72 VERMONT AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



farmer can raise it. You can raise a good many bushels to the acre, 

 but if you purchase it. it will cost you from $1.50 to $1.60 a bushel. We 

 always raise it for our own use. 



When the chicks get a little larger we begin to feed cracked wheat and 

 cracked corn, and johnny cake. The first few years we made the 

 johnny cake the same as we would make it for our own family, with the 

 exception of working those infertile eggs into the mixture and stirring 

 it up with a spoon, raised it and put it in the oven and baked it. We 

 could feed the inside of that johnny cake, but the crust was hard and w : 

 had to put it through a grater, which made additional work. Now we 

 mix up the batter and put in the soda and eggs and then put it right into 

 a large jacket in the cooker and steam it. And there is no crust to con- 

 tend with; it is more digestible; every bit of it is eaten and there is no 

 loss connected with it. We give them for succulent food, beets cut up. 

 Just as soon as they get large enough so we can distinguish the sex, 

 we put the cockerels in one department and the pullets in the other. 

 We put all the cockerels in a brooder house; the pullets we put in a four- 

 teen-acre orchard and allow them free range. 



The cockerels we feed with a little more of the johnny cake, and a 

 little cottonseed meal with the cornmeal, for the purpose of giving color 

 to the flesh, which makes the chicken look so much more attractive, 

 because we wanted to put them on the market for broilers; and it gives 

 a beautiful tinge to the meat. And we fed them with a rush, but were 

 very careful and watched their digestion; we fed them plenty of buck- 

 wheat, as it is very fattening. 



I want to say to you, now, of all the breeds I have ever seen, a 

 White Leghorn will make the first pound as soon as any breed of chick- 

 ens I have ever had anything to do with. Just as soon as ours weighed 

 a pound to a pound and a half, we dry-picked them and sent them to 

 New York. Now we are sending them away alive when they weigh a 

 pound, and chickens never fetch a better price than they do when they 

 weigh one pound, because, as they go up in weight, they go down in 

 price, usually. This year we sent to New York early in the season, 

 and then when the season opened at Saratoga we shipped there. Now 

 they want us to ship them in a crate alive, when they weigh a pound or 

 a pound and a quarter. We have gotten from thirty-five to fifty and fifty- 

 two cents apiece, and I think that is a very good price. As they want 

 them without picking, we are willing to get rid of all the work we can. 

 Now, the pullets were fed on meat scrap with the johnny cake, and some 

 oats ground with the chaff sifted out; that was put in with the corn meal. 

 We gave them buckwheat, also, and a variety of food. They had free 

 range, which gave them plenty of muscle; and they were very healthy, 

 and we were very much elated over the results. 



While this business is very attractive, I don't want you to go into it 

 without consideration, and I don't want to mislead you, but I want you 

 to do as we did; go into the business in a small way, and as you increase 

 your knowledge of the business, enlarge your plant. With the mighty 

 increase in population there is a greater call for eggs constantly; and 



