POULTRY CULTURE 



INTRODUCTION 



Need of instruction. The practice of poultry culture is an art or 

 a craft or a combination of art and craft according to the purpose 

 for which it is pursued and the taste and skill of those engaged in 

 it. A workman may attain great proficiency in many operations 

 merely through skill in imitation. Such a workman, however, 

 must work always after a model or under the direction of one 

 familiar with all phases of his art or craft and thoroughly under- 

 standing its principles. In any enterprise engaging large numbers 

 of people, only a small proportion of these need be qualified to 

 oversee and direct the work ; but as the number of person^ 

 engaged diminishes, the proportion understanding the processes 

 involved and their relations must increase, until, in such occupa- 

 tions as farming and housekeeping, each husbandman and house- 

 wife must be able to do and to direct the doing of a variety of 

 operations, adapting and adjusting all to the general result sought. 



The relation of this fact to agricultural and technical education 

 has not been sufficiently emphasized. Considering it here only in 

 its application to poultry culture, it is plain that a general knowl- 

 edge of the subject is as necessary and as useful to one whose 

 plans contemplate perhaps the maintenance of a flock of a few 

 hundred fowls on the farm as to one who intends to undertake 

 operations on a large scale. Both require the same preparation, as 

 far as preparation can be given by book and class instruction. 



Scope of instruction. The subject includes a great variety of 

 topics. An accurate general knowledge of the subject requires 

 such familiarity with all these topics that the relations of the 

 various phenomena of poultry culture will be promptly recognized 

 and effects estimated with approximate correctness whenever there 



