4U BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



from such sources, we must know what the conditions are, and allow 

 for personal bias and interest. 



In no feature of poultry culture is there so great confusion of ideas 

 at present as in the jiroblems of feeding. Poultry keepers were just 

 beginning to get well out of the mists which had been spread over 

 the whole subject by the advocates of scientifically balanced rations, 

 when their ideas were unsettled anew by the exploitation of "dry 

 feeding," and the projection of a new set of ideas into every discus- 

 sion of the question of feeding. I sometimes think that perhaps the 

 unsettled state of general knowledge and practice in the matter of 

 feeding is as much to blame as anything else for the poor results in 

 laying and hatching which have been so general in the last four years; 

 but that is a point difficult to prove, and getting its strongest con- 

 firmation by antdogy from the fact that when the individual poultry- 

 man is in such uncertainty on any point, his average results in matters 

 on which it has any considerable influence are likely to be unsatis- 

 factory. 



A poultry keeper who is interested in getting better results from 

 his poultry, who is interested iii what others are doing, who is always 

 looking for improvement, could not fail to be interested in all these 

 various ideas about, and theories of, feeding, even if he could avoid 

 learning of them, which is practically impossible for such a man. And, 

 learning of these ideas and theories, few can escai:)e being influenced 

 by them. They may not appeal strongly to one with whom poultry 

 affairs are progressing satisfactorily; but as soon as there is occasion 

 for dissatisfaction, as soon as things begin to go wrong, and he can 

 assign no satisfactory reason for it, the poultryman finds himself 

 beginning to ask what there is in this or the other idea or theory for 

 which some claim so much. 



In every case, even in those in which there are absurd develop- 

 ments of the foundation ideas or facts, there is a basis of truth and 

 reasonableness upon which to build. The difficulty is not with ideas 

 that are all wrong and theories that are all false, but with those that 

 offer good ideas and substantial facts so mixed with error or so dis- 

 torted in development and presentation that in the forms in which 

 they are finally set before the public they are of doubtful value, or 

 perhaps positively detrimental. 



Thus, in regard to the theory of balanced rations: it is an unques- 

 tionable fact that fowls need a variety of food; that they cannot, 

 except for comparatively short periods, be kept productive and thrifty 

 on a diet lacking in variety; but there is a great gulf between that 

 fact and the extreme developments of the "balanced ration"' fad. 

 Thus, also, it is an unquestionable fact that mashes, as many poultry 

 keepers make and feed them, are injurious to fowls; but there are 

 differences in mashes, differences in fowls and differences in people. 

 Thus, again, it is certain that many people have injured their fowls 



