TWELFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X 479 



main the system of breeding whereby breeds would tend to become pure, 

 that alone would so interest those who care for farm poultry as to in- 

 crease the value of the products possibly one-third or even one-half. The 

 question may be asked as to where enough pure-bred poultry would 

 come from to furnish foundation stock, and to this the reply would be 

 that it would cnly take a few years at the outside to grow a sufficient 

 supply providing it could be distributed into the breeding yards of the 

 country rather than to go to the market in the form of meat products. 

 We must first create an inclination on the part of poultry breeders gen- 

 erally to use a special breed, after which the problem will soon solve 

 itself because the increased profit from handling a flock which ap- 

 proaches purity in breeding wiU soon justify and demonstrate the great 

 need for discarding the old-fashioned grade fowl. But there is one step 

 toward improvement which does not include the purchase of new founda- 

 tion stock. Reference is here made to the pl^n of using a male of 

 the same breed year after year on the flock that is already doing service 

 on the farm. Eecau&e the first cress in the case of the breeding of a 

 pure-bred male of one breed to pure-bred females of another is often 

 super'or to either breed, has created the idea that crossing is always 

 desirable. As a matter of fact when you get away from the first cross 

 the mongrel is the only result of promiscuous breeding. The two courses 

 for improvement that are open are, therefore, first, the purchase out- 

 right of pure-breds either in the form of eggs for hatcfcing or foundation 

 stock, and secondly, the gradual improvement that may be wrought by 

 the use of a pure-bred male of the same breed, generation after gene- 

 ration. 



FEEDING FOR EGG PRODUCTION. 



BY E. T. ROBEETS. 



(Polk County, Iowa.) 



The success we have attained in getting a high average of eggs In 

 winter as well as summer, from our flock of White Leghcms, has caused 

 many to ask what and how we feed, and especiaPy has this question 

 been asked since the close of the Iowa State Fair, where six of our little 

 "White Leghorn ladies" carried off the blue in the egg-laying contest, 

 with nineteen eggs to their credit in the five days. 



Now, there is nothing secret or complicated about the feed we use 

 or our method of feeding and otherwise caring for our flock. We are 

 always glad to give any information that may be desired when time 

 and opportunity afford, and it is with the hope that some of the readers 

 cf Wallaces' Farmer may profit by our methods which have been adopted 

 after much practical experience that we give our method. 



In the first place we use incubators and brooders, which enable us 

 to hatch our chickens at the time we want them, which is about May 

 1st — not much earlier — nor later than the 15th. The pullets from these 

 hatches will begin to contribute towards their support about October 



