PROFITABLE EGG FARMING. 
m 
A soft food is fed in the morning, but it is 
noticeable that it contains no cooked vegetables. 
He takes one bushel of corn and two of oats, has 
them ground up together quite fine, and to each 
two hundred pounds of this meal he adds one 
hundred pounds of bran. This mixture is 
moistened with skimmed milk or sour milk, or 
buttermilk (with either one or all of them), and 
five or six pounds of beef scraps added. If he 
did not have the milk, more beef scraps would be 
needed. This morning feed is fed in V-shaped 
troughs which are about ten feet long. After 
ten or fifteen minutes he passes through the 
houses and gathers up any food that may be left 
in the troughs, but if any of the fowls seem to be 
hungry he feeds a little more in that pen; he 
wants them to have all they will eat up readily. 
The noon feed consists of the green food of the 
day, which is mangel beets or cabbage in winter, 
clover or kale in summer. On the day of our 
visit he also fed a very light feed of mixed grain 
thrown in the litter to make them scratch. This 
mixed grain, which is the same for the night feed 
also, consists of two bushels each of wheat, oats 
and buckwheat, and one bushel of corn; in winter 
two bushels of corn, which makes the mixture 
then ecpial parts of the whole grains. Some¬ 
times he adds barley, if it is reasonably low in 
price ; and the night feed is a full one, all that the 
fowls will eat up clean. 
This story is too long already, but is so inter¬ 
esting we hardly know where to stop, and 
haven’t more than half exhausted our notes. One 
or two criticisms we wish to make. We think 
Mr. Wyckoff makes a mistake in raising his 
young stock right there in the old buildings and 
yards—a mistake which many (almost all) of the 
New York poultrymen we visited, also make. 
The reason is simply that the old yards and 
buildings are more or less fouled or obnoxious, 
and the chicks will do better on fresh ground. 
On our farm we “ colonize ” the chicks in families 
of twenty-five or thirty, out in the grass fields, 
directly the grass is cut, and find the plan most 
excellent for chicks, and fields both. No small 
advantage of this colonizing plan is that the 
houses and yards are free for the continued use 
of the laying-breeding stock, and their laying 
isn't interrupted (as Mr. Wyckoff told us his 
was), by crowding the hens up to empty one or 
two houses for the chicks. The great advantage, 
however, is the free range for the growing chicks. 
They eat better, because the fresh air and free 
range enables them to digest and assimilate 
more food, consequently they grow faster and 
better. We believe young stock so colonized 
grows up under the most favorable conditions 
and comes to the laying pens in October in the 
best possible condition for winter laying and 
spring breeding. 
We have written to little purpose, if we 
haven’t shown the reader that Mr. Wyckoff is a 
most inspiring example of the successful poultry- 
man, an example which any man may follow. It 
is a trite saying that “ What one man has done 
another can do, ” but—how true it is! Mr. 
Wyckoff has put pluck and perseverance, and in¬ 
telligence into his opportunity; that is all. It will 
be conceded that he had no “ soft snap. ” The 
way was not made easy for him by plenty of capi¬ 
tal; he made his own capital as he went along. 
With his own bare hand, plus pluck and per¬ 
severance and intelligence, he has wrought 
success. —Farm Poidtry. 
WHITE LEGHORNS FOR UTILITY AND 
FANCY. 
Methods Employed at Fairview Farm; Season¬ 
able, Sound and Practical Advice. 
BY H. J. BLANCHARD, CiROTON, N. Y. 
We usually begin selecting our breeding stock 
in December or early January, so as to have 
plenty of time to look the birds over very care¬ 
fully for a few weeks, remove all specimens that 
may show undesirable traits and replace with 
finer ones. Vigor is the first essential in any 
fowl, and especially breeders, as it is the founda¬ 
tion on which to build the best layer or finest 
show bird. 
Select your breeding hens from the pens hav¬ 
ing the best egg record, and if selling breeding 
and exhibition stock and eggs for hatching, look 
well to standard requirements also. In mating 
hens, use vigorous, active cockerels, well 
marked, for standard matings; and for pullets 
use vigorous cocks. Look well to the vigor of 
the cocks and see that they are not sluggish or 
inactive. 
Don’t push your breeding birds for eggs, but 
feed a good, balanced ration and let them come 
to laying naturally. Right here let me say that 
while I favor feeding liberally a good, balanced 
ration, yet I firmly believe it is not so much 
what we feed as the way we feed and manage 
that makes hens lay best. 
Don’t try any “forced molting” process— 
your birds will molt when it is best for them. 
84 
