142 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



ing, and of all the birds we looked over, probably over three 

 thousand in all, saw but two that seemed out of condition, and 

 the egg yield at that time w^as quite as good as could be ex- 

 pected in molting time ; some of the pullets had even then be- 

 gun to lay. 



It is evident that if a ration which is nine-tenths wheat 

 screenings supplemented in winter with a good light feed of 

 cracked corn, will give such a good showing in general health- 

 fulness of the flocks and egg, yield in midwinter, then we who 

 have expended a great deal of time in compounding a mixed 

 ration and feeding three times a day have thrown away our 

 labor and pains ! The tables of analysis given in Bulletin No. 

 22, of the United States Department of Agriculture, show 

 wheat screenings to have a feeding value very closely approx- 

 imating to that of good, sound wheat and that wheat is the best 

 food of all the grains is very well known. 



That wheat screenings is a very economical food, there 

 is good proof in an experiment made at the Connecticut Ex- 

 periment Station last summer. Mr. Graham wished to test the 

 Tillinghast method of housing and feeding chickens, and had 

 built two colony houses exactly like his. In one of these houses 

 he put 44 Rhode Island Red chickens, that were hatched April 

 24th, from a hundred eggs bought of a farmer living near. On 

 June 5th two of the chickens had disappeared, probably having 

 been caught by some animal or hawk, and the 42 chickens 

 left, then about six weeks old, weighed 22 pounds and 12 

 ounces. Twenty-four of them were pullets and eighteen were 

 cockerels ; on the 29th of July the cockerels were killed and 

 dressed for market; they averaged to weigh three and one- 

 half pounds apiece undrawn, and sold, at the wholesale market 

 price, for 82 cents apiece. The cost of the food for both them- 

 selves and the twenty-four pullets to that time was $4.28 — the 

 one hundred eggs cost five dollars, making $9.28 as the cash 

 outlay for the forty-two chickens at about fifteen weeks old, 

 and there had been a cash return of $14.76 for the cockerels 

 sold, and the twenty-four pullets were left. On the 8th of 

 September one of those pullets began to lay, when about four 

 and one-half months old, and in the month of September forty- 

 eight eggs were laid by that lot of pullets. Their food for the 

 first two weeks was commercial chick-foods, bought of deal- 

 ers in poultry supplies, and after that was wheat screenings 



