1906.] THE NEW POULTRY CULTURE. I37 



of a third to a full half of a man's time and physical energy — 

 all of which we have demonstrated to our complete satisfaction 

 is labor wasted. This labor directed to other details, and the 

 poultry work is full of them ! — will grow the chicks and care 

 for the flocks much better, or will allow double the numbers 

 to be kept wnth the same number of steps taken daily. Experi- 

 ment has demonstrated that quite as many, if not more, eggs 

 will result, than from the mash-feeding system, and any old 

 stock that is kept over will be found to lay nearly as well the 

 second year as the first, the birds lay better through the molt, 

 there is less mortality among the adult birds, and the profits 

 will be found to be on the right side of the ledger when the 

 accounts are made up." 



An excellent test of the dry-feeding method was made at 

 the Maine Experiment Station this last year, the report, given 

 in Bulletin No. 117, of that station, confirming many of the 

 claims made by the advocates of the dry-feeding method of 

 rearing chicks and feeding adult fowls. After describing the 

 former method of feeding the chicks, w-hich includes two feeds 

 of mash a day, the bulletin says : 



" Until last season we had continued feeding two feeds of . 

 cracked corn and wheat and two of mash dailv as long as the 

 birds remained in the field. Last June we had 1,400 chickens 

 well started, and we changed the plan of feeding by keeping 

 cracked corn, wheat, and beef scrap in separate slatted 

 troughs where they could help themselves whenever they de- 

 sired to do so. Not more than one-fourth of the grain was 

 wheat for the pullets, while in the cockerel division, nothing 

 oyster shell w^ere always supplied. There were no regular 

 but cracked corn and beef scrap w^ere fed. Grit, bone, and 

 hours for feeding, but care was taken that the troughs were 

 never empty. 



" The results were satisfactory. The labor of feeding was 

 far less than that required by any other method we have fol- 

 lowed. The birds did not hang around the troughs and over- 

 eat, but helped themselves — a little at a time — and ranged 

 off, hunting or playing and coming back again when so in- 

 clined to the food supply at the troughs. There was no rush- 

 ing or crowding about the attendant as is usual at feeding 

 time where large numbers are kept together. While the birds 

 liked the beef scrap, they did not over-eat of it. 



