BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 75 



Now the question comes up in the mind of the reader : 

 Which of the mixed foods are good ? One is generally- 

 safe in buying a mixture sold by a reliable supply house. 

 The best of them sometimes make mistakes, but a house- 

 that has a reputation to maintain will make its mistakes- 

 right, and .the quality of its goods will be on the whole 

 very uniform. There are a number of exclusively adver- 

 tised and well known brands of chick feed and scratching^ 

 feed that a poultryman can buy with the same confidence 

 with which he buys a reliable brand of flour. Whether 

 that particular brand will suit him as well as another canr 

 only be ascertained by trial, but he can rely on its contain- 

 ing nothing in itself harmful. The same with the mixtures- 

 frequently made and sold locally. A reputable house tries to> 

 serve its trade well. If it makes mistakes, they are honest 

 mistakes, which it corrects as soon as they are pointed out. 



Where then is the need of judgment on the part of the 

 buyer ? Right here : Suppose he gets a hold of a lot of 

 food of a well known brand not up to quality for that 

 brand, lacking, we will say, in some one of the important 

 items in the mixture. Trusting implicitly in the reputa- 

 tion of the goods, he may not notice what is lacking in this- 

 lot until he has occasion to look for a reason for his chicks- 

 not doing as well as usual. It takes time then to correct 

 the trouble, and the loss through check in development is- 

 one that cannot be made up. I emphasize such points as- 

 this because it cannot be too strongly impressed on the 

 beginner in poultry culture, that no merit in breed, feed r 

 or method is so sure and unchangeable that he can rely 

 absolutely upon it. On the contrary experience with good 

 fowls, foods, and methods should educate and train a poul- 

 tryman's judgment and make him self-reliant, and he misses* 



