depends on the breeder. Some people condemn a breed that 

 others have won success with. It requires a long time for 

 the apprentice to become skilled. It requires four years to 

 become an efficient army officer and it requires a great many 

 years to become skilled in any profession. Still, men and 

 women invest their cash in the poultry business, build fine 

 poultry houses, buy several large incubators and brooders, 

 and all the latest appliances that absolutely guarantee to 

 give satisfaction or money refunded. Then the selfsame 

 person must hire help to do laborous work and hire a man- 

 ager to look after the help. Now just imagine the position 

 the proprietor is in if he does not know whether the help or 

 the manager are doing as they should do. Still his money is 

 invested. If you are not ambitious and willing to work hard 

 early and late, Sundays and holidays, if you are not careful 

 and patient and painstaking, and willing to sit tight and wait 

 for returns, willing to take the ups and downs of the business 

 and be cheerful, then for goodness sake stay out of the poul- 

 try business. Go in if you will, if you think you possess the 

 necessary qualifications, and go in at the bottom and grow 

 up with the business. Otherwise you had better let it alone. 

 If you find that your method of feeding is not productive 

 of good results, try some other way. Often a change of food 

 helps the appetite and starts the bird in a way for egg pro- 

 duction, but should you change the mash or manner of feed- 

 ing, work gradually out of one into the other. It certainly 

 is the only thing to do, but many poultry keepers wonder 

 why their birds do not lay and yet keep on with the same 

 old system of feeding, care, etc. To the beginner — we hear 

 so much about protein and nitrogeneous food that we should 

 not attempt to feed exclusively of foods containing a high 

 percentage of these things as such a diet will result in bowel 

 trouble and a dirtorted system. A balanced ration should 

 contain both the carbonaceous and nitrogeneous matter. 

 Many amateur poultry keepers are anxious the same as a 

 commercial egg keeper to get eggs during the late fall and 

 early winter so as to catch the high prices paid for them at 

 that time. They wonder why they cannot get eggs in quan- 

 tities during these months. Now this is the way it is done : 

 Get the chicks hatched out in March or the fore part of 

 April, thereby avoiding the neck and tail molt which the 

 chicks hatched in January and February are very apt to 

 have. They should be cared for as well as you know how and 

 pullets forced for development and maturity but not too 



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