140 THE FAT OF THE LAND , 
cent is a very good average hatch, and that one 
should not expect more. 
In September, when the young birds were 
separated, the census report was 723 pullets and 
764 cockerels, showing an infant mortality of 
622, or twenty-nine per cent. The accidents 
and vicissitudes of early chickenhood are serious 
matters to the unmothered chick, and they must 
not be overlooked by the breeder who figures his 
profits on paper. 
After the first year I kept no tabs on the 
chickens hatched; my desire was to add each 
year 600 pullets to my flock, and after the third 
season to dispose of as many hens. It doesn’t 
pay to keep hens that are more than two and a 
half years old. I have kept from 1200 to 1600 
laying hens for the past six years. I do not 
know what it costs to feed one or all of them, 
but I do know what moneys I have received for | 
eggs, young cockerels, and old hens, and I am 
satisfied. 
There is a big profit in keeping hens for eggs 
if the conditions are right and the industry is 
followed, in a businesslike way, in connection 
with other lines of business; that is, in a factory 
farm. If one had to devote his whole time to 
the care of his plant, and were obliged to buy 
almost every morsel of food which the fowls 
ate, and if his market were distant and not of 
the best, I doubt of great success ; but with food 
at the lowest and product at the highest, you 
SL ee Re 
ye ag i neal’ 
ee , 
