FUNDAMENTALS OF FEEDING 223 



the farmer and the fowl, if the highest production is to be 

 secured. 



The Purpose of Feeding is not merely to maintain the 

 fowl in health and vigor; she can take care of that herself 

 if given her liberty; the purpose of feeding is to secure 

 higher production, and that is possible only where the food 

 supply is sufficient and regular for the needs of the hen. 

 Account must be taken of the nature of the hen. She must 

 be fed artificially, but artificial foods or nutrients must not 

 be substituted for the foods obtained naturally. Neither 

 may a life of ease be substituted for her natural life of ac- 

 tivity. She is a creature of great nervous activity and the 

 poultryman must take account of that also and in his feeding 

 make sure that the activity or exercise is provided. Nature 

 calls for food of certain kinds and for activity or exercise 

 that will make the food efficient in production. We cannot 

 improve on the kinds of foods, nor do away with activity. 

 But the intense production called for in the modern im- 

 proved egg-producing hen calls for systems of feeding that 

 will furnish unfailingly a full supply of all the food 

 nutrients demanded by the fowl. 



Composition of Foods. This does not mean that the 

 feeder must limit himself to weed seeds and bugs and grass- 

 hoppers. Wheat and corn are made up of the same in- 

 gredients as wild weed seeds, namely, protein, fat, carbohy- 

 drates; so the modern meat scraps contain the same ele- 

 ments as grasshoppers and worms. The difference is that 

 we furnish the vegetable protein, carbohydrates and fat, in 

 the form of wheat and corn instead of weed seeds, and the 

 animal protein and fat in the form of meat scraps rather 

 than in the form of bugs and insects. 



The Mineral Matter called ash, which is that part of the 

 food that remains after burning, is found in varied amounts 

 in all foods. The hen is a concentrator ; she takes the min- 



