104 THE BEGINNER IN POULTRY 



H. Kellogg, states that we have an average of about 

 three million sick persons in this country, all the time, 

 and that, of this number, just about one half are need- 

 lessly ill, because of dissipation, or excess, or overeat- 

 ing, etc. If this is the best man can do for himself, 

 what hope is there 'that he will do better with his 

 stock ? Just this, it seems to me : that he can restrain 

 his stock from excess and lack of judgment in eating, 

 when he cannot (so he says) restrain himself. In rig- 

 orous selection of conditions, and in sanitation, then, 

 lies man's power to bury tJie great problem, instead of 

 burying his ailing fowls. 



Some of the older poultrymen, speaking out of bitter 

 experience, insistently proclaim that the ax is the best 

 medicine. But this is made to refer to individual cases 

 of disease, which are constantly cropping out in some 

 flocks. It may be only putting the matter in a different 

 form to say that culling out weak specimens between 

 breeding seasons is the best way to raise the average 

 health of the flock. These come to the ax, or its equiv- 

 alent, of course. But in the case of culling only as in- 

 dividuals develop disease, throughout the season, one is 

 very likely to raise progeny from some of. the weaker 

 fowls, to take their places and to inherit their woes an- 

 other season. The method of allowing none but lusty 

 individuals to go into the stock flock at all, cuts off at 

 the outset the possibility of getting descendants from 

 the weaklings. It is the only sensible and sure way. 



This is not saying that one will thus cut off all possi- 

 bility of disease. But it makes more difference than 

 the breeder who has not tried it could well believe. It 

 is very common, in average flocks, to lose four or five 



