4 POULTRY CULTURE 



sources than the annual income from poultry will, as a rule, find it 

 to his advantage to leave it ; for he is not likely to learn there to 

 do a profitable day's work in a day, and he is likely to acquire 

 habits of work and an attitude toward his work which permanently 

 impair his efficiency. 



Collateral reading. Only carefully selected standard books and 

 papers should be used. Indiscriminate reading of poultry literature 

 is a hindrance oftener than a help. The fictions of poultry culture 

 are mostly plausible and generally more alluring than the facts, 

 and the usual result of much reading in advance of a thorough 

 grounding in principles is an accumulation of obsolete and imprac- 

 ticable ideas. The danger of this is greatest to the independent 

 student, who lacks the opportunity of the college student to refer 

 to instructors for opinions on matters which attract his attention as 

 he reads. In the present state of knowledge of the subject it 

 cannot be expected that even those who may be classed as good 

 authorities will agree at all points, but the seeming disagreements 

 of authorities are often due to partial statements, and disappear 

 when a full statement is made. On the whole there is little of 

 direct importance to a novice in poultry culture about which 

 authorities are not substantially agreed. 



Technical terms and definitions. These have hitherto been 

 given scant attention by writers on poultry. Most of the terms 

 have been taken from common usage and are generally very loosely 

 used. Many terms constantly used in a technical sense have been 

 neither defined nor applied with precision by writers on the sub- 

 ject. In this book such terms as require definition will be defined 

 either in the text or in the footnotes, when first used, and each 

 term used thereafter only in accordance with the definition. 



