60 LL550N5 IN POULTRY KEEPING — SECOND SERIES. 



Just at present a desire to be progressive anil scientific is hurtiiig a great many novices In 

 poultry keeping. 



Poultry anU agricultural papers have published numerous articles about the science of poul- 

 try feeding, written by persons who isnew very little of either science or feeding, and the gen- 

 eral impression these have given people who have not learned feeding by practice is that the 

 ration can be, and should be, compounded according to a mathematical formula, and exactly 

 balanced to suit the needs of the fowl — or the requirements of the keeper — the two being 

 assumed to be synonymous. 



Now the scientific investigation of articles of poultry food, and of results of methods of poul- 

 try feeding is a necessary work which will, in time, no doubt arrive at some important results ; 

 hut the folly of persons who have not the judgment and skill to take a tested ration, recom- 

 mended by experienced feeders after years of use, and keep a stock of fowls healthy and pro- 

 ductive on that ration, trying to compound rations by formula, and feed them by weight is 

 scjniething truly appalling; and the number of those who are frittering away their time and 

 money while trying to make figures and weight^ do work for which nature, if she intended 

 iheni for poultry keepers gave them brains and eyes, is very much greater than is commonly 

 t-up|iosed. 



Unless restrained within very narrow limits, the disposition to experiment and investigate 

 may prevent one from making poultry keeping financially successful. 



Experiments are expensive, and comparatively few of them yield any immediately useful 

 practical results. If carefully and thoroughly followed out, experiments invariably take more 

 -of one's time and thought than he intended they should, and it all comes out of time and energy 

 which, if used for work of which the results were practically assured in advance, would help 

 instead of hindering success. 



To some, experimental work is in the line of recreation, and in this way it is all very well if 

 tiot allowed to interfere with regular work more than a recreation should; but, on the whole, 

 and as a general rule, it is much better not to engage in it until one's poultry business is on an 

 as-ured basis. Even then it must l)e indulged in but moderately by those keeping poultry for 

 firuttt. Let them leave it to those who keep poultry for pleasure, and to the experiment 

 stations. 



llany who try to make the breeding of fancy or exhibition poultry profitable, fai.1 because 

 tliey are irot, and never can be, fifnciers. 



To lie a successful fancier one must be something of an artist, with a keen appreciation of the 

 points that go to make the ideal fowl in his variety. The artistic faculty is generally a birth- 

 right. As the saying goes: " Fanciers are born, not made." Their talent improves with use, 

 but, if small, cannot Ije developed by training to the same extent that a moderiite aptitude for 

 the care of stock may be. 



It has seemed to me very noticeable among poultrymen of my acquaintance that the best 

 fanciers have seemed to show from their first acquaintance with a breed or variety a correct 

 appreciation of what a fowl of that breed or variety should be, even though it might be some 

 years before they learned how to produce the desired types from their matings; and it has 

 eeemed just as noticeable that others, after years of studied and persistent eft'ort, were as far 

 away from producing what was commonly desired in fowls of the breed they handled as they 

 were at the beginning. In some this was evidently due to inability to appreciate all the details 

 of beauty in the best representatives of the breed. In others it was as clearly due to the 

 absence of a disposition to harmonize their personal tastes with accepted ideals or standards. 



The successful fancier must not only have good artistic perceptions, a good eye for form and 

 color, but his practical success depends upon his being conventional, upon being one of those 

 whose ideas naturally harmonize with Ideas prevailing about them. 



So — it is possible for anyone to make practical test of whether his artistic perceptions are 

 of the degree and quality necessary to make him successful as a breeder of fancy poultry. To 

 make such test he has only to compare his judgment of his birds with that of others, especially 

 of good breeders and competent judges. He will find these agreeing In the main, though often 

 differing in jtarticulars. 



