INTRODUCTORY 11 
illogical and how very true! If you provide a fowl with half its 
necessary food it will not provide its owner with half an egg. It 
will yield no egg at all. Nor if you give it sawdust instead of 
bran, as the man did with his donkey, will it grow and thrive. 
It will probably die. 
Yet only a little elementary knowledge of physiology is needed 
to make one understand that all animals must be fed on the 
special foods that are necessary to their well-being. It is so easy 
to learn what those foods are. A hen, contrary to the general 
impression, is not a strict vegetarian. Neither is it entirely 
carnivorous. It does not imbibe strong drinks—at least it ought 
not. There is nothing better for its welfare than water—pure 
water and plenty of it. I am going to tell in the following pages 
how to feed, what to feed, and when to feed. Feeding is a very 
important matter in fowl culture. 
Again let me warn whom it may concern that for egg-laying 
a young fowl is better than an old fowl. Some people cling to 
their old birds. A poultry specialist was once called in to advise 
two maiden ladies about their birds. The hens were not laying 
and they were not prospering. His practised eye soon discovered 
the reason. The fowls were patriarchs. He quickly picked out 
two birds, male and female. ‘‘ Now,” he remarked, ‘“‘ have you 
any idea of the age of these birds? These are the two fowls 
that Noah took with him into the Ark. You must have them 
killed.” 
“Oh,” cried one lady to her sister, “the gentleman wants us 
to kill poor Kruger and Queen Victoria.” 
“T never kill any of my fowls,” another lady once remarked 
to me. “Really? What do you do with them?” I answered. 
“Why, wait till they die, of course,” was the cutting reply. 
Needless to say, such people are hopeless—they keep fowls in 
every sense of the word. My object in this book is to try to tell 
the best means by which fowls may keep their owners, or at 
least minister to their breakfast-table. 
In recent years poultry-keeping has become fashionable, and 
a number of titled ladies have become poultry-farmers on a small 
