62 A POULTRY COMPENDIUM. 



iters ; we have glanced at the egg and the methods of 

 transforming it into a living creature ; we have explained 

 the care that awaits with solicitude upon the tender days 

 of chickenhood ; we have set forth the principles which 

 make up the philosophy of feeding ; we have diagnosed 

 the various poultry diseases and prescribed for the pa- 

 tients ; we have entered the exhibition room with our 

 feathered pets and carried away all the first prizes in 

 our department; and we have considered the difficulties 

 that lie in wait for the inexperienced who desire to raise 

 poultry on a large scale. This is a pretty wide field to 

 survey, and our glance at it necessarily has been a hasty 

 one. Each topic touched upon in these pages, is large 

 enough to demand for its proper treatment a discussion 

 as extended as the space into which we have been 

 obliged to compress all of them. But we hope that we 

 have given a view of the field that will be of service ; 

 that from these pages may be learned enough to enable 

 the would-be breeder to successfully rear from the egg 

 to the exhibition room the breed which he has • selected. 

 We hope, however, that the reader will not rest content 

 with this bird's-eye view, but that he will scrutinize each 

 portion of this field in detail, until he has become fa- 

 miliar, not only with its general outlines and the relation 

 of part to part, but also with all the elevations and de- 

 pressions that belong to each part. In other words we 

 hope that he will pursue his investigations until he has 

 mastered the science of rearing poultry. Much has been 

 written upon this subject that can be read with profit. 

 There is no danger of reading too much. Danger lies 

 in the opposite direction for all of us. 



