INTRODUCTION 
all matters pertaining to country life as I 
was, who did not know a Leghorn from a 
Wyandotte. 
Why I had a friend who was a college 
graduate say to me not long ago that he in- 
tended buying a place on which to keep 
chickens and to avoid having so many young 
cockerels in the summer he would order his 
day old chicks to be sent 75 per cent. pullets 
and 25 per cent. cockerels, and I really won- 
der how many city men whose thoughts 
might wander to a poultry farm to be his 
some day, would know if he was right in his 
theory? 
Keeping this fact always in view, that a 
novice is not supposed to be familiar with 
any of the details of his new business, I have 
explained more fully the minute details us- 
ually omitted from other books, but which 
are really the most important phases of poul- 
try keeping and have endeavored to make my 
story direct and to the point without wasting 
unnecessary words or including a vast 
amount of matter that a novice could not 
master at first, but leaving that for his future 
study, 
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