FARMEES' INSTITUTES. 671 



to hatch our coming crop of poultry. How many farmers clean the 

 poultry houses every day, the same as they do the cow stables? Don't 

 expect your fowls to keep healthy sleeping over droppings that are 

 the accumulation of weeks. It only takes a few minutes to remove 

 the droppings if there is a tight floor under the roosts. If your fowls 

 should become sick, see if there is not some stagnant pool of water to 

 which they have access. 



As for incubating eggs, there are two methods— with the hen and 

 by artificial means, or in other words the incubator. The hen is, of 

 course, better than the incubator, but the incubator is coming into more 

 general use every year. The incubator can be set and run at any season, 

 but the hen has notions of her own regarding setting. After commenc- 

 ing to set,- the hen may conclude to scratch. This, of course, is not 

 beneficial to eggs. The incubator goes steadily on if furnished with 

 oil. It is useless to say the incubator will be a success without careful 

 watching, for it must be cared for to make a success. But the time 

 consumed need be no more than that used in caring for three or four 

 hens. From the incubator the chicks come free from lice, while from 

 the hen they are, nine times out of ten, stocked with lice as soon as 

 they are hatched. 



The first feed given our chicks is mica crystal grits or some other 

 good grinding material for the gizzard. After thirty-six to forty-eight 

 hours I feed balked corn bread crumbled fine. As soon as old enough 

 screenings are given them. This is scattered among chaff on the 

 brooder floor. This compels exercise and promotes digestion of the food 

 consumed. As fast as the chicks grow they are given larger grain. 1 

 never allow any sloppy feed given young chicks. From the time the 

 chicks are four weeks old they should be forced all they can stand if 

 intended for market. The quicker we can put them on the market the 

 more profit there is in them. 



To chicks that are confined we always feed some form of meat, 

 usually dried meat scraps or green cut bone. After the chicks have 

 reached the age at which they should begin laying, and do not lay, 

 there is no profit in keeping them. In fact most of the profit in poultry 

 comes from eggs. Then compare the price of eggs and live poultry 

 to-day in our own town. A few days ago I paid 5% cents per pound 

 for live fowls; the farmer who sold them first received only five cents. 

 For one dozen eggs I paid twenty-four cents. Suppose these hens had 

 been laying, would it have been wise to sell them at 5 cents per pound 

 when eggs were 2 cents each? Then, as we have claimed for years, the 

 most profitable hen is the one that lays the most eggs. Four breeds 

 tested side by side at the Epitomist Experiment Station proves that the 

 best layers, both winter and summer, are the rose comb Brown Leghorns. 

 The Whie Wyandottes are next, then the White Rocks and the Barred 



