No. 4.] FARM POULTRY. 395 



SOME INEXPENSIVE WAYS OF MAKING FARM 

 POULTRY MORE PROFITABLE. 



BY JOHN H. ROBINSON, EDITOR "FARM POULTRY," BOSTON, MASS. 



In the crop bulletin for August, 1901,* I urged upon the 

 farmers of Massachusetts the importance of poultry keeping 

 as a branch of diversified farming. In this paper I want to 

 show some ways of making poultry keeping more profitable 

 than it usually is when so conducted, giving attention espe- 

 cially to the possibilities of improving stock and increasing 

 profits with comparatively small expenditure of either money 

 or labor. 



First and most important of these is the application of 

 the principle of selection, — the great first principle in the 

 breeding of all kinds of live stock. 



Perhaps we can arrive at a better appreciation of the use 

 we as poultrymen can make of this principle, if we take 

 space here to consider briefly some differences between 

 natural selection as it operates in the evolution of wild 

 animals and plants, and artificial selection as it is used in 

 the culture of domestic plants and animals. Natural selec- 

 tion operates very slowly ; to accomplish marked results, it 

 requires long periods of time. Artificial selection, when 

 intelligently directed, advances along the lines marked out 

 for it with a rapidity which often appears little short of 

 miraculous. But natui-al selection moves steadily onward, 

 and is not easily deprived of its gains ; while the gains 

 quickly made by artificial selection are as quickly lost, 

 unless great care is exercised to prevent such loss. 



It is because close selection is required to maintain as 

 well as to make development that every poultry keeper 

 needs to be fully awake to the importance of selection as 



an every-day, working principle. Many seem to appreciate 



^ . 



* Agriculture of Massachusetts, 1901, page 416. 



