32 



flock, and who will observe the small proportion of only fair-sized fowls, 

 must admit that there are grounds for it, We need not, however, 

 depend merely on observation. Here is an illustration. A few years 

 ago 1 had a lot of Light Brahma hens I wanted to sell in a bunch, and 

 at once, in order to get them out of the way. I could not sell them to 

 any of the local buyers because the}- were too large for their trade, so I 

 asked a buyer in a section the other side of Boston, where Brahmas 

 were bred more than any other fowl, if he could use them. He agreed 

 to take them, and turned the deal over to a Somerville buyer who some- 

 times made trips to my town. 



The lot of hens sold weighed at this time only a little over seven 

 pounds apiece, live weight. They had been laying heavily for between 

 six and seven months and wei'e not in good condition. Four months 

 before they were sold they would have averaged better than nine 

 pounds, many of the hens weighing when in good condition ten to ten 

 and a half pounds. When the man who came for them was weighing 

 them he remarked that they wei*e the heaviest and largest hens he had 

 had for a couple of years. 



Talking about weights of poultry, one thing led to another until 

 finally he asked : " What do you suppose is the average weight of the 

 foAvls we buy?" I guessed, "About five pounds." "Well," said he, 

 " the most of the hens we get weigh three to three and a half pounds. 

 Hens that weigh four to five pounds we call large hens, and we get 

 very few lots that will average four pounds." 



Since then I have taken some pains to learn fi'om other buyers, and 

 to see for myself as I went about among poultry keepers, whether his 

 statements wei'e correct, and I have to conclude that they were, and that 

 the average fowl of to-day is but a slight improvement over the best 

 ordinary fowls of sixty or seventy years ago. Why is it? I think the 

 answer is, there has not been the improvement of poultry generally that 

 there ought to be because the farmer is so seldom a poultry breeder. 



That does not indicate that farmers as a class are different from other 

 poultry keepers. The ordinary poultry keeper, even the ordinaiy fancier, 

 is not, strictly speaking, a breeder. But inasmuch as the farmers pro- 

 duce by far the greater part of the country's supply of poultr}' and eggs 

 (some authorities say nine-tenths of it), what farmers generall3' do or 

 fail to do with regard to poultry is of vastly more importance than 

 what the rest of the poulti'y keepers do or neglect to do ; for if all the 

 other poultry keepers by general consent should adopt a course which 

 would greatly improve their stocks of fowls, the efi"ect on the whole 

 market product would be small as compared with the results if half or 

 even a third of the farmers were to jjursue the same course. 



Most people who raise poultry are just poultry grotvers. They hatch 

 the eggs of such stock as they happen to have. They keep on, year 

 after year, reproducing fowls, without any definite ideas as to the par- 

 ticular points of excellence which it would be desirable to establish in 

 their stock. They interest themselves little if at all in the principles of 

 breeding. They follow no definite system. If they use some pure bred 

 stock they give no special attention to jH-eserving its characteristics. 

 Oftener, indeed, such special attention as they give it is in the line of 



