FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS A TRIO. 67 



them using only what we call native or mongrel stock. This, 

 I believe, is a mistake, for the thoroughbred is worth as much, 

 and many of the breeds far more, for this practical work ; 

 and should all use the thoroughbred, killing as now they do 

 one-third for poultry, using the poorer number left to produce 

 eggs for the market, using as breeders only the best they 

 raise, selling only for breeding purposes when a fair price 

 (say from two dollars and fifty cents to ten dollars each) could 

 be realized, they would in this way raise the standard and 

 come to realize that in every twelve fowls they kept they 

 had the value of a cow, and, caring for them as well, they 

 would find they paid as well. 



Show me a farmer who is conscious of capital invested in 

 his fowls, and I will show you a farmer who makes money out 

 of them. The greater the number raised, the higher the price 

 you will be able to command for the best individual speci- 

 mens. This has proved true in cattle. (See history of Short- 

 horn cattle in America.) It is every day being repeated in 

 fowls. Twenty-five years ago, I sold Light Brahmas at one 

 dollar each, and the price was considered a fair one, the 

 native then selling for thirty-three cents. When the price 

 increased to twenty-five dollars per trio, it became the town 

 talk; but in the past three years, when I have sold cockerels 

 at one hundred dollars each, and trios at one hundred and fifty 

 dollars, it has ceased to be a surprise, and really it is not in 

 keeping with bulls at seventeen thousand dollars each. I 

 expect to live to see specimens of superior excellence sold as 

 high as two hundred and fifty dollars. Already, in England, 

 five hundred dollars a trio has been realized. 



In setting up your boys in the business of practical poultry 

 keeping, or for breeding for the thoroughbred market, it is 

 well that they have a motive and aim in view, — something 

 that will interest and instruct, as well as make them money. 

 I will therefore give my rule to secure improved type and 

 color in breeding, or how to establish a strain of such blood, 

 hoping by interesting them in the theory, to interest them in 

 the practical workings of it. 



The American people are lovers of " beauty " in everything ; 

 a beautiful horse, a beautiful cow, a beautiful fowl, all demand 

 a price far above those of equal merit that fail in symmetry. 



