8 POULTRY FOR PROFIT 
class of birds. Quick maturity is characteristic 
of the egg breeds, however, and because of this 
fact, they make excellent small broilers when 
but a few months old. But it is useless to put 
them on the market for meat when mature, as 
they will not fatten like the heavier breeds. 
The disposition of these breeds, as has been 
said, is active, nervous, and hard to confine. 
^Therefore, for the person with a small lot on 
which to raise chickens, it would be well to 
choose a heavier breed that stands confine¬ 
ment better than these breeds. These birds are 
active in the house in winter, or on the range 
in summer, and owing to their natural tendency 
to roam, they are always uneasy when con¬ 
fined to a small yard. They also have excel¬ 
lent powers of flight, and can usually fly over 
a fence unless the fence is about \eight feet 
high. 
The egg breed, owing to the activity so char¬ 
acteristic to such breeds, makes poor sitters 
and mothers. It is very seldom that a fowl of 
these breeds can content herself to set on a 
nest of eggs three weeks, which is the time 
required to hatch the eggs. Their eggs are 
usually hatched under a general purpose hen, 
