40 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



Stove, and keep them warm. That is a mistake. As a matter 

 of fact, a temperature of from 55 to 75 degrees for two or 

 three days in succession will pretty nearly ruin the best egg 

 that ever was laid. It changes the makeup of the contents. 

 That is, it becomes more watery. There is a tendency for the 

 white of the egg to spread more or less. The yolk becomes 

 softened, and such an egg does not hatch as well. The less 

 handling your eggs get while you are saving them for hatching 

 the better, and they better be kept in a room where the tem- 

 perature does not go below forty or above sixty. I should have 

 said before, do not breed from birds that have ever been seri- 

 ously sick. Do not for one moment do such a thing as tliat. 

 No matter how good a hen may be, whether she scores ninety- 

 nine and one-half points or not, never breed from her if she 

 has been seriously sick. I mean any serious kind of illness 

 where it has taken from a week to ten days for the birds to 

 get over it. Breed from just as strong, healthy, vigorous 

 specimens as you can get, the stronger the better. A good, 

 aggressive male bird that will fight at the drop of the hat, who 

 wants to pick up trouble with everybody, yourself included. 

 My best male bird resents my coming into the pen. As soon 

 as my back is turned on him, he is right up in my hair. That 

 is the kind of a bird I like to see. A good, scrappy bird. I 

 want the pupils of the eyes to be bright and aggressive looking. 

 When you have an eye that appears to be cut in somehow, and 

 lacking in lustre, there is bound to be something wrong inside 

 of that chicken, and the sooner you get rid of him the better. 

 If you stick to that principle of always breeding from sound, 

 vigorous, healthy specimens, you will get healthy chickens, 

 and those chicks will live. They will not have white diarrhoea 

 and forty eleven other things. But I do not dare to talk about 

 diseases, because if I get started on that subject I will never 

 let up all day. But we settle that question of breeding stock 

 in that way. You must have good breeding stock and you must 

 take good care of your chicks. If you do that then you can ex- 

 pect in the long run much better than fifty chicks from every 

 hundred eggs. I do not care whether you hatch them with a hen 

 or with an incubator ; it is practically the same thing, and you 

 will not get over fifty chicks for every hundred eggs. Now 

 when you get those chicks out and perhaps before that, I better 

 say, that if you are running an incubator you better follow the 



