No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 251 



.MAINE DUING WELL 



^'ow, some real isiieutitic work would be to iseaich iu the egg why 

 and wherefore of its fertility- or iion-fertility. 



To give us some detiuite light on the plague of white diarrhea, 

 which killa its teus of thousands of baby chicks yearly: or to help 

 to combat the gape worm pest. The gape worm lowers the value 

 of the poultry products of this State, if you take this county as a 

 ratio, perhaps |1(JU,UUU. To be intensely practical, one should 

 work such things out by observation or as he goes along. Science 

 must and eventually will come to his help. 



Now, what is practical (successful) poultry keeping? A mighty 

 elusive thing. A thing it is fair to say 999 men out of every 1000, 

 who go into the poultry business, fail to grasp. A man who knows 

 nothing of commercial life may take hold of a large commercial en- 

 terprise and spell success. He may go into mining or manufacturing 

 and make good. But who can, without the knowledge gained by 

 experience, go into full-tledged poultry keeping and make a success? 

 Such .men are a little tiny more plenty than hen's teeth. A few, a 

 very few, have done it. You must, in the poultry business, begin 

 at the bottom — begin in a small way. 



DIFFICULTIES GREAT. 



I am not exaggerating the difficulties. The fact that the average 

 life of a poultryman does not reach three years goes a great way to 

 prove it. The scores, the hundreds, of large abandoned poultry 

 plants all over this country help my assertion along. 



Forgive, then, the veteran poultryman concerning the atti- 

 tude of the average American citizen towards the poultry 

 business. So big! So easy I So much money in it! Some day 

 I'll try my luck at it. But the funniest thing of all to the seasoned 

 poultryman is the sublime confidence of the average man in his 

 knowledge of how to make a success in the "hen line." He reads 

 every scrap he comes across pertaining to chicken subjects. I say 

 he reads it, but he doesn't digest it. Much of it, though, is utterly 

 indigestible, swallowed even with mica grit or any other hard 

 granite grit, because written by men (and, softly, women), who 

 have acquired just that little knowledge which is a dangerous thing. 

 I could entertain you for the rest of this day with personal expe- 

 riences of how this w^orks out. Let me give you the first one, as I 

 member it in ray experience. 



A TYPICAL EXPERIENCE. 



The man was a German, not many years in this country; thrifty 

 aiid enterprising, owning his own little farm. One day he read in 

 a farm pajier that hens to lay must have exercise. Now-, picking 

 out English words was slow^ work with Fritz, besides, what he had 

 read had given him an idea. "Hens to lay well must have exercise." 

 Next morning he cut two ten-foot poles in the wood lot, and, calling 

 his two boys, he handed each a pole and told them, "Boys, dose 

 hens must have exercise to lay much eggs. Yon chase them over 

 this four-acre field one hour every day." 



Or, la hi- on in the summer, when a plague of red mites in his 

 hencoop nearly drove him distracted, he readily decided to act on 

 some advice he had also read. "Empty the nesting material and 



