No. G. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 431 



IN8TKUCT10N TO THE P.EG1NNKK IN THE TOUETKY liUSl- 



NESS. 



BY MK. T. E. ORR, Beaver, Pa. 



So it is both gain and glory jou want, young man! Well, there is 

 nothing impossible in the combination. Hundreds are realizing 

 both; but to do this, let me tell you of a few things you must be will- 

 ing to sacrifice: 



1. You must give up your morning nap. The real fancier is up in 

 the morning before his hens are olf their perches. He must be on 

 intimate terms with his birds. He must know which cock does the 

 early crowing and which hens do the early scratching. He has a 

 name or special designation for nearly every fowl, and he is as fami- 

 liar with the whims and fancies of each hen as was his mother with 

 the peculiarities of each of her children. 



2. You must be willing to wear working clothes. If you are afraid 

 of being sneered at because your clothes are dusty, or would become 

 disheartened if some of the girls with a sniff of their pretty noses, 

 should make some remark about the "odor of the chicken house," you 

 cannot expect to win. The chicken business is not dirty, but it must 

 be dusty. The dog from his bath in the water shakes himself. So 

 does the hen from her bath in the dust-box. You know the result 

 ir both cases. 



3. You must give up courting your best girl at least four nights in 

 the week. The hour at dusk and the hour just following it are two 

 of the most important in the whole twenty-four. At dusk you can 

 learn the bed-going habits of your birds both old and young, and 

 the hour following is the very best time for using that most useful 

 implement in the poultry business — the lantern. You will thus 

 learn many things. Your birds will become accustomed to handling 

 and will learn to know you as an intimate friend. Many a valuable 

 bird life has been saved by the timely discovery of approaching 

 trouble in the quiet of the night. 



Well, if you accept these three conditions we will enroll you as an 

 available candidate for poultry fame. The field is an honorable one, 

 and you will have little cause to be ashamed of the company in which 

 you will find yourself further along. Poultry breeding is by some 

 esteemed too insignificant to command attention. "Small potatoes 

 and fev,- in a hill," sneers the fancier of horses or cattle, perhaps, 

 while his wife, son or daughter may be cleaning up more money with 



