52 THE BEGINNER IN POULTRY 



as good," the fact remains that white diarrhoea most 

 commonly attacks broods of incubator chicks. More- 

 over, the spirit of the age has no use for the " just as 

 good " article ; it wants the best to be had. When any 

 one at all familiar with hatching conditions will declare 

 positively, as Mr. Milo Hastings has done, "It has been 

 thoroughly demonstrated that with good parentage, good 

 incubation, and good brooder conditions, white diarrhoea 

 is unknown," it becomes entirely a question of the man 

 back of the work, if we admit that these affirmations 

 are true. Hastings places all diseases of poultry in 

 three divisions : (a) those inborn ; () those induced by 

 unfavorable conditions, whether of food or of environ- 

 ment ; (c) those which are due to noxious bacteria. The 

 last would include all the contagious diseases, those 

 which are endemic, etc. 



It, has been said that excessive cost of production and 

 excessive losses in raising the stock cover much of the 

 reason; for failure, when that comes. It goes without 

 saying that no man sets out, in any business, to be a 

 failure ; he sets out to be the exceptionally successful one. 

 He may not be aware of this, but it is in "the back of 

 his mind." 



If you, then, who read these lines, expect to be a 

 success, it is necessary that you do work that is above 

 average in giving your chicks a heritage of health and 

 vigor, and in surrounding them with favorable conditions 

 as to food, sanitation, etc. "Just as good" positively 

 will not do ! I think the greatest difficulty the novice 

 poultry raiser meets is in finding some one "reliable " on 

 whom to rely. Down at the bottom, however, it is too 

 often the worker himself who is not sufficiently reliable. 



