PO UL TR r- CRAFT. 85 



Standard requirements. These prices have no relation to, are not at all 

 dependent upon, the practical qualities of the fowls. To build up a large and 

 permanent trade in stock of lower Standard merit, it is necessary that the stock 

 should be useful as well as beautiful. There is a large class of buyers who 

 select for superficial excellence, first, but are not long satisfied with such lack 

 of useful qualities as is sometimes found in high class stock. This class of 

 buyers is smaller than the next to be mentioned, but its members are willing 

 to pay much better prices for what they buy, and their patronage is, volume 

 for volume, more profitable. The largest demand is for fowls bred especially 

 for practical purposes, yet not noticeably deficient in Standard shape and color 

 requirements. Most of the buyers of such fowls cannot and will not pay 

 " fancy" prices. It is this last demand that most poultrymen are capable of 

 filling. The production of the finest Standard fowls requires a combination 

 of artistic perception and knowledge of the laws of breeding comparatively 

 rare. The production of fowls whose chief merits are measured by the dozen 

 and the pound, does not require extraordinary artistic faculty. The mediocre 

 talent which most of those who find fowls interesting possess, fits them to 

 supply first the demand for good practical stock, afterwards the demand for 

 fair exhibition stock of good practical worth, and this last demand will bring 

 them the cream of their profit. 



106. Selecting a Breed for the Farm. A farmer or farmeress 

 keeping fowls under the conditions found on the ordinary farm, wants fowls 

 that will rustle, will go out into the fields and meadows and pick a part of 

 their living. He wants a breed that is not in any way an oddity. To him 

 large crests, and heavily feathered legs, and monstrous combs are objectionable, 

 because he does not see that they serve any useful purpose. He feels that such 

 superfluities are out of place on the farm. As on most farms chickens are 

 hatched and reared in the natural way, the farmer's hens must, usually, be 

 sitters. It is generally of some importance, too, that the surplus poultry be of 

 good market quality. So that of pure bred fowls, the varieties of Plymouth 

 Rocks, and Wyandottes, and after them, White Wonders, and Rhode Island 

 Reds, are the most suitable for general farm flocks. 



On farms where poultry, without being a leading feature, is still a specialty, 

 the nature of that specialty may lead to the selection of a variety not in the 

 general purpose class. Asiatics are prime favorites on farms which make 

 something of a specialty of large roasters. Many farmers whose poultry 

 furnishes the greater part of their fresh meat in summer, prefer Asiatics, 

 because no other fowl is large enough to " make a meal." On some farms 

 Leghorns are preferred, because eggs are secured from them with less trouble 

 than from any other breed, they continuing to lay well for three or four years, 

 while heavier fowls, kept under the same conditions, would become overfat 

 and unproductive after their first annual moult. Just because the Leghorns 

 lay well for several years, it may be possible to keep a stock of several hundred 

 layers on a farm, where if nearly the whole stock had to be renewed yearly, 



