66 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



many more, if we raised more oats. The trouble is to get 

 the oats. 



Question. Have you ever found any evil effect from feed- 

 ing oats. 



Miss Reed. I have never found any difficulty in feeding 

 oats, except occasionally I have found a chicken that got 

 choked by them ; or, I should say, the chicken would have 

 choked if some one had not been at hand to get them out of 

 its throat. 



Mr. . I have found barley to be far ahead of oats as 



a feed for poultry, I have raised it for that purpose. 



Miss Reed. I would like to inquire if any one has had any 

 experience in feeding parched grain of any kind ? 



Question. Has any one had any experience in feeding 

 apples to hens ? 



Mr. . I have had a limited experience. They devour 



sweet apples very greedily, and I find that hens that are sup- 

 plied with apples lay better than other hens that have an 

 unlimited range of the same feed, excepting apples. 



Mr. . Whenever I feed oats, I always feed them 



parched. I put them right into the oven in my house. It 

 does not cost any more to feed pure-blooded fowls than it 

 does a mixture, and they look much prettier than mixed 

 breeds. 



The President. If Dr. Sturtevant is in the house we would 

 be glad to hear from him. 



Dr. Sturtevant. There is so much that I could say, sug^ 

 gested to me by what I have heard this afternoon, that 1 

 hardly know how to begin ; and yet I feel that I had better 

 make a few rambling remarks upon several subjects than at- 

 tempt to speak upon any one special topic. 



And first I will make a remark suggested by the discussion 

 on poultry. Poultry raising is a small affair, but did it ever 

 occur to you that it is the littles in this world which are of 

 the greatest consequence ? We find no strata built up of the 

 bones of the gigantic mastodon, but some of our great rock . 

 . strata are built up of the remains of the most minute in- 



