INTRODUCTION 



been induced to lay twice that number. As this country doub- 

 les and trebles in population, all such losses as this will be care- 

 fully looked after and scientifically treated. This means, if it 

 means anything, that the poultry industry will increase and de- 

 velop along systematic lines and the incubator and brooder 

 will be called into very general use. 



The writer of these lines has traveled upwards of seventy- 

 five thousand miles during the last 12 years, visiting poultry 

 plants, large and small, and during this time has made a care- 

 ful study of different branches of the poultry business. Long 

 strides have been taken during even this short period until at 

 the present time we hear it commonly said, "The incubator is 

 now a practical success. It is no longer any trouble for a per- 

 son of ordinary intelligence and careful habits to hatch chickens 

 in large nmnbers by the use of incubators, but it is not so easy 

 a matter to raise them." This is true, and it isn't true. It is 

 a singular fact that for every three people who can be found who 

 will say, "Oh, yes, I hatch them all right, but I do not have 

 very good success in raising them artifically," one person can 

 be found who will say, "I cannot hatch them so well with in- 

 cubators as I can with hens, but I can raise them in brooders 

 much better than I can with hens." 



This simply means that different methods are employed, 

 some of which are right and others wrong. It means simply 

 that up to the present time more careful attention has been 

 given by experts to the work of perfecting the incubator and 

 demonstrating the proper use of it, than to the equally im- 

 portant work of perfecting brooders and brooding systems and 

 solving the problems of their successful operation. But at the 

 present time this is changed and as the incubator nears per- 

 fection much time and thought is being given to proper brood- 

 ing devices, and with excellent results. The fact that many 

 people in this country to-day are hatching eggs under hens and 

 then placing the chicks in brooders to be raised artificially, is 

 complete proof that chicks can be raised in brooders as well or 

 better than they can with hens, and that the brooder is as much 

 an improvement over the hen as an incubator is an improve- 

 ment on the hen as a hatcher. It is a question merely of know- 

 ing how, and that demand is what called forth this book. 



Admittedly our equipment of tools at present is by no 

 means complete and we have mastered only the first princi- 

 ples of the production of poultry and eggs in large quantities 

 as an independent enterprise. The improvement of the utility 

 breeds, the invention of popular-sized, portable incubators and 

 brooders and the designing of suitable brooding houses have 

 given us a fair start, and we may look forward with confidence 

 that great progress will be made during the next few years. 

 No man can safely set a limit to what will be accomplished in 

 this direction within the next decade. Ten years ago the poul- 

 try business in this coxmtry, as an independent business, was 

 insignificant as compared with present achievements, but there 

 is good reason to believe that the next ten years will show still 

 greater progress. It cannot well be otherwise. Where one 

 man was interested in the problem and trying to achieve results 

 ten years ago, one hundred or more are now employed at the 

 same task. To-day America leads the woTld in the knowledge 

 and employment of successful methods of poultry production 

 on a large scale, and probably it will maintain this position. 

 Other countries are adopting our methods but we have secured 



a lead that will be hard to overcome. The financial risk is be- 

 ing eliminated from the business until it is not greater now 

 than that involved in other business enterprises, and men of 

 means and brains are taking up the work in rapidly increas- 

 ing numbers. 



Naturally, as poultry production became a distinct and 

 important industry, it was divided into branches representing 

 special lines of effort. Mankind had entered upon an age of 

 specialties and the poultry industry did not prove an exception. 

 First, the growers of poultry were merely poultry keepers; 

 now we have fanciers, duck growers, egg farmers, broiler 

 raisers, etc. The development of these branches has been 

 rapid, but not unnaturally so. It was natural that this develop- 

 ment should result from special attention, special effort and 

 singleness of purpose. The practical result has been that we 

 now have thousands of fanciers, including hundreds of specialty 

 breeders, and where, at the beginning, there was only one vari- 

 ety of fowl, a black and brown wild bird of the jungle, to-day 

 we have more than one hundred separate and distinct varieties; 

 where twenty-five and thirty years ago the common puddle 

 duck, weighing three to four pounds, was the best this country 

 produced, we now have the Imperial Pekin, weighing ten pounds 

 to the pair at ten weeks old, and ten to fourteen pounds each as 

 adults, and have numerous "ranchers" who produce from five 

 to sixty thousand ducks annually and find for them a ready 

 and profitable market; where three or four decades ago a flock 

 of one hundred or more hens was a curiosity and the egg basket 

 was seldom larger than a man's hat, we now have egg farms 

 that each carry from one to ten thousand laying hens, and the 

 eggs are gathered in bushel baskets, five to twenty baskets be- 

 ing required to gather the average daily yield, and where only 

 a few years ago broilers, squab broilers, roasters, winter chick- 

 ens and capons were strange words, because seldom used, they 

 are now common expressions, while tons upon tons of expertly 

 produced poultry meat are consumed daily, and we have made 

 only >■ fair start. 



The fancier, first and last, despite his "fuss and feathers," 

 has been our good friend. What we have wanted, and asked 

 for, he has supplied. We asked for a "general purpose" fowl, 

 and he gave us the Plymouth Rocks. We asked for more eggs, 

 and he gave us the "200 eggs per year hen" of several varieties. 

 We asked for better squab-broilers, broilers and roasters, and 

 he gave us the Wyandotte. We asked for more meat and this 

 demand was soon supplied by increasing the weights of the Asia- 

 tics, by deepening the keels of Pekin ducks and by the produc- 

 tion of Mammoth Bronze turkeys and Toulouse geese that tip 

 the scale at twenty to forty pounds each. 



We have endeavored in this work to provide the most re- 

 liable information to date for the guidance of persons who wish 

 to use from one to one hundred incubators and from one or two 

 brooders to the brooding and raising of thousands of chicks and 

 ducklings by artificial means. The contributors are noted 

 poultrymen and women — men and women who write from prac- 

 tical, successful experience. Each may select the method best 

 suited to his circumstances, feeling confident that close atten- 

 tion to details and strict guard kept on expenses will bring 

 success. EDITOR. 



Quincy, 111., April 1, 1906. 



