No. 4.] FARM POULTRY. 401 



Aside from the special i)oiiltry farms and the farms of 

 farmers "vvho are fanciers, there are few farms, either in 

 JNIassachusetts or in any other State, Avhere selection and 

 separation of breeding stock is practised. Still there are 

 a few, and their number is increasing ; and it is very rare 

 indeed to find any one who has given that method a fair 

 trial going back to the old way of haphazard breeding. 

 That way is too wasteful for people who need to be econom- 

 ical, as every one should be in poultry keeping ; for profit 

 in poultry depends very much on economy in production. 



In the first place, the haphazard way involves those who 

 use it in quite an expense for superfluous male birds. For 

 one hundred hens there must, as a rule, be six or eight 

 males : with a less number there may sometimes be good 

 fertility in the eggs from the flock, but the nmnbers given 

 are more common. Now, if only twelve of the hens are 

 actually needed to produce eggs for hatching, one male is 

 enough to fertilize their eggs. We may set aside another, 

 to be held in reserve in case of an accident, or in case the 

 male used in the breeding pen fails to give satisfactory fer- 

 tility. All other males kept with the flock are superfluous. 

 The poultry-man who keeps superfluous males is "out" 

 just the cost of their food, plus the difl'erence between the 

 price of soft roasters and the price of old roosters on each 

 bird, — to say nothing of the occasional dead losses, result- 

 ing from quarrels of these pugnacious fowls. This is money 

 that might be saved, or put where it would earn some- 

 thing. 



A good way to use it is in the purchase of a male bird of 

 superior qualit}'. To most farmers the prices asked by 

 poultry breeders for males that are what the farmer ought 

 to have to improve his flock seem outrageous ; yet, even at 

 the high prices at which they are held, such birds, if prop- 

 erly and economicallj'^ used, would be much cheaper than 

 the kind the farmers too often buy, because the price is 

 more nearly what they think they ought to pay. 



I recall an instance illustrating this point nicely. It hap- 

 pened some years ago in Colorado, where the farmers on 

 ' • dry " farms or on irrigated farms having water rights of 



