CHAPTER I. 



PRELIMINARY PARLEY. 



This little book is intended 

 to help farmers and villagers 

 conduct the poultry business 

 with pleasure and profit. Its 

 teachings are not drawn from 

 the author's inner conscious- 

 ness exclusively, but from 

 practical experience, study 

 and observation. 

 I have been successful in the business myself, not 

 as a fancier, but as a farmer, a fact which I do not 

 attribute to my own ability entirely, but partly to the 

 help derived from the stimulating and restraining 

 influence of my good wife Harriet, and to Martha, 

 the industrious and vigilant spouse of our faithful Tim. 

 A good deal of what I know and have written has 

 really been derived from a diligent perusal of the 

 Form Journal^ and I confess to having borrowed con- 

 siderably from its pages both in text and illustration. 

 Credit must therefore be given in a comprehensive 

 way to the Poultry Editor of that publication, whose 

 discerning mind and great experience with poultry 



