104 PROFITS IN POULTRY. 
preferable; but they are neither economical for the table, 
nor are they to be depended upon as sitters aud mothers. 
It is an excellent plan to use full-blooded cocks, making 
a change, not of cocks alone, but of the breed, every two 
years. Thusa recent writer, speaking of his own practice, 
says: ‘‘A stock of Light Brahmas were bred with a 
Dorking cock two years, then with Plymouth Rock 
cocks, and now I shall probably take a Brahma cross in 
the hope of effectually eradicating the tendency to throw 
pink-legged chicks, a relic of the Dorking cross, and 
black ones, which come from the Plymouth Rocks. 
After that I shall recur to the last-named variety, as I 
find it gives me earlier and better broilers, plenty of 
eggs, and fowls always fit for the table.” 
— 
SALT IN THE RATION FOR POULTRY. 
There is a prevalent notion that salt causes. the 
feathers of fowls, or perhaps of the feathered tribes in 
general, to fall out. This, we believe is well founded. 
Certainly, excess of this condiment should be avoided. 
There appears to be some connection between salt and 
feathers. Feather-eating fowls are often cured of the 
tendency by adding salt to their food, and a small quan- 
tity of salt in the ration promotes, or is supposed to pro- 
mote, the production of the new crop of feathers at 
moulting-time. This supposed effect may be simply the 
loosening of the old feathers. The result, as promotive 
of moulting, would be the same. Salt is a very impor- 
tantingredient in the ration of pigeons, and where these 
birds are confined without it, they are never so thrifty. 
It is natural, then, to conclude that it is valuable in the 
food of other birds, and especially for barn-door fowls 
The earlier old fowls are out of their moult and in fuly 
