A GUIDE FOR KEEPERS OF POULTRY 249 
PEPPER.—Pepper is frequently fed to laying hens in 
cold weather under the mistaken notion that it warms the 
birds. Pepper is stimulating and should never be fed to 
healthy fowls. It is sometimes useful in sickness in the 
flock. In case the flock seems afflicted with colds a little 
red pepper often seems to produce a good effect. 
POULTRY AS FOOD.—Poultry long has been re- 
garded as a delicate as well as a nourishing form of ani- 
mal food, but not until within a few years have any 
attempts been made to determine exactly the place poul- 
try occupies in the dietary of man as regards its nutritive 
qualities. The Storrs station published a bulletin on this 
subject, containing some elaborate tables of the nutritive 
values of poultry of all kinds, game birds, flesh of domes- 
tic animals and a few of the more common vegetable 
foods. These tables show that more value can be bought 
in poultry for the same amount of money than in most 
other animal foods; that eggs at 24 cents a dozen are as 
cheap as mutton at 20 cents or fowl at the same price. 
While cheap beef is more economical than high-priced 
poultry, the housewife who buys poultry at the same 
price at which she can get good cuts of beef is not wast- 
ing money. Farmers can well afford to eat poultry that 
they have raised on their farms rather tltan sell the poul- 
try and buy other meats at the average market prices. 
POULTRY, BEGINNING IN.—There are two ways 
in which to start in the poultry business—buying fowls 
and buying eggs to hatch. The better plan is to buy 
good fowls from a reliable breeder, but this has the dis- 
advantage of being much more costly than buying eggs. 
If one is disposed to begin moderately a trio of good 
fowls will produce enough eggs to give the beginner a 
good flock within six months. When this is done the 
