PREFACE 



Ten years ago aviculture had hardly been thought of as a 

 school subject. To-day it is taught in thousands of schools, and 

 in some states instruction in poultry culture is required by law. 

 This rapid change in sentiment and situation has resulted from 

 a combination of causes. When agricultural colleges established 

 poultry departments, it was found that a large part of those 

 applying for admission to them had neither the practical knowl- 

 edge of poultry nor the general education that they needed to do 

 work of college grade. About this time also the interest in nature 

 study began to take a more practical turn, and attention was 

 directed to the superiority of domesticated to wild animals and 

 plants as material for school studies of the phenomena of physi- 

 cal life. Added to these special causes was a general cause more 

 potent than either : great numbers of people had reached the stage 

 of experience in various lines of aviculture where they realized 

 keenly that a little sound instruction in the subject in youth would 

 have been of great value to them later in life, saving them from 

 costly mistakes. To these people it seemed both natural and nec- 

 essary that the schools should teach poultry and pigeon culture. 



Developing as the result of such a combination of causes, the 

 demand for an elementary textbook on poultry came with equal 

 force from country schools, where poultry might be kept on the 

 school grounds as well as by every pupil at home, from city 

 schools, in which all instruction must be by book, and from all 

 types of schools and conditions of life between. Had there been 

 only the extreme classes of schools to consider, the natural way 

 to supply the demand would be with a special book for each 

 distinct type of school. The idea of one book for all schools, 



445045 



