29 



BULLETIN OF 

 MASSACHUSETTS BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. 



SOME INEXPEXSIVE WAYS OF MAKING FARM POULTRY 

 MORE PROFITABLE. 



By . John IT. Robinson, Editor Furtn- Poultry, Boston, ifass. 



In the issue of this bulletin for August. 1901, I urged upon the 

 farmers of Massachusetts the im[)ortance of poultry keeping as a 

 branch of diversified farming. In this paper I want to sliow some 

 ways of making poultry keeping more profitable than it usually is 

 when so conducted, giving attention especially to the possibilities 

 of improving stock and increasing profits with comparatively small 

 expenditure of either money or labor. 



First and most important of these is the application of the 

 principle of selection, — the great first principle in the breeding 

 of all kinds of live stock. 



Perhaps we can arrive at a better appreciation of the use we as 

 poultrymen can make of this principle, if we take space here to 

 consider briefly some differences between natural selection as it 

 operates in the evolution of wild animals and plants, and artificial 

 selection as it is used in the culture of domestic plants and animals. 

 Natural selection operates very slowly ; to accomplish marked 

 results, it requires long periods of time. Artificial selection, 

 when intelligently directed, advances along the lines marked out 

 for it with a rapidity which often appears little short of miraculous. 

 But natural selection moves steadily onward, and is not easily 

 deprived of its gains ; while the gains quickly made by artificial 

 selection are as quickly lost, unless great care is exercised to 

 prevent such loss. 



It is because close selection is required to maintain as well as to 

 make development that every poultry keeper needs to be fully 

 awake to the importance of selection as an every-day, working 



