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the care of one of the family. Give the boy or the girl, though he 

 or she may still be going to school, full charge and show him or her 

 how to keep accounts. Let the farmer provide the hens with good ac- 

 commodations, plenty of feed and charge all up against the poultry 

 account at market prices. Have the account credited with all poultry 

 and eggs consumed in the house as well as what is sold. If a new 

 house or new equipment is to be built, let the expenses be divided 

 over, say, three years. At the end of each year the balance which 

 the new manager will show will open the farmer's eyes in such a 

 way that poultry will get the proper attention. 



Poor Housing. 



(Prof. D. O. Barto, Urbana, 111.) 



I should say that the farmer's or poultryman's most serious fault 

 in poultry raising is poor housing. Even when all the other condi- 

 tions necessary to success in the poultry business are \vhat they should 

 be, if the flock is housed as wretchedly as is the case generally 

 throughout the sections of the country where I have gone, the re- 

 sults can not be otherwise than very unsatisfactory, and it follows 

 almost invariably that where the poultryman takes enough interest 

 in his business to provide the right kind of buildings and yards or 

 ranges, he also looks after the other essentials in poultry raising much 

 more carefully. 



Should Keep Sufficient Fowls to Make it Pay. 



(Prof. Homer M. Jackson, State College, Pa.) 



One of the chief difficulties which handicaps the average farmer 

 in the profitable management of his poultry flock is the fact that he 

 does not keep a sufficient number of fowls to make a really profitable 

 business of it. The average farm flock of the country is probably 

 between sixty-five and seventy-five fowls, and during the greater part 

 of the year it is practically impossible to get the product from these 

 fowls to market in good condition. One of the most important steps 

 that the farmer can take, in my judgment, is to raise the average 

 number of fowls in the farm flock to about two hundred or more. 

 This will make a flock which will be worth devoting some attention 

 to, and the product from which can be sent to market most of Hie 

 year in first-class condition instead of selling eggs throughout the 

 central part of Missouri at two or three cents a dozen, as I am in- 

 formed was the case last summer, when strictly fresh eggs were 

 bringing twenty-five cents in our eastern markets. The farmer who 

 has a flock of the size mentioned will be able to ship strictly fresh 

 eggs to the market most of the year and very much more than double 

 the price received for them. The value of the product of the present 

 average flock is so small that it directly encourages carelessness and 

 inattention. 



