198 A YEAR IN AGRICULTURE 



The principles of feeding, breeding, and general care are 

 the same for poultry as for other kinds of live stock, and may 

 be studied with practical demonstrations in any school. 



The hen as an efficient machine of production. Poultry 

 raising is one of the most profitable branches of animal hus- 

 bandry. All our domestic animals are kept on the farm for 

 the purpose of converting the products of the soil into animal 

 products, and tests that have been carefully made by differ- 

 ent experiment stations show that there is no class of domes- 

 tic animals that converts the grains, forages, and waste prod- 

 ucts of the farm and the insect pests of our crops so eco- 

 nomically into animal foods as does the hen. Three and a 

 half pounds of grain, fed from the time the chick is hatched 

 up to the time it weighs from four to six pounds, is required 

 for one pound of chicken. It takes five or six pounds of food 

 to make a pound of pork, which is the next cheapest meat. 



The standard farm breeds and their special points of 

 excellence. Our economic fowls may be divided into three 

 general classes: 



(a) The type known as the egg class, or Mediterraneans, 

 generally small, light birds, including Leghorns, Anconas, and 

 Minorcas. These are of special interest to the poultry keeper 

 because they produce a pure white egg. They have been 

 developed for egg production. They are often spoken of as 

 the egg fowls, but they are not really the greatest egg pro- 

 ducers, as some fowls of other breeds produce just as many 

 eggs. The point that makes them especially popular is that 

 eastern markets, such as New York City, Philadelphia, and 

 also the Pacific coast, will pay more for a pure white egg 



