 Packing and Shipping. — 54 To Scald a Fowl. — 54 To Keep 
 Eggs a Year.— 56 Egg Eating : How to Prevent It. — 57 The Health of the 
 Two Hundred Egg Hen. — 58 Diseases of Chicks. — 59 Diseases Incident to 
 Feathering Out. — 60 Diseases of Young Fowls. — 60 Diseases of Laying 
 Stock. — 61 The Dread Scourge — Roup. — 63 Causes of Disease. — 64 The 
 Farmer's Hens. — 65 Poultry Manure: How to Preserve and Apply It. — 
 67 Why the Poultry Business is Not Likely to be Overdone. — 69. Qual- 
 ifications for a Successful Poultryman. — 70 Why So Many Failures. — 
 72 Combinations in Poultry Culture. — 74 Where the Money is Made. — 
 75 A Field Near Home. — 75 Points to Keep in Mind. — 76 In Con- 
 clusion. — 80 Table of Contents. 
 
FREE BOOKS FOB POULTRY KEEPERS. 
 
 THE POULTRY KEEPER (Price 50 Cents per Year), 
 published at Quincy, HL, will send 
 
 FUEE TO EVEHY NEW SUBSC^IBEH 
 
 his choice of any two of their 25c. poultry books covering; the 
 following; subjects,: 
 
 ILLUSTRATOR No. t. — Potiltey Hotfses, Incubators, Brooders, Coops, etc. (24 pages, 
 J03 illustrations), 25 cents. 
 
 ILLUSTRATOR No. 3.— Poultry Diseases, Lice, Gapes, Molting, Egg Eating, etc (20 
 pages, illustrated), 25 cents. 
 
 ILLUSTRATOR No. 4.— Judging Fowls, Description of Breeds, Mating, etc (24 pages, 
 illustrated), 25 cents. 
 
 P. K. SPECIAL No. l.^Caponizing, Diseases and- Remedies, Market Poultry, Pre- 
 serving Eggs (32 pages, 75 illustrations), 25 ceats. 
 
 P. K. SPECIAL No. 2 Feeding for Eggs, Pointers on Broilers, Ducks, Turkeys, 
 
 Incubators, Brooders, etc (32 pages, 72 illustrations), 25 cents. 
 
 POULTRY 
 KEEPER 
 
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 MONTHLY 
 POULTRY 
 PAPER. 
 
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 BEST WRITERS-NEW CUTS. 
 Sample Copy free on request. Agents Wanted. Liberal Terms. 
 
 POULTRY KEEPER PUBLISHING CO., Box W., 
 
 QUIISCY, ILL. 
 
Gold Medal and Highest Award at Pan-American, October, 1901, Were Placed on 
 
 It^- CYPHERS 
 
 INCUBATOR 
 
 Time and time again the Cyphers 360-egs; machine in the hands of our customers" has 
 batched upwards of 300 chicks from 360 untested eggs. Allowing ten- chicks to 
 the hen, it would take thirty hens to hatch 300. chicks. 
 
 THE EVIDENCE. 
 
 " My largest hatch was 345 chicks out of 360 eggs."— J. F. Ramset, MortoriviHe, Fa. 
 
 "I got 805 chicks out of 318 fertile eggs."— Edw. Sharpe, Genoa, N. Y. 
 • "I hatched 314 chicks out of my 360-egg Cyphers."— Hkbmak Friedl, Haskell, Ind. 
 
 " From 360 eggs we have hatched 317 of the brightest, strongest chicks I ever saw."— Frank B. 
 TAXLOB, Prompton, Fa. - - 
 
 "From my No. 3 Cyphers, holding 360 eggs, we hatched 811 chicks.'*— L. R. Hobart, Lake Crystal, 
 Minn. 
 . " Out of our largest-size Incubator I hatched 314 good, healthy chicks."— H. MuBB, Gordonville, Pa. 
 
 " My Incubator holds 360 eggs and from one loading I got 301 chicks."— JAS. C. Myers, Oakes, Pa. 
 
 •■ One hatch I obtained 327 strong, healthy chicks from the 360-egg Cyphers."— Spbagce Bboi., 
 Florence, O. 
 
 Think of the work and the worry in caring for the thirty hens it would require to hatch 
 800 chickens, ten to each hen ! Five minutes, morning and evening, will take perfect care 
 of the Cyphers 300-egg incubator.— THIS WE GUARANTEE. 
 
 ' Literally thousands of persons in every walk of life are doing as well as the few 
 above quoted, and the smaller sizes of Cyphers Incubators (60, 120, and 220 eggs) do pre- 
 cisely as good work as this largest size, on this you can absolutely depend. While you are 
 about it, why not buy the best and know that you are right ? Illustrative descriptive 
 16-page circulars, English, German, or Spanish, free on request. Complete catalogue, 180 
 pages, 8x11 inches, 10 cents in stamps for postage. Ask for Book No. 37, and address our 
 nearest office. ; 
 
 CYPHERS INCUBATOR CO., 
 
 Manufacturers of 
 
 Incubators and Brooders. 
 
 Wholesale and Retail Dealers in 
 
 Poultry Supplies 
 
 SEND FOR NEW CATALOGUE, 
 
 "EVERYTHING FOR THE POULTRYMAN.' 
 
 BUFFALO, N. Y., Court and Wllkeson Sts. BOSTON, MASS., 34 Merchants Row. 
 
 CHICAQO, ILL., 3>5 Dearborn Street. NEW YORK, N. Y., 8 Park Place.