2 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I904. 



unbroken package in itself, and the delicately flavored chickens, 

 are among the choicest articles of food to be found in the 

 markets. 



While poultry raising is exacting in its demands, there are 

 no conditions imposed that cannot be compassed by persons of 

 ordinary mental and physical capacity. In this as in other call- 

 ings, the skill which comes from thorough training and the 

 energy needed for persistent work are essential to the fullest suc- 

 cess. 



The history of the poultry industry of this country is being 

 rapidly made, these years, on the farms, village lots, and at the 

 experiment stations, and written in the minds of the thousands 

 of earnest workers who are engaged in it. From this accumu- 

 lated knowledge is to come, in the near future, a better, general 

 understanding of the subject, which will enable men or 

 women of ordinary abilities to take up the work for themselves, 

 in a small way, and proceed without making many of the mistakes 

 that caused their predecessors to waste money and labor, and lose 

 heart. Poultry and egg production are as legitimate lines of 

 work for persons of small or large means as are dairying, beef 

 growing, sheep husbandry, or general or special crop production. 

 Its advantages lie in its greater returns for its smaller capital 

 investment. Its disadvantages lie in the demand for greater 

 skill, patience and courage than will suffice for any other special, 

 or general farm industry. 



RAISING CHICKENS BY NATURAL PROCESSES. 



Circumstances sometimes make it necessary to hatch and raise 

 chickens by aid of the mother hen. While we do not like 

 the method, we have practiced it ; having at times as many as a 

 hundred sitting hens along the side of a room — in two tiers — 

 one above the other. An unused tieup in a barn was taken for the 

 incubating room and a platform was made along the side next 

 to the barn floor. The platform was 3 feet above the floor and 

 was two and a half feet wide and 50 feet long. It was divided 

 up into 50 little stalls or nests, each one foot wide and 2 feet 

 long, and one foot high. This left a 6 inch walk along in front 

 of the nests, for the hens to light on when flying up from the 

 floor. Each nest had a door made of laths at the front, so as to 



