No. 5. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 203 



and laid so many eggs that he got scared. He tried it another year, 

 and they did the same thing. They liked the alfalfa that the cattle 



got 



In May and June you are likely to have lice on the heads of the 

 chickens. You can tell it by the '"'peep" of the little chicks, and you 

 will find it very easy to get rid of them. One gallon of sweet oil will 

 save a million chicks. . If you have lice, you will lose your little 

 chicks. Use a few drops of sweet oil, and save them. 



I have been asked to say a few words about poultry husbandry. I 

 was only sixteen years old when I joined my first poultry organiza- 

 tion, and my first dairy association. Get together in your organization 

 and talk things over and help each other. It will pay in your sales 

 next year. That is what we are here for — to help each other. Give 

 a helping hand to the man who needs it; it will repay you. 



Among the misfortunes of the poultry business are the unwar- 

 ranted claims of its greatness, made without due consideration for 

 varacity and usually with purpose of selling you something that 

 you may have but little or no use for. You might start in the poul- 

 try business with a small house, costing on an extravagant basis, 

 $40.00 and twenty-five hens, costing |50.00, and by good manage- 

 ment pay the entire cost inside of one year, if the hens are good lay- 

 ers. If, however, you permit yourself to be led into needless expen- 

 diture, you will spend more than another hundred dollars on equip- 

 ment that is not productive. You and the hens will consequently be 

 kept quite busy for two years to pay for the needless expense, and 

 by then you will be ready to say "Poultry keeping does not pay." 

 The truth is that there has been extravagance; twenty-five hens can- 

 not pay for their own keep and an expenditure of |140.00 eacli year. 



A world wide booster wrote a short time since that poultry keep- 

 ing was a blessing to the farmer, because there was sold each year 

 in the United States, three billion dollars' worth of chicken feed. 

 If true, which it cannot be, this would be almost five times as much 

 as the government census tells us is the total yearly value of poul- 

 try and eggs, and more than three times the estimate made last year. 



Facts are what you want to know; and these are that poultry pay 

 better, dollar for dollar expended, than any other livestock. Mr. 

 Mapes, of Middletown, New York, claims that on his farm four hun- 

 dred Leghorn hens, valued at .f2.00, each paid him better than did 

 1800.00 worth of cows, managed and fed by Mr. Mapes himself, who 

 is an expert with both hens and cows. We know that under certain 

 conditions cows in some localities will pay best, and that in other 

 localities the same would be true of the hens. 



''How shall we make more money from our hens?" is a natural 

 question to ask. This question we shall try to answer. To gain im- 

 provement nothing is of equal importance with vigor, and for this 

 reason I have selected "Value of Vigor" as my subject. 



In the growing of livestock of any kind very much more depends 

 upon the vigor of the stock than many imagine. The great prin- 

 ciple of breeding livestock of any kind lies in: 



Hereditary vigor transmitted for more than three generations 

 through the most vigorous individuals. 



The proper selection and mating of the most vigorous of all the 

 stock. 



The proper rearing, care and feeding of the young stock. 



The careful culling or selecting of the most vigorous of all stock. 



