LESSONS IN POULTRY KEEPING. 117 



How to Learn to Feed in the Natural Way. 



To acquire skill in feeding fowls one must practice feeding, closely observe results, and use 

 his ju Jgment. Suppose I tell a boy that to project a ball through the air for a given distance 

 a certain amount of energy must be applied, and applied in such a way that the ball, moving 

 with the velocity given it, muist describe a certain arc as it moves through the air. A scientist 

 who perhaps could not throw a ball within two rods of the spot he desired it to reach might 

 have figured out all about energy, velocity, etc., applying to the movement of the ball; but 

 what g-ood would it do to tell all this to the boy? And what boy in his senses w r ould think of 

 <:oing out to play ball, and, as he prepared for the first throw, stopping to say to himself, "I 

 must put into this throw just so much strength, and the ball must leave my hand at just such 

 an elevation?" No, the boy takes the ball and throws it at the point he wishes it to reach. The 

 accuracy of his aim depends mostly on his previous experience and skill in that line. If he 

 misses, he tries again, and without being very conscious of its efforts, his mind, too, works all 

 the time, comparing each throw with others, and estimating differences and gradually bringing 

 the muscles under control so that before long the boy is sending the ball to the mark every 

 time, and he may acquire marvelous control of the ball, not only in accurate throwing and in 

 speed, but in throwing it so that its path shall be eccentric, or its speed changed in seeming 

 defiance of nature's laws as it flies through the air. And all this he does without either know- 

 ing or caring anything about the scientific expressions of the various features of his perform- 

 ance. There is practically no limit to the number of illustrations that might be made on this 

 pointo Every line of work and every sport abounds in them. 



When men work with machines, or with problems in which all necessary quantities and 

 conditions are known, they may be guided more by set laws and rules, but even in such cases 

 experience and trained judgment and skill are essential to superior work. In handling live 

 stock it is impossible to follow arbitrary rules and get the results the rules anticipate with the 

 uniformity that would justify such use of rules. The poultry feeder has to learn by experi- 

 ment and observation how much to feed and when and how to vary his rations. 



Nothing Hard About It. 



From what has been said of the composition of the common grain foods, and of the functions 

 of appetite and the capacity of the system of the fowl to adapt the food given it to its require- 

 ments, the reader may see that experiment and observation on poultry feeding do not neces- 

 sarily mean intricate and puzzling processes. On the contrary they are simple and easy, 

 requiring only very ordinary attention, just such attention in fact as must be given to any 

 process or work requiring some exercise of judgment. 



The greatest obstacle to learning to feed poultry well is that so many amateurs are wholly 

 self trained, and are taught through books and papers, and such teaching and training cannot 

 be anything like as effective as personal instruction. In addition to this the poultry keeper who 

 begins in mature life to learn poultry keeping, and who is trying to learn and to make it pay at 

 the same time, feels the effect of his errors and inefficiency much more than does one who 

 learns while working for someone else. That is one reason why I always urge people going 

 into poultry keeping to begin in a small way and increase very slowly. It takes time to acquire 

 skill in feeding, and it is terribly expensive to practice on large stocks of fowls. 



Another thing to consider is that the results of feeding are sometimes dependent upon or 

 affected by circumstances which the novice either fails to see as in any way related to the feed- 



