No. 4.] POULTRY KEEPING. 115 



that of any lloek of pullets on our jjlace. What they shall 

 accomplish is yet to be seen, but exact accounts are being kept 

 of both eggs and feed. From these experiences we have been 

 led again and again to say, " j^ever kill a good hen, no matter 

 how old she may be; never keep a poor one, no matter how 

 young. " 



A careful examination of the photograph of " Old Beauty " 

 (Fig. 8) will show that the form of the ideal laying hen is 

 quite similar to that of the ideal dairy cow; long in the back, 

 deep and full at the breast, and sloping to a great depth be- 

 hind. This we believe opens a toi^ic too vast for our discus- 

 sion here, viz., the determining of a good hen by shape and 

 other features. The good hen certainly exists. She should 

 never be killed while good. She is a mint of gold on the small 

 farm or in any other place. May^ every small farmer in 

 Massachusetts find pleasurable profits in putting his own per- 

 sonality into pens, pastures, provender and poultry, that shall 

 help him to succeed as few other industries in this old Bay 

 State can ever help him to do. 



Before leaving the subject, we would say that there are two 

 matters we have purposely left untouched; they are too ex- 

 tensive for complete treatment at this time. They are incuba- 

 tion and location. The matter of incubating and brooding 

 chicks is one depending so largely on the tastes of the poultry- 

 man, and successful under such a diversity of conditions, that 

 no one man can do more than tell his own way. We make it 

 a practice to set twenty-five hens and a two-hundred-and-fifty- 

 egg incubator at the same time, and give all the chicks to 

 " Biddy " to brood. By this means, with two incubators set 

 each three times, accompanied by about two hundred hens set 

 in a large sitting room in the loft of our barn, we are easily 

 able to get what chicks we need on a small farm. These we 

 give to " Biddy " in our Maine " handy houses " and portable 

 coops in a large pasture sown with rape, grass and seed corn. 



The best location for poultry keeping seems to us to be any- 

 where where the sun shines and the grass grows. As far as 

 possible, choose pastures with running water in them, and 

 some shade, not too much exposed to the wind. Were we, in 

 closing, to give our best advice to 'some farmer who wished 



