SF//7 



AGRIC. 



LIBRARY 



PREFACE 



TO THE TWENTIETH EDITION. 



TN offering the First Edition of this Work to the public, the 

 then unknown author of it stated as its object, the provision 

 of such practical details, simply and practically set forth, as 

 might be "put into the hands of a person totally ignorant 

 of poultry-keeping, with the reasonable certainty that its 

 instructions, if followed, would command success." He did not 

 think, and does not now think, that such a Work then existed; 

 and accordingly ventured to hope that such an attempt might 

 be well received. 



The exhaustion of nineteen editions, in about twelve years, 

 is sufficient proof that, upon the whole, THE PRACTICAL 

 POULTRY KEEPER has answered its intended purpose. No 

 book on the same subject has probably ever had such a wide 

 circulation : the people for whom it was written have both 

 understood and welcomed it, in a way no one feels more than 

 the writer of these lines. 



But the lapse of so long a period has at length brought 

 about the necessity for extensive revision. Minor corrections, 

 it is true, have been made from time to time, in points of 

 detail. But the last ten years have seen great changes in 

 the poultry world, which such corrections can no longer 



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