34 MAKING POULTRY PAY 



feathers, you have caught a layer. When they are 

 close together, biddy is taking a vacation. 



SOME EXPERIENCES OF AN AMATEUR 



I began to raise chickens for my table and had no 

 idea of any enjoyment in the business. I am surprised 

 to discover that I have made a nice hobby for my 

 coming old age, and am really having considerable fun 

 besides some little profit. The chicken business is a 

 mere episode in a professional life, begun to produce 

 fresh eggs and some food for my household of seven 

 people. It has developed into a pleasant recreation. 1 

 have nearly half an acre in a city, on which I raise 

 nothing but fruit and chickens. I never mean to 

 exceed forty-five hens and five cocks, or thereabouts. 

 From the last of November until about May i I keep 

 them in small flocks, and then let them run together. 

 I think I know the best breed. The all around fowl 

 for domestic use is the Plymouth Rock. I know more 

 money is made in eggs than in poultry, and the Leg- 

 horn is said to surpass them in egg-laying capacity, 

 yet, taking the year altogether, I have my doubts of 

 it. But when you kill Leghorns for the table, com- 

 pared with the Plymouth Rocks you have to kill two 

 to one, and the two are not much at that. The 

 Plymouth Rock makes, in my judgment, the finest 

 poultry for the table in the world. Forty-five April 

 hatched pullets will give all the eggs I want in the 

 dead of winter. Never fall in love with your chickens, 

 and by all means don't let the women of the house 

 do it. Cocks and pullets are not worth sentiment. 

 One is fit for nothing but to lay eggs in a nest; the 

 other to lie on the table for food. A hatching and 

 brooding hen is interesting, but interest ends when she 

 drives her brood away. — [Austin G. Yates, New York. 



