No. 6. 



DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



303 



from each of those groups, 20 weeks old, and here is the propor- 

 tion; in other words, one hundred is to 141 as one hundred is to 

 142; in other words, tlie size of a chicken of any given variety is 

 in the proportion of the egg out of which it was hatched. If you 

 want to get a large sized chicken, pick the good sized eggs to get 

 a good sized chicken to lay a good sized egg to hatch a good 8ize<l 

 chicken. 



Table 8. Table showing the exact weights of eggs and of chicks in- 

 dicating the fact that the size of the egg of any given breed determines 

 the size of the chick. 



Fig. 21 is just a suggestion for keeping males cool and away 

 from the hens during the summer time. It means that there must 

 be a wire covered place that could be locked up so that the 

 chickens could go in and out; on the north side of some building 

 where it is cool, comfortable and congenial, with a large number of 

 feeding hoppers and watering devices, both inside and out of the 

 building so that the strong males cannot fight the others. The great 

 difficulty of keeping many males together is in making them all 

 go to eat or drink out of the same places. If they are scattered 

 all through the woods, with plenty of room to range and lots of 

 room in a building where they can get away from each other, it 

 is not so difficult to take care of them for that length of time, 

 and I think we owe it to our stock to keep our best males rather 

 than to kill them; but if we were to "swat" all the rest of them, it 

 would certainly be a great blessing to the community. 



Finally, and lastly, we want to bring out the fact of good care 

 of our birds during the winter if we are going to get the best re- 

 sults in breeding. No amount of good breeding will ever take the 

 place of poor ventilation of our hen houses or poor care of our 

 hens, and while it will not be possible to speak of these things 

 in detail here, I want to point out for a moment a new idea, 

 at least new to us, a method of ventilation to take the place of 

 the muslin curtain in certain parts of the United States. I do 

 not know that it would have application in the south but it cer- 

 tainly does in the north. This is a wind buffler, not an ordinary 

 shutter, but a combination of louvers placed at different angles 

 to prevent the snow, wind and rain from blowing into the house 

 and for allowing the air to cliange freely through the house with- 

 out draft. In Fig. 22 is shown a building that we used for two 

 20—6—1915 



