12 THE BEGINNER IN POULTRY 



the worst blunder a Beginner can make. It is one that 

 probably eighty out of a hundred do make, for lack of 

 forethought. Perhaps fifteen more of the hundred do 

 it in spite of warning, because it is so much easier, and 

 because they cannot apprehend the vital importance of 

 keeping the different ages separate. The result is that 

 very few really first-class chicks are raised, because the 

 majority of learners have thus imperiled their own suc- 

 cess at the outset. And this error affects them at every 

 stage of the work from this period of early chickhood on. 



If it were not for just one thing, I might advise you 

 to buy two or three mother hens with their broods, for 

 the start. But, unfortunately, nearly all sitting hens 

 have lice. And when the chicks have parasites to fight, 

 from the first, you have a slender chance to raise any 

 really good ones. The strongest may keep themselves 

 pretty free by vigorous use of the dust bath which they 

 find in any plot of soft, dry earth. But they cannot 

 make good headway against those on top of the head, 

 which are so often found when they are taken from 

 the nest for cooping. You, too, must fight these lice 

 all the time. Don't you see that the real question, all 

 along the line, is how far yoti can be trusted.? 



Have you noticed how almost universally those who 

 ask information ask for the good points of fowl, or ma- 

 chine, or whatever may be the subject of inquiry } 

 Yesterday, I saw in horticultural print, a query as to 

 'Ca^ faults of a certain popular peach. Every one who 

 writes about this peach praises its good points. The 

 inquiry brought out the fact that it had several very bad 

 points, one of them being that it succeeded only in a 

 few localities. Its praise, then, was utterly misleading 



