1907.] MY FRIEND THE HEN. 75 



Mr. BoLTE. Meal is superior to beef-scrap when you come 

 to mix it in your mash, but when you come to mix it up dry, I 

 prefer the beef-scrap, because they can pick it up to better ad- 

 vantage. 



Secretary Brown. If there are no further questions, we 

 will adjourn this session to 7 :30 tonight. 



Convention adjourned to 7:30 p.m. 



FIRST DAY — EVENING SESSION. 



Music. 



President Seeley : Well, we had a good deal about 

 chickens this afternoon, and we are going to have some more 

 on the same line this evening. We have a lady to speak to us 

 this evening, Mrs. Mary Thorp Monroe, who will address 

 us upon the topic, " My Friend the Hen." 



MY FRIEND THE HEN. 



By Mrs. Mary Thorp Monroe, Dryden, N. Y. 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : This afternoon 

 when I read on the programme that a poultryman was to give 

 an address on twenty years' experience in the poultry business 

 I wondered what would be left for me. They say there is a 

 way out of every difficulty. Upon figuring it up, I found that 

 I had kept chickens twenty-one years, so I made up my mind 

 that although that was not very much advantage it would give 

 me an advantage of one year in experience, and perhaps I 

 could get along with that. Now if I should undertake to give 

 my experience with keeping poultry I do not know whether 

 you would believe it all or not. There is a good deal in a 

 poultryman's life which better perhaps remain untold. There 

 is a good deal of unpleasant work about it, and unless one has 

 a thorough love of the birds themselves and an enjoyment of 

 the out-door work, it will not keep one in the business very 

 much longer than the ordinary run of poultrymen, which is 

 not much over two or three years. Three years is about the 

 life of the ordinary poultryman. There seem to be two classes 

 of people who go into the poultry business. Those who have 



