No. 4.] POULTRY KEEPING. Ill 



any day. This wc attribute very largely to rape and good 

 pasture. 



But our fifth " P " is not all the feed a fowl must have. 

 She must also have — 



Our sixth ^' P," viz., provender; and with our present 

 prices this is the most difficult " P " in the whole '^ mess " to 

 get. For years we have made it our rule to try every promis- 

 ing feed of which we could learu, for our hens ; and the result 

 has been the choice of a dry mash feed of our own, which has 

 proved the most profitable, from every view-point, of any we 

 have ever used. We feed from April to October daily two 

 quarts of cracked corn to every fifty hens, this to be scattered 

 broadcast over their entire pasture ; also, keep the boxes filled 

 with dry mash, and water and oyster shells within reach. 

 This is all the care they get, except cleaning the houses, which 

 our neighbors would be glad to pay "for the privilege of doing, 

 for the manure. We also gather the eggs. 



Dry mash for summer : one dish good beef scraps ; two 

 dishes good corn meal or hominy; four dishes best mixed 

 wheat feed. Mix and keep constantly before hens. 



In October we change our mash, and increase the quantity 

 of cracked corn to four quarts to fifty hens, fed before sunset 

 in litter, 3 o'clock p.m.^ preferably. This, with shells and 

 mash, is their entire winter feed. 



Dry mash for winter : one dish good beef scraps ; two dishes 

 good alfalfa meal ; two dishes good corn meal or hominy. 



We now come to the seventh and last ^^ P," the poultry. 

 This includes two subjects, breeds and birds. The breed of 

 poultry a man can most profitably keep depends not on the 

 breed, but on the man himself, and his market and surround- 

 ings. As no man on earth has the best wife, except for him- 

 self, so there is no best variety of fowls, except as adapted 

 to one man's conditions. Thirty-five years ago we were for 

 the first time given complete charge of a flock of poultry. 

 This flock contained representatives of two up-to-date pure 

 breeds. Since that day we have had charge of birds of nearly 

 every one of our best known utility breeds, and as a result 

 have discovered the one which to us seems most satisfactory to 

 our needs. These we breed constantly. But, while we have 



