240 THE BEGINNER IN POULTRY 



this country, assuming that eggs are of the same price, is 

 over three times as high as it is in, say, China or Egypt. 

 Mr. Hastings thinks we shall cut down that cost when 

 we reach the stage of many central mammoth hatcheries 

 for general hatching. In the meantime, how is the 

 Beginner, — how are you to reduce this initial cost ? If 

 you are in the East, and eggs average toward 40 cents 

 a dozen the year around, can you afford this inexcusable 

 high initial cost? This figures up 13 cents per chick, 

 jiLst for the eggs to hatch it, before we have allowed for 

 any loss in brooding, for accidents, etc. Here is a mar- 

 gin of about nine cents per chick which ought, in some 

 way, to be turned from the expense into the profit col- 

 umn. I challenge you squarely : are you the man to do 

 it .'' Or, are you a woman, and will assist at such a 

 slaughter of the innocents .'' 



Now, here comes Mr. Briggs, who claims to be one of 

 the five of the successful whom he counts in each hun- 

 dred business poultry raisers, and says that sprouted oats 

 has placed him in this enviable position of being one of 

 the five, and that it will place any one within that 

 charmed group. 



A few days before this writing, I saw some figures 

 from a man who claimed to have much experience with 

 poultry raising on the large commercial scale. He said: 

 " We are satisfied with a death rate of i 5 to 20 per cent, 

 when thousands are raised under artificial methods, and 

 our largest plants do not get under that." This problem, 

 of how to lower the loss margin, comes to the fore again 

 and again, no matter what the branch of work. We 

 have too much common sense to believe that we can 

 handle living things with as close a margin as may do 



