35 



most their parents and in what respects, and which come nearest 

 the type of the breed. Study all the characteristics, with the 

 idea of learning which birda to select for future breeders. (It is 

 not best here to enter into a discourse upon the principles of breed- 

 ing, but any one especially interested will find something bearing 

 upon this subject in the twelfth and thirteenth annual reports of the 

 Rhode Island Agricultural Experiment Station.) In the poultry 

 business it is rarely best to have but one string to your bow. In 

 exceptional cases it may be well to depend almost wholly upon 

 the sale of eggs for the income, in others to raise broilers, young 

 roasters or mature fowls for the market ; but usually it is well to 

 combine some or all of these, and to also sell eggs for hatching, 

 and dispose of surplus high-class birds for breeders. Combine as 

 many sources of income as are profitable, and push the lines that 

 are most remunerative. It is witli this idea in mind that I have 

 strongly advised the purchase of the finest fowls obtainable. The 

 next step is to improve them, which can be done if the poultry- 

 man will persist in his study of the individual fowls, watch the 

 results of his matings, learn to trace cause and effect, and provide 

 better surroundings and conditions than the fowls have previously 

 been accustomed to. 



Hatching and raising the Chicks. 



If only one hundred or two hundred chicks are to be raised 

 each year, it is certainly a safe and wise plan to depend upon 

 hens to do the hatching and brooding. Pullets which prove to 

 be good sitters and mothers may usually be depended upon to 

 do still better in these respects the next year. If a hen house or 

 room in some farm building is available, an excellent plan is to 

 place a large number of nests in it, and devote the same to the 

 exclusive use of the sitting hens during the hatching season. 

 Orange crates or soap boxes will answer for nests if the poultry- 

 man wishes to be very economical. Each nest should be provided 

 with a lattice door in front. I like the idea of placing in the box 

 two or three inches of loam beneath the nesting material, which 

 usually consists of soft hay or cut straw. If convenient, move 

 the broody hens at night to their new nests, and allow them to sit 

 for a day on nest eggs, unless you are sure enough of their good 

 character as sitters to immediately place under them the eggs 

 which they are to incubate. Remove the hens from their nests 

 daily at a regular time, supplying them with fresh water, whole 

 corn or other grain, and provide an abundance of dry, fine soil, 

 so that the fowls can freely and fully dust themselves. Use plenty 

 of Pyrethrum powder or other insect destroyer in the nests and on 



