62 NATURE AND ITS 



never need to sell them to the market for meat, as I cannot 

 raise them fast enough for breeders. 



I get $5 to $15 each for cockerels and $2 to $10 for hens 

 and pullets. Eggs I sell at $2 to $5 per thirteen and the 

 hens lay well up to three years of age. When other hens 

 lay only forty eggs a year a three-year-old Black Langshan 

 will lay 100 or more. Now this is a matter of experience 

 and record. No prouder fowl lives. They are fine appear- 

 ing with their glossy black feathers and the green sheen ad- 

 mired by all who see them. They weigh from eight to eleven 

 pounds when one year old. If you want to make dollars 

 and cents the year round try them. 



What One Hen Can Do. 



She can clear you $10 a year. This is how it can be done 

 with fifty hens. One pure bred hen, bred for laying will lay 

 over 200 eggs a year. You can sell one-half of the eggs for 

 the market, because in the fall and winter you cannot sell 

 eggs for hatching at any price, because nobody hatches 

 chicks at that time of the year. 



Now we will set all the eggs this one hen lays between 

 February and July. This gives us say 150 days for her to 

 lay 100 eggs. This she can do if she is from a laying strain. 

 Those 100 eggs set under other hens while she is laying, and 

 if she should want to set break her from it, and in a few 

 days she will go to laying again. Now set all the eggs she 

 lays, 100 of them, and seventy-five will hatch chicks, and say 

 you raise only fifty of them. Now, those fifty will sell for 

 twenty-five cents each on the market when they are three 

 months old on the average. Fifty chicks at twenty-five 

 cents each is $12.50. The cost to feed the hen and these 

 fifty chicks is, say $2.50. This makes $10 net over all costs 

 for one hen, without considering the eggs sold in the fall 

 and winter. If you sell the chicks when six months old you 

 get more for them. If you have good stock and advertise it 

 you can sell them from $2 to $5 each and make $100 clear on 



