294 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



To keep hens healthy and laying well they must have exercise; 

 and this is best induced by scattering straw or chaii" four or five 

 inches deep over the floor of the poultry house, and then throw 

 the whole corn into the straw and let the hens w^ork to get it. 

 This straw should be changed at least once a week or often enough 

 to keep it clean. Feed in the morning a vrarm mash of one part 

 ground oats and corn and two parts wheat bran. Twice a week 

 add one part buckwheat bran, and once a week add a little oil cake 

 meal and powdered charcoal. At noon feed whole wheat, oats and 

 byckvidieat. In the eA'ening give whole corn, about all they will eat. 

 Be sure the fowls have plenty of clean water to drink. If the 

 weather is very cold, warm the water and empty all drinking vessels 

 at night so as not to allow water to freeze in them. Supply plenty 

 of grit and crushed oyster shells, and a dust bath in some sandy 

 corner of your poultry house. 



Alw'iays feed your hens as regularly as possible. Save the table 

 scraps, mixing these with the morning mash. A little raw beef 

 twice a week should also be fed. For green feed, nothing is better 

 than cut clover, steamed and fed in the morning. When the ground 

 is not covered with snovv^ allow the fowls the run of the yards. 



The one great stumbling block that stands in the way of success 

 with poultry, as in everything else, is ji lack of application. There 

 is not a season but what some new experience is met with and new 

 ideas are constantly presenting themselves. Hence, only the closest 

 of application will enable one to master the details of his own work 

 and make it that success and to bring those results that we are all 

 searching for. And so it is from mating to the fitting of a good 

 bird for the show room. Hard work and plenty of it, and constant 

 work is necessary to get good results. 



No one can jump into success without proper training and school- 

 ing. You have got to go through the same experience that others 

 have gone through. You have got to learn the same lessons that 

 they have learned, and must bump up against the same mistakes 

 and difiiculties that have taught them what to avoid and what is 

 invariable and must be done. Brilliancy cuts no figure. Hard 

 work and close application on the part of a veritable "chump" will 

 attain a degree of success that inactive brilliancy can never hope 

 for. Look around and note the successful business men in your 

 communit}'. They are the constant workers. There are others in 

 the same line that are more brilliant and had better opportunities, 

 but the persistent and aggressive "hustler" is the man that gets 

 there every time. It may liave taken him longer to learn than 

 it would Ihe more brilliaiit man with the same application, but 

 when the brilliant man stopped to fuss with something outside his 

 business, the "husthn-" was nuiking headway and he never stopped. 



