76 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



they become weak. It takes me some time to get them used 

 to close confinement. I have several hens that are over eight 

 years old that are good layers now, and yet they never ranged 

 in their lives. My new house is 50 by 16 feet outside, with a 

 roof very steep ; rafters 16 feet long, — a very important point, 

 — and my room 6 by 12 inside, and my outside runs are 3| and 

 2| by 12, covered with slats. My chickens are kept fifty 

 together until they are three weeks old, and then I keep thirty 

 together until they lay. Mr. Felch says it will be necessary to 

 separate the two genders in from four to six months after they 

 are hatched. He knows very well that Leghorns have to be 

 separated in that number of weeks, instead of months. There 

 is abundant evidence that no Leghorns of any color will be 

 good for anything, either pullets or cockerels, if allowed to 

 run together until they are four months old, for at the age of 

 four weeks, the cockerels are treading not only the pullets but 

 the mother. I always take my cockerels, when they are three 

 or four weeks old, and put them by themselves, about thirty 

 together, and put the pullets together by themselves, and in 

 that way I get very fine poultry from my Leghorn cockerels. 

 AVhere they are allowed to run with the pullets, the cockerels 

 do not make good poultry, nor the pullets good layers. 



In former times, it was thought that it was impossible to 

 breed chickens without a large range, and that a person must 

 have a big farm if he was going to have a thousand chickens. 

 I commenced with less than a sixteenth of an acre, and raised 

 a thousand chickens in one year. They did not go off of that 

 sixteenth of an acre until they were three months old, and 

 they were separated and placed in covered runs, two and 

 one-half feet high, three and one-half feet wide, and twelve 

 feet long, covering about a quarter of an acre, where they 

 remained until they went into their houses. Since then, I have 

 raised three thousand chickens on the same ground, and have 

 had no disease, unless when brought from some exhibition. 



I farm chickens for their manure, and whether I get any- 

 thing else or not, they do not cost me anything. I make 

 their droppings pay their expenses. I do not say I could do 

 this by raising corn or potatoes, although good authorities 

 (George E. Warner for one) say it can be done ; but if you 

 raise strawberries, tobacco, or some other of the better paying 



