No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 227 



is the all-important point, it is a most serious mistake to 

 select a breed of fowls that is not noted for this product. If, 

 on the other hand, meat is the chief object, an expensive mis- 

 take will be made if any but the heavy bodied fowls are chosen. 

 The small, active, nervous, egg-producing breeds cannot compete 

 with the larger Asiatics for meat production. Then, too, if 

 fowls are kept for both eggs and meat production, some breed of 

 the middle class should be chosen. These, while they do not attain 

 the great size of the Asiatics, are suflliciently large to be reared 

 profitably to supply the table with meat, and at the same time have 

 the tendency for egg production developed sufficiently to produce 

 a goodly number of eggs during the year. The Wyandottes and 

 Plymouth Kocks are good illustrations of this class of fowls. It is 

 one of the most profitable practices among poultry raisers to cull 

 out the stock for winter. Keep all the best layers that are not over 

 one year old and select your largest and best developed pullets. It is 

 not the number of hens that are kept which tells the dozens of eggs 

 that will be sold. A great many females are allowed to remain all 

 winter which do not lay an egg during the whole time; these are the 

 ones that keep down the dividends. It often seems to be a hard 

 provision of nature that our hens should lay plentifully in summer 

 When eggs are ten (10) cents a dozen and go back on us completely 

 in the winter when eggs are worth three times as much; but the 

 truth is that it is the fault of neither nature nor the hen; the whole 

 truth is, we do not get our stock into proper condition to lay eggs: 

 We are not fair to the hens. If there is one fact established beyond 

 doubt, it is that the fondness of fowls for bugs and worms is not 

 an unnatural taste. The animal matter thus secured supplied a 

 most important element in the fowi's food, and it is largely because 

 the hens cannot procure this food in winter that they cease to lay. 

 In recent years the practical poultry man has been able to double 

 his egg supply in the winter by a careful study of egg producing 

 foods. Prominent among these must be placed green cut bone; a 

 food that is easily and cheaply obtained, and that is undoubtedly the 

 greatest egg producer ever fed to poultry. The bone when finely 

 cut while it is still green, supplies that element of animal food so 

 needed and so relished by fowls; taking the place of the insects 

 which the hen devours so greedily in summer. A perfectly regular 

 system of feeding should be adhered to; nothing, perhaps, is 

 more beneficial to the condition of the fowl. After careful consider- 

 ation, adopt a system of feeding which best commends itself under 

 the conditions. The fowls will become accustomed to the hours 

 of their meals and will look for them. The morning feed should 

 consist of a mixture of bran, ground corn and oats, equal parts, 

 and a small quantity of animal meal which could be prepared the 



