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per cent of the flocks, save perhaps the Leghorns and Minorcas, 

 might be wiped out of existence and greater profit realized by the 

 State. We carry altogether too much dead wood in our poultry 

 yards. From the close of the hatching season until it opens again, 

 males are a positive injury in the flock. Their sole value lies in 

 their power to fertilize eggs, and fertilized eggs, outside of the 

 hatching season, are an abomination. Consumers want fresh eggs, 

 and as decay commences in the dead germ, the importance of non- 

 fertilized eggs for the market must be realized. Eggs from hens 

 running free from males will, if cared for, keep fresh nearly twice 

 as long as the same eggs fertilized. Poultry should be made to 

 play a more important part in fertilizing the crops, and by floor- 

 ings under the roosts and the sweeping of the droppings daily into 

 a pail or basket where they can be carried to a dry storeroom and 

 mixed with dry earth, muck or plaster, a most valuable fertilizer 

 will be obtained. 



No hen should be kept after two years old unless wanted solely 

 as a breeder, and it is better to send to market at the close of the 

 first year's laying season. A sharp distinction may well be made 

 between keeping a flock from which to breed and one simply to 

 produce eggs for the market. In the multiplicity of breeds there 

 is danger of losing rather than gaining, all depending upon the 

 appreciation by the individual breeder. We have reached a point 

 where production in good-sized flocks should exceed twelve dozen 

 per head yearly. This can be realized only by a sharp weeding 

 out of the one hundred egg hens. It practically costs as much to 

 keep a six dozen as a twelve dozen hen. If our flocks were cleared 

 of all surplus males and worthless females, of all old, sick, infirm 

 and valueless stock, the saving would be enormous. Many a flock 

 of hens is being kept at no profit simply because their owner is 

 loading the producers with a burden of waste stock which eats up 

 all the profit. 



In all breeding we have first the tendency, then the habit ; the 

 habit follows the tendency, and therefore it is in the earlier state 

 that control is easiest and most successful. In spite of this, the 

 great majority of flocks grown this year will be allowed to run 

 together, males and females, with the one thought of size and fat 

 on the part of the males, forgetting that the pullets mature earlier, 

 that fat is an obstacle to egg production and the natural tendencies 

 are unconsciously being turned into habits of fat forming. Viewing 

 the question as an economic problem, these conditions are all to be 

 noted as helps or hindrances to success. Grow the cockerels for 

 the end you desire them to reach, but think of every pullet as a 

 possible profit bearer to you and let her mature with no thought 



