No. 4.] POULTRY KKEPING. 65 



iiiiuul is limited. However, for stock capable of winning 

 in the sharpest competition there is always a good demand 

 at high prices. 



The meat breeds for the poultry producer, the Mediter- 

 ranean or American breeds for eggs, any pure breeds of first 

 quality for the fancier, — but what for the farmer ? My 

 first answer is, pure-breds of the variety fitted for the pur- 

 pose and the conditions under which they are kept. For the 

 florist or the market gardener, or one living in a thickly 

 settled conmiunity, where fowls at large would lead to neigh- 

 borhood infelicities, I should advise against keeping the 

 Leghorn type, which are with the greatest difficulty kept 

 inside of enclosed yards, unless covered. For the general 

 farmer and the specialist, as the gardener or the florist whose 

 demand is limited to an egg supply and an occasional fowl 

 for his table, the pure-bred is not essential. In fact, it is 

 believed by many practical poultrymen who produce eggs 

 alone that a cross-bred bird has a greater constitutional vigor 

 and egg-producing capacity than any of the pure breeds. 

 This is unquestionably true in many instances, but not 

 in every case. In my opinion, within reasonable limits the 

 egg-producing quality is as much or more a characteristic 

 of a particular strain as it is of the breed. 



The work of the late Professor Gowell of the Maine Ex- 

 periment State, as reviewed in Bulletin iSTo. 157, relative 

 to breeding to increase egg production, is of the greatest 

 interest to every one engaged in poultry culture. 



Briefly, his experiment consisted in selecting for breeding 

 purposes the best layers of a flock, as determined by the 

 use of trap nests, and mating them with males from hens 

 laying over 200 eggs per year, expecting by this method to 

 obtain after a few years a strain of heavy layers capable of 

 producing a larger average number of eggs per year than 

 the original stock. After nine years' work along this line, 

 it was found " that the general trend of average annual egg 

 production has been slightly downward throughout the 

 course of the experiment." Since the death of Professor 

 Growell the station has planned an experiment along similar 

 lines carried on by him, but taking into consideration in the 



