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Dollar Hen, by Milo M. Hastings

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Title: The Dollar Hen

Author: Milo M. Hastings

Release Date: August 22, 2004 [EBook

#13254]

Language: English

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THE DOLLAR
HEN
BY
MILO M. HASTINGS
FORMERLY POULTRYMAN AT
KANSAS EXPERIMENT STATION;
LATER IN CHARGE OF THE
COMMERCIAL
POULTRY INVESTIGATION
OF THE UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF
AGRICULTURE
 SYRACUSE
NATIONAL POULTRY MAGAZINE
1911
COPYRIGHT, 1911,
BY
NATIONAL POULTRY PUBLISHING
COMPANY
 WHY THIS BOOK
WAS WRITTEN
Twenty-five years ago there were in
print hundreds of complete treatises on
human diseases and the practice of
medicine. Notwithstanding the size of
the book-shelves or the high standing
of the authorities, one might have read
the entire medical library of that day
and still have remained in ignorance of
the fact that out-door life is a better
cure for consumption than the contents
of a drug store. The medical professor
of 1885 may have gone prematurely to
his grave because of ignorance of facts
which are to-day the property of every
intelligent man.
There are to-day on the book-shelves
of agricultural colleges and public
libraries, scores of complete works on
"Poultry" and hundreds of minor
writings on various phases of the
industry. Let the would-be poultryman
master this entire collection of
literature and he is still in ignorance of
facts and principles, a knowledge of
which in better developed industries
would be considered prime necessities
for carrying on the business.
As a concrete illustration of the
above statement, I want to point to a
young man, intelligent, enterprising,
industrious, and a graduate of the best
known agricultural college poultry
course in the country. This lad invested
some $18,000 of his own and his
friends' money in a poultry plant. The
plant was built and the business
conducted in accordance with the plans
and principles of the recognized
poultry authorities. To-day the young
man is bravely facing the proposition
of working on a salary in another
business, to pay back the debts of
honor resulting from his attempt to
apply in practice the teaching of our
agricultural colleges and our poultry
bookshelves.
The experience just related did not
prove disastrous from some single item
of ignorance or oversight; the difficulty
was that the cost of growing and
marketing the product amounted to
more than the receipts from its sale.
This poultry farm, like the surgeon's
operation, "was successful, but the
patient died."
The writer's belief in the reality of
the situation as above portrayed
warrants him in publishing the present
volume. Whether his criticism of
poultry literature is founded on fact or
fancy may, five years after the
copyright date of this book, be told by
any unbiased observer.
I have written this book for the
purpose of assisting in placing the
poultry business on a sound scientific
and economic basis. The book does not
pretend to be a complete encyclopedia
of information concerning poultry, but
treats only of those phases of poultry
production and marketing upon which
the financial success of the business
depends.
The reader who is looking for
information concerning fancy breeds,
poultry shows, patent processes, patent
foods, or patent methods, will be
disappointed, for the object of this
book is to help the poultryman to make
money, not to spend it.
 HOW TO READ
THIS BOOK
Unless the reader has picked up this
volume out of idle curiosity, he will be
one of the following individuals:
1. A farmer or would-be farmer, who
is interested in poultry production as a
portion of the work of general farming.
2. A poultryman or would-be
poultryman, who wishes to make a
business of producing poultry or eggs
for sale as a food product or as
breeding stock.
 3. A person interested in poultry as a
diversion and who enjoys losing a
dollar on his chickens almost as well as
earning one.
4. A man interested in poultry in the
capacity of an editor, teacher or some
one engaged as a manufacturer or
dealer in merchandise the sale of which
is dependent upon the welfare of the
poultry industry.
To the reader of the fourth class I
have no suggestions to make save such
as he will find in the suggestions made
to others.
To the reader of the third class I
wish to say that if you are a shoe
salesman, who has spent your evenings
in a Brooklyn flat, drawing up plans for
a poultry plant, I have only to
apologize for any interference that this
book may cause with your highly
fascinating amusement.
To the poultryman already in the
business, or to the man who is planning
to engage in the business for reasons
equivalent to those which would justify
his entering other occupations of the
semi-technical class, such as dairying,
fruit growing or the manufacture of
washing machines, I wish to say it is
for you that "The Dollar Hen" is
primarily written.
This book does not assume you to be
a graduate of a technical school, but it
does bring up discussions and use
methods of illustration that may be
unfamiliar to many readers. That such
matter is introduced is because the
subject requires it; and if it is
confusing to the student he will do
better to master it than to dodge it.
Especially would I call your attention
to the diagrams used in illustrating
various statistics. Such diagrams are
technically called "curves." They may
at first seem mere crooked lines, if so I
suggest that you get a series of figures
in which you are interested, such as the
daily egg yields of your own flock or
your monthly food bills, and "plot" a
few curves of your own. After you
catch on you will be surprised at the
greater ease with which the true
meaning of a series of figures can be
recognized when this graphic method is
used.
I wish to call the farmer's attention
to the fact that poultry keeping as an
adjunct to general farming, especially
to general farming in the Mississippi
Valley, is quite a different proposition
from poultry production as a regular
business. Poultry keeping as a part of
farm life and farm enterprise is a thing
well worth while in any section of the
United States, whereas poultry keeping,
a separate occupation, requires special
location and special conditions to make
it profitable. I would suggest the
farmer first read Chapter XVI, which is
devoted to his special conditions. Later
he may read the remainder of the book,
but should again consult the part on
farm poultry production before
attempting to apply the more
complicated methods to his own needs.
Chapter XVI, while written
primarily for the farmer, is, because of
the simplicity of its directions, the best
general guide for the beginner in
poultry keeping wherever he may be.
To the reader in general, I want to
say, that the table of contents, a part of
the book which most people never read,
is in this volume so placed and so
arranged that it cannot well be avoided.
Read it before you begin the rest of the
book, and use it then and thereafter in
guiding you toward the facts that you at
the time particularly want to know.
Many people in starting to read a book
find something in the first chapter
which does not interest them and cast
aside the work, often missing just the
information they are seeking. The
conspicuous arrangement of the
contents is for the purpose of
preventing such an occurrence in this
case.
 WHAT IS IN THIS
VOLUME
CHAPTER I
IS THERE MONEY IN THE
POULTRY BUSINESS?
A Big Business; Growing
Bigger
Less Ham and More Eggs
Who Gets the Hen Money?

CHAPTER II
WHAT BRANCH OF THE
POULTRY BUSINESS?
Various Poultry Products
The Duck Business
Squabs Have Been Overdone
Turkeys not Adapted to
Commercial Growing
Guinea Growing a New
Venture
Geese, the Fame of
Watertown
The Ill-omened Broiler
Business
South Shore Roasters
Too Much Competition in
Fancy Poultry
Egg Farming the Most
Certain and Profitable
 CHAPTER III
THE POULTRY PRODUCING
COMMUNITY
Established Poultry
Communities
Developing Poultry
Communities
Will Co-operation Work?
Co-operative Egg Marketing
in Denmark
Corporation or Co-operation

CHAPTER IV
WHERE TO LOCATE
Some Poultry Geography
Chicken Climate
Suitable Soil
 Marketing—Transportation
Availability of Water
A Few Statistics

CHAPTER V
THE DOLLAR HEN FARM
The Plan of Housing
The Feeding System
Water Systems
Out-door Accommodations
Equipment for Chick Rearing
Twenty-five Acre Poultry
Farms
Five Acre Poultry Farms

CHAPTER VI
 INCUBATION
Fertility of Eggs
The Wisdom of the Egyptians
Principles of Incubation
Moisture and Evaporation
Ventilation—Carbon Dioxide
Turning Eggs
Cooling Eggs
Searching for the "Open
Sesame" of Incubation
The Box Type of Incubator in
Actual Use
The Future of Incubation

CHAPTER VII
FEEDING
Conventional Food
Chemistry
How the Hen Unbalances
Balanced Rations

CHAPTER VIII
DISEASES
Don't Doctor Chickens
The Causes of Poultry
Diseases
Chicken Cholera
Roup
Chicken-pox, Gapes, Limber-
neck
Lice and Mites

CHAPTER IX
 POULTRY FLESH AND POULTRY
FATTENING
Crate Fattening
Caponizing

CHAPTER X
MARKETING POULTRY
CARCASSES
Farm Grown Chickens
The Special Poultry Plant
Suggestions From Other
Countries
Cold Storage of Poultry
Drawn or Undrawn Fowls
Poultry Inspection

CHAPTER XI
 QUALITY IN EGGS
Grading Eggs
How Eggs are Spoiled
Egg Size Table
The Loss Due to Carelessness
Requisites of Producing High
Grade Eggs

CHAPTER XII
HOW EGGS ARE MARKETED
The Country Merchant
The Huckster
The Produce Buyer
The City Distribution of Eggs
Cold Storage of Eggs
Preserving Eggs Out of Cold
Storage
 Improved Methods of
Marketing Farm-Grown Eggs
The High Grade Egg
Business
Buying Eggs by Weight
The Retailing of Eggs by the
Producer
The Price of Eggs
N.Y. Mercantile Exchange,
Official Quotations

CHAPTER XIII
BREEDS OF CHICKENS
Breed Tests
The Hen's Ancestors
What Breed?
 CHAPTER XIV
PRACTICAL AND SCIENTIFIC
BREEDING
Breeding as an Art
Scientific Theories of
Breeding
Breeding for Egg Production

CHAPTER XV
EXPERIMENT STATION WORK
The Stations Leading in
Poultry Work
The Story of the "Big Coon"
Important Experimental
Results at the Illinois Station
Experimental Bias
The Egg Breeding Work at
the Maine Station

CHAPTER XVI
POULTRY ON THE GENERAL
FARM
Best Breeds for the Farm
Keep Only Workers
Hatching Chicks with Hens
Incubators on the Farm
Rearing Chicks
Feeding Laying Hens
Cleanliness
Farm Chicken Houses
THE DOLLAR
HEN
 CHAPTER I
IS THERE MONEY IN
THE POULTRY
BUSINESS?
The chicken business is big. No one
knows how big it is and no one can find
out. The reason it is hard to find out is
because so many people are engaged in
it and because the chicken crop is sold,
not once a year, but a hundred times a
year.
Statistics are guesses. True statistics
are the sum of little guesses, but often
figures published as statistics are big
guesses by a guesser who is big enough
to have his guess accepted.

A Big Business; Growing Bigger

The only real statistics for the
poultry crop of the United States are
those of the Federal Census. At this
writing these statistics are nine years
old and somewhat out of date. The
value of poultry and eggs in 1899,
according to the census figures, was
$291,000,000. Is this too big or too
little? I don't know. If the reader
wishes to know let him imagine the
census enumerator asking a farmer the
value of the poultry and eggs which he
has produced the previous year. Would
the farmer's guess be too big or too
small?
From these census figures as a base,
estimates have been made for later
years. The Secretary of Agriculture, or,
speaking more accurately, a clerk in
the Statistical Bureau of the
Department of Agriculture, says the
poultry and egg crop for 1907 was over
$600,000,000.
The best two sources of information
known to the writer by which this
estimate may be checked are the
receipts of the New York market and
the annual "Value of Poultry and Eggs
Sold," as given by the Kansas State
Board of Agriculture.
 In plate I the top curve a-a gives the
average spring price of Western first
eggs in the New York market. The
curve b-b gives the annual receipts of
eggs at New York in millions of cases.
Now, since value equals quantity
multiplied by price, and since the
quantity and values of poultry are
closely correlated to those of eggs, the
product of these two figures is a fair
means of showing the rate of increase
in the value of the poultry crop.
Starting with the census value of
$291,000,000 for the year 1899, we
thus find that by 1907 the amount is
very close to $700,000,000. This is
represented by the lower line.
The value of the poultry and eggs
sold in Kansas have increased as
follows:
Year Value
$
1903
6,498,856
1904 7,551,871
1905 8,541,153
1906 9,085,896
1907 10,300,082
The dotted line e-e represents the
increase in the national poultry and egg
crop estimated from the Kansas
figures. Evidently the estimate given in
Secretary Wilson's report was not
excessive.
Now, I want to call the reader's
attention to some relations about which
there can be no doubt and which are
even more significant. The straight line
c-c in Plate 1 represents the rate of
increase of population in this country.
The line b-b represents the rate of
increase in egg receipts at New York.
As the country data backs up the New
York figures, the conclusion is
inevitable that the production of
poultry and eggs is increasing much
more rapidly than is our population.
"Over-production," I hear the
pessimist cry, but unfortunately for
Friend Pessimist, we have a gauge on
the over-production idea that lays all
fears to rest. When the supply of any
commodity increases faster than the
demand, we have over-production and
falling prices. Vice-versa, under-
production is shown by a rising price.
That prices of poultry and eggs have
risen and risen rapidly, has already
been shown.
"But prices of all products have
risen," says one. Very true, but by
statistics with which I will not burden
the reader, I find that prices of poultry
products have risen more rapidly than
the average rise in values of all
commodities. This shows that poultry
products are really more in demand and
more valuable, not apparently so.
Moreover, the rise in the price of
poultry products has been much more
pronounced than the average rise in the
price of all food products, which
proves the growing demand for poultry
and eggs to be a real growing demand,
not a turning to poultry products
because of the high price of other
foods, as is sometimes stated.

Less Ham and More Eggs.

Certainly we, as a nation, are rapidly
becoming eaters of hens and of hen
fruit. Reasons are not hard to find.
Poultry and eggs are the most
palatable, most wholesome, most
convenient of foods. Our demands for
the products of the poultry yard grows
because we are learning to like them,
and because our prosperity has grown
and we can afford them.
 Another reason that the consumption
of eggs is growing is because the
condition in which they reach the
consumer is improving. The writer may
say some pretty hard things in this
work about the condition of poultry and
eggs as they are now marketed, but any
old-timer in the business will tell you
stories of things as they used to be that
will easily explain why our fathers ate
more ham and less eggs.
Yet another reason why the per
capita consumption of hens as
measured in pounds or dollars
increases, is that the hen herself has
increased in size; whereas John when
he was Johnnie ate a two-ounce
drumstick, now Johnnie eats an
analogous piece that weighs three
ounces. Perhaps, also, we have a
growing respect for the law of Moses,
or may be vegetarians who think that
eggs grow on egg plants are becoming
more numerous.
Our consumption of pork per capita
has, in the last half century, diminished
by half, our consumption of beef has
remained stationary, but our
consumption of poultry and eggs has
doubled itself, we know not how many
times, for a half century ago the
ancestor of the industrious hen of this
age serenely scratched up
grandmother's geraniums and was
unmolested by the statisticians.
 Who Gets the Hen Money?
Seven hundred millions of dollars is
a lot of money. Who gets it? There are
no Rockefellers or Armours in the hen
business. It is the people's business.
Why? Because the nature of the
business is such that it cannot be
centralized. Land and intelligent labor,
prompted by the spirit of ownership, is
necessary to succeed in the hen
business. Land the captains of industry
have not monopolized, and labor
imbued with the spirit of ownership
they cannot monopolize. The chicken
business is, in dollars, one of the
biggest industries in the country. In
numbers of those engaged in it, the
chicken business is the biggest industry
in the world—I bar none. Why is this
true? Primarily because the hen is a
natural part of the equipment of every
farm and of many village homes as
well. It is these millions of small
flocks that count up in dollars and men
and give such an immense aggregate.
More than ninety-eight per cent. of
the poultry and eggs of the country are
produced on the general farm. The
remaining one or two per cent. are
produced on farms or plants where
chicken culture is the cash crop or
chief business of the farmer. It is this
business, relatively small, though
actually a matter of millions, that is
commonly spoken of as the poultry
business, and about which our chief
interest centers. A farmer can disregard
all knowledge and all progress and still
keep chickens, but the man who has no
other means of a livelihood must
produce chicken products efficiently,
or fail altogether—hence the greater
interest in this portion of the industry.
The poultry business as a business to
occupy a man's time and earn him a
livelihood, is a thing of recent origin
and was little heard of before 1890.
Since that time it has undergone a
somewhat painful, though steady
growth. Many people have lost money
in the business and have given it up in
disgust, but on a whole the business has
progressed wonderfully, and now
shows features of development that are
clearly beyond the experimental stage
and are undoubtedly here to stay.
The suggestion has been made by
those who have failed or have seen
others fail in the poultry business, that
success was impossible because of the
destructive competition of the farmer,
whose expense of production is small.
Herein lies a great truth and a great
error. The farmer's cost of production
is small, much smaller than that on
most of the book-made poultry farms
—but the inference that the
poultryman's cost of production cannot
be lowered below that of the farmer is
a different statement.
The farm of our grandfather was a
very diversified institution. It
contained in miniature a woolen mill, a
packing house, a cheese factory,
perhaps a shoe factory and a
blacksmith shop. One by one these
industries have been withdrawn from
general farm-life, and established as
independent businesses. Likewise our
dairy farms, our fruit farms, and our
market gardens have been segregated
from the general farm. This simply
means that manufacturing cloth, or
cheese, or producing milk, or tomatoes
can be done at less cost in separate
establishments than upon a general
farm.
The general farm will always grow
poultry for home consumption, and
will always have some surplus to sell.
With the surplus, the poultryman must
compete. His only hope of successful
competition is production at lower
cost. Can this be done? It is being done,
and the numbers of people who are
doing it are increasing, but they spend
little money at poultry shows, or with
the advertisers of poultry papers, and
hence are little heard of in the poultry
world.
The people whose names and faces
are in the poultry papers are frequently
there only while their money lasts.
They write long articles and show
pictures of many houses and yards to
prove that there is money in the poultry
business, but if one should keep their
names and put the question to them
five years hence, a great many could
say, "Yes, there is money in the poultry
business; mine is in it."
Such people and such plants do not
get the cost of production down below
the farmer's level. Between these two
classes of poultry plants, the writer
hopes in this work to show the
distinction.
 CHAPTER II
WHAT BRANCH OF THE
POULTRY BUSINESS?
The chicken business is especially
prone to failure from a disregard of the
common essential relation of cost and
selling price necessary to the success
of any business. That this should be
more true of the poultry business than
of any other undertakings is to be
explained by the facts that as a
business, it is new, that many of those
who engage in it are inexperienced, but
most particularly because practically
all the literature published on the
subject has been written by or written
in the interest of those who had
something to sell to the poultryman. As
a result the figures of production are
generally given higher than the facts
warrant. The investor, be he ever so
shrewd a man, builds upon these
promises and when he finds his
production lower, is caught with an
excessive investment and a
complicated system on his hands,
which make all profits impossible and
which cannot readily be adapted to the
new conditions.
Estimates of poultry profits are quite
common, but there are few published
figures showing the results that are
actually obtained under practical
working conditions. In this volume I
will try to give the facts of what is
being and can be actually
accomplished.

Various Poultry Products.

In considering the poultry industry
we must first get some idea of the
various articles produced for sale.
It is common knowledge that the
large meat packer can undersell the
small packer because the by-products,
such as bristles, which are wasted by
the local killer, are a source of income
to the large packer. Now, this does not
infer that the small packer is shiftless
and neglects to save his bristles, but
that on the scale on which he operates
it would cost him more to save the
bristles than he could realize on them.
So it is with poultry farming. For
illustration: A visionary writer in a
leading poultry paper, not long ago,
advised poultrymen to store eggs. In
reality this would be the height of
folly, unless the poultryman had his
own retail store. In the first place profit
on cold storage eggs, when all expenses
are paid, will not average a half a cent
a dozen; in the second place, the small
lot would be relatively troublesome
and expensive to handle, and in the
third place, small lots of cold storage
eggs are looked upon with suspicion
and do not find ready sale. So we see
that cold storage eggs are not a suitable
product for the small poultryman to
handle.
A second illustration of an ill-chosen
combination might be taken in the case
of a duck farmer who attempts to
produce broilers. The principal
difficulty of the duck business is that
of getting sufficient intelligent labor in
the rush season. The chief expense of
investment is for incubators and
brooder houses. If the duck farmer now
tries to add broilers, he will find that
the labor comes at the same time of the
year, that the chief equipment required
is that which is already crowded by the
duck business, and that of the men who
have succeeded moderately well in
caring for ducks will fail altogether
with the young chicks, which do not
thrive under the same machine-like
methods.
On the other hand, let us take the
example of an egg farm man who has
resolved to combine his attention
wholly to the production of market
eggs. He succeeds well in his work and
is visited by the poultry editors. His
picture, the picture of his chickens and
of his chicken houses, are printed in the
poultry papers. For a reasonable sum
invested in advertising and in
exhibition at the shows, this man could
now double his income by going into
the breeding stock business. To refuse
to spread out in this case would
certainly be foolish.
The following classification of the
sales products of the poultry industry is
given as a basis for farther
consideration.
CHICKENS.
For food purposes:
Eggs.
Hens, after laying has been
finished.
Cockerels, necessarily hatched in
hatching pullets for layers. (Sold as
squab broilers, regular broilers,
springs, roasters or capons.)
Both sexes as squab broilers,
broilers or roasters.
For stock purposes:
Eggs for hatching.
Day-old chicks.
Mature fowls.
DUCKS.
For table—green or spring ducks.
By-products, old ducks and duck
feathers.
For breeding-stock. </>
GEESE.
Food, Feathers, Breeders.
TURKEYS.
Food, Breeders.
PIGEONS.
Squabs, Breeding Stock.
 GUINEAS.
Broilers, Mature Fowls.
I will now discuss these products
more in detail. Poultry, other than
chickens, I do not care to discuss at
length, because it is not for the purpose
of the book, and because the demand
for other kinds of poultry is limited and
the chance for the growth of the
business small.

The Duck Business.

The duck business is the most highly
commercialized at the present time of
any branch of the poultry business. The
duck is the oldest domestic bird and
was hatched by artificial incubation in
China, when our ancestors were
gnawing raw bones in the caves of
Europe. The duck is the most domestic
of birds and will thrive under more
machine-like methods and without that
touch of nature and of the owner's
kindly interest so necessary to the
welfare of the fowls of the gallinaceous
order. The green duck business is about
twenty years old and has become an
established business in every sense of
the word. The largest plants now
produce about one hundred thousand
ducks per annum. The profits at present
are not large even for the most
successful plants, because the demand
is limited and the production has
reached such a point that cost of
production and selling price bear a
definite relation as in all established
businesses. The green duck business is
not an easy one for the novice because
the margin between cost (chiefly food
cost) and selling price is low, and
unless the new man can reduce the cost
of production or raise his selling price
in some way, he will have no advantage
over the old and successful firms.

Squab Business Overdone.

The business of producing pigeon
squabs resembles the duck business in
the sense that it has been reduced to a
successful system. The production of
squabs has grown until the demand is
satisfied and the price has fallen to just
that figure that will continue to bring in
a sufficient number of squabs from the
plants which are already established, or
which continue to be established by
those who do not stop to investigate the
relation between the cost of production
and the prevailing prices.

Turkeys Not a Commercial

Success.
In the case of turkeys, we find
exactly opposite conditions. The price
of turkeys has risen with the price of
chickens and eggs, until one would
think that there would be great money
in the business, and there is, for the
motherly farm wife who has the knack
of bringing the little turks through the
danger of delicate babyhood. But just
as the duck is more domesticated than
the chicken, so the turkey, which yet
closely resembles its wild ancestor, is
less domestic and has as yet failed to
surrender to the ways of commercial
reasoning, the chief factor of which is
artificial brooding.
The presence of a disease called
blackhead has done vast injury to the
turkey industry in the northeastern
section of the country. In the South the
industry has been booming. Especially
in Tennessee and Texas, I found great
local pride in the turkey crop. I
certainly would advise any farm wife,
in sections where blackhead does not
prevail, to try her hand at turkey
raising. As to her advisability of
continuance in the business, the
number of turkeys at the end of the
season will be the best judge.

Guinea Growing a New Venture.

The guinea growing business is the
newest of the poultry industries. In
fact, it may be said of guineas, as of
our grandmother's tomatoes, "Folks
had them around without knowing they
were of any use." The new use for
guineas is as a substitute for game.
Guinea broilers make quail-on-toast
and older ones are good for grouse,
prairie chicken or pheasant. The retail
price in the large cities runs as high as
$1.50 to $2.00 a pair. It will probably
not pay to raise them unless one is sure
of receiving as much as 50 cents each.
As for the rearing of guineas, they may
be considered on a parallel case with
turkeys, if anything they are even more
difficult to raise in large quantities. I
would also advise this additional
precaution: Look up the market in the
locality before attempting guinea
rearing.

Geese—the Fame of Watertown.

As for the goose business, the writer
must admit that he doesn't know much
about it. In fact, the most of my
knowledge concerning this business
was acquired by a visit to Watertown,
Wis., which is the center of the noodled
goose industry
 The Watertown geese are fed by
hand every two hours day and night.
They sell to the Hebrew trade at as
much per pound as the goose weighs,
and have brought as high as $14.00
apiece. All of this is interesting, but I
hold that the reader who is willing to
take instruction will do better to be
guided toward those branches of the
poultry industry for the products of
which there is a great and increasing
demand. So we will leave the goose
and guinea business to the venturesome
spirits and consider the various
branches of the chicken industry.

The Ill-omened Broiler Business.

The broiler business stands to-day as
the ill-omened valley in the poultry
landscape. As a rule broiler production
has not and probably will not pay. I
know of a few exceptions—about
enough to prove the rule.
Most poultry writers, when they
make the statement that broilers do not
pay, insert the phrase "As an exclusive
business" after the word broilers. This
is merely a ruse to take the rough edge
off an unpleasant statement, for it
certainly hurts the poultry editor to
admit that a much exploited branch of
the industry is a failure. Nevertheless it
is a failure and the more frankly we
admit the fact, the less good capital and
good brains will be wasted in the
attempt to produce at a profit
something which is, and probably
always will be, produced at a loss.
The reason the broiler is produced at
a loss is that 95 per cent. of the broilers
produced are a by-product of egg,
fancy and general poultry production,
and as such their selling price is not
determined by the cost of production,
or the supply determined by the
demand. That the broiler business
received the boom that it did, is due to
plain ignorance of the cost of
production, or to the appreciation that
the ability to rear young chicks could
find a more profitable outlet than in
broiler production. Let us take an
analogous case. Suppose a city man
should discover the fact that there was
a demand for dried casein from skim
milk. With pencil and paper he could
easily figure profits in the business. If
this dreamer would attempt to keep
cows for the production of casein and
throw away his butter fat, we would
have an analogous case to the broiler
raiser who does not keep his pullets for
egg production.
The young cockerel, like skim milk,
is a by-product and may pay over the
cost of feeding, or some other specific
item, but that he does not pay the
whole cost, including wages for the
manager is proven by two facts: First,
every large broiler plant yet started has
either failed flatly or shifted its main
line to other things; second, egg
farmers would be only too glad to buy
pullets at the price for which they sell
the cockerels—a confession that it
costs more to produce broilers than
they will bring.
The conception of the broiler
business when it was boomed twenty
years ago was to produce broilers in
early spring, when other folks had
none. It was, like the early watermelon,
or the early strawberry business—to
make its profits in extreme prices.
This idea received several severe
blows from the hands of modern
progress. One is the development of
poultry fattening and crate feeding in
this country. This has resulted in
supplying the consumer with choice
chicken-flesh that can be produced
more economically than broilers.
Formerly it was a case of eating old
hen—rooster, age unknown, or broilers
—now we have capon, roaster, crate-
fattened chickens and green ducks, all
rivals for the place formerly occupied
exclusively by the broiler.
Again, the improvement of shipping
and dressing facilities, the universal
introduction of the refrigerator car and
the introduction into the central west of
the American breeds, has flooded the
eastern market with a large amount of
spring chickens—by-products of the
egg business on the farm—which are
almost equal in quality to the down-
eastern product.
 The most prominent reason of the
lessened profit in broilers is the
development of the cold storage
industry. Cold storage destroys the
element of season, and allows only that
margin of profit that the consumer is
willing to pay for a fresh killed broiler
from a Jersey broiler plant, as
compared with last summer's product
from the Iowa farms. From a summer
copy of Farm Poultry, I quote the
Boston market:
Fresh killed Northern and
Eastern:
Fowls,
15c
choice
Broilers,
23-
 choice to 25c
fancy
Western,
ice
packed:
Fowls,
14c
choice
Broilers, 20-
choice 22c
Western frozen:
Fowls,
14c
choice
Broilers, 18-
choice 20c
Eggs:
Nearly
26c
fancy
 17-
Western 1/2-
choice -18-
1/2c
To complete our comparison I turn
to the previous winter and find that the
best storage eggs are quoted at 19c,
when the best fresh are selling at 35c.
This was a poor storage season and a
quotation of 22c and 25c would
perhaps be a fairer comparative figure.
We find the per cent. of premium on
the local product to be:
Fowls, local over 7 per
fresh western cent.
Fowls, local over 7 per
frozen western cent.
Broilers, local over 14 per
fresh western cent.
Broilers, local over 26 per
frozen western cent.
Eggs, local over 30 per
fresh western cent.
Eggs, local over 37 per
storage western cent.
I consider these general facts
concerning the failure of broiler
production, and the logical
explanations given, as far more
convincing than any figures I could
give concerning the detailed cost of
production. Nor am I capable of giving
as accurate figures as I can in the case
of poultry keeping for egg production,
for I have had neither the desire nor the
opportunity to look them up. The
following suggestive analysis I submit
for the purpose of pointing out why the
cost of production is too great to allow
a profit. We may consider the chick
marketing as May, the weight as 1-1/4,
and the price as 35 cents a pound, or,
putting it roundly a price of 50 cents a
bird.
Now, May broilers mean February
eggs. If the reader will refer to the
tables of hatchability and mortality he
will see that for our northern states this
is one of the worst seasons for
hatching. A hatchability of 40 per cent.
times a liveability of 50 per cent. gives
a net liveability of 20 per cent. Now,
anyone with the ability to produce high
grade eggs at that time a year, could
get about 40c a dozen for them, which
raises the egg cost per broiler to about
17 cents. The feed cost per broiler is
small, usually estimated at 12 cents,
and this makes a cost of 29 cents. Now,
let us allow a cent for expense of
selling charges and forget all about
investment, fuel and incidentals, we
have left a margin of 20 cents.
Before going farther let us look at
the labor bill. Suppose it is a one-man
plant. Suppose the owner sets a value
on his services of $1,200 per annum.
That is pretty good, but few men who
set a lower value on their services will
have accumulated enough capital to go
into the business. At 20 cents each it
will take 6,000 broilers to make
$1,200. That will take 30,000 eggs and
at three settings will require 40 240-
egg incubators, which, of a good make,
will cost $1,260. To spread the
hatching out over a longer period is to
run into cheap prices on the one hand,
or a still impossible egg season on the
other. It will take upwards of a hundred
brooders to house the chicks.
There is no use of going farther till
we have solved these difficulties. First
we have more work than one man can
do; second, we require a number of
hatchable eggs that cannot be bought in
winter without a campaign of
advertising and canvassing for them,
that would make them cost double our
previous figure. To produce them
oneself would require a flock of 2,500
hens. When a man gets to that point in
the business he is out of the broiler
business and an egg farmer, and will do
the same thing, hatch the chicks when
eggs are cheap and fertile, selling his
surplus cockerels for 25 cents each and
permit the storage man to freeze them
until the following spring to compete
with the broiler man's expensively
produced goods.
The effort at early broiler production
was a natural result of the combination
of the idea of artificial incubation with
our grandmother's pride in having the
first setting hen. But in the present age
the man who attempts it is rowing
against the current of economical
production, for the cheaply produced
broiler can be stored until the season of
scarcity, with but slight loss in quality.
To produce broilers in the season of
scarcity, necessitates the consumption
of a product (eggs) which cannot be so
successfully stored, with a lesser
quantity of that same product in its
season of plenty. We will give the
production of broilers no further
attention save as a by-product of egg
production.

South Shore Roaster.

The production of South Shore soft
roasters in a local section of
Massachusetts, offers a successful
contrast with the broiler business and
is, so far as the writer knows, the only
case in the United States where pullets
are profitably diverted from egg
production. The process of roaster
production is essentially as follows:
The incubators are set in the fall or
early winter, and the chicks reared in
brooder houses. As soon as the tender
age is past, the chickens are put in
simple colony houses where, with
hopper fed corn, beef scrap and rye on
the range, they grow throughout the
winter and spring. They are sold from
May 1st to July 1st and bring such
prices that the cockerels are caponized
yet not sold as capons, showing them to
be the highest priced chicken flesh in
the market save small broilers. Now,
the income of roasters is two to five
times as much per head as that of
broilers. The added expense is only a
matter of feed, which bears about the
same ratio to weight as with broilers.
The great advantage of the roaster
business over that of the broiler
business comes in the following points:
1st: The initial expense of eggs,
incubation and brooding are distributed
over a much larger final valuation.
2nd: The incubation period, while
perhaps in as difficult a season, can be
distributed over a longer period of
time.
 With 8 pound roasters at 30 cents,
we have an expense account about as
follows: cost of production to broiler
stage, 30 cents as previously given. An
additional food cost of 10 cents per
pound of chicken flesh would still
leave a margin of $1.40, so, for an
income of $1,200, only about 860 birds
need be raised, a proposition not
beyond the capacity of one man to
handle.
Allowing a spread of five hatching
periods, the number of eggs required at
once would be one-twelfth that
demanded by the broiler farm. As it is,
the roaster grower finds trouble in
getting good eggs and is obliged to pay
50 cents a dozen for them, but his want
is within the region of possibility.
The South Shore roaster district is an
example of an industry built up by
specialization and co-operation. But in
this sense I do not mean co-operation
in production, but that the product is
handled by a few dealers and has
become well known so that the brand
sells readily at an advanced price. To a
beginner in the South Shore district,
the numerous successes and failures
around him cannot help but be of great
benefit. The South Shore roaster
district of Massachusetts is the best
example of specialized community
production of poultry flesh that we
have in the United States. It is only
rivaled by the districts in the south of
England and in France.
In Chapter III the writer takes up
fully the community production of
eggs. The reason I have gone into this
matter in regard to eggs rather than
roasters, is because the egg production
is much the greater industry, and,
whereas the soft roaster is at a
premium only in a few Boston shops,
high grade eggs are universally
recognized and in demand. Many of the
economies, especially concerning
incubation, would apply equally well in
both communities. I expect to see the
time when chicken flesh shall be
produced with these more advanced
methods in many "South Shore"
communities.
 Too Much Competition in Fancy
Poultry.
The various types of chicken
farming are classified by what is made
the leading sales product. This will
depend wholly upon what is done with
the female chicks that are hatched. If
they are sold as broilers it is a broiler
plant; if as roasters, it is a roaster
plant; if as stock, it is a fancy or
breeding stock business, but if kept for
laying the proposition is an egg farm,
and all other products are by-products.
These by-products are to be carefully
considered, and sold at the greatest
possible price, but their production is
incidental to the production of the main
crop.
 Of the fancy poultry business as a
main issue it must be said that it is
certainly a poor policy to start out to
make a living doing what hundreds of
other people are only too glad to spend
money in doing. Just as a homeless girl
in a great city is beaten out in the
struggle for existence by competition
with girls who have good homes, and
are working for chocolate money, so
the man starting out as a poultry
fancier is certainly working at great
odds in competition with the
professional men, farmers and poultry
raisers whose income from fancy stock
is meant to buy Christmas presents and
not to pay grocery bills.
To enter the fancy poultry business,
one should take up poultry breeding in
a small way, while working at another
occupation, or he may take up
commercial poultry production, learn
to produce stock in large quantities and
at a low productive cost, after which
any breeding stock business he may
secure will be added profit. The fancier
will find the cost of production as
given for commercial purposes very
instructive, but if he operates in a small
way he should expect to find his
productive costs increased unless he
chooses to count his own labor as of
little or no value. That every chicken
fancier also has in a small way
commercial products to sell, goes
without saying. These, indeed, together
with his sales of high-priced stock,
may pull him through with a total
profit, even though his production cost
is great, but every fancier should take a
pride in making the sales at
commercial rates pay for their cost of
production.
If the reader has received the
impression from the present discussion
that fancy poultry breeding always
proves unprofitable, he certainly has
failed to get the key-note of the
situation. There are numbers of fancy
poultry breeders making incomes of
several thousand dollars per year, but
these are old breeders and well-known
men.
There is another type of poultry
fancier who is more commercial in his
methods, but whose work lacks the
personal enthusiasm and artistic touch
of the regular fancier. I refer to the
band wagon style of breeder who gets
out a general catalog in which are
pictured acres of poultry yards with
fences as straight as the draughtsman's
rule can make them. Such men do a big
business. They may carry a part or all
of the breeding stock on a central
poultry plant and farm out the eggs,
contracting to buy back the stock in the
fall, or the poultry farm may be a myth
and the manager may simply sell the
product of the neighboring farmers
who raise it under contract.
The system is naturally disliked by
the higher class fanciers, but the writer
must confess that any system which
gets improved stock distributed among
the farmers is worthy of praise. These
types of poultry farms have been more
largely carried on in the West than in
the East, owing to the fact that true
fanciers are thicker in the East. There
is undoubtedly still plenty of room for
band wagon poultry plants in the West
and especially in the South.
As adjuncts of this business may be
mentioned the sale of a line of poultry
supplies and the handling of other pet
stock, such as dogs or Shetland ponies.
In this case the advantage of such
additions depends upon the fact that the
greatest cost is that of advertising, and,
if anything that will be associated in
the buyer's mind with the main article
be added to the catalog, it will result in
additional sales at a low rate of
advertising cost.

Egg Farming the Most Certain and

Profitable.
We have now discussed all the
branches of the poultry business save
that of egg production, and the result of
our review indicates that most of these
fields are either of limited
opportunities or that they present
obstacles in the very nature of the work
that prevent their being conducted on a
large scale.
Egg production is undoubtedly the
most promising and profitable branch
of the poultry industries. The chief
reason that this is true is to be found in
the fact that the most difficult feature
in chicken growing is the rearing of
young stock through the brooding
period. Now, as the eggs laid by a hen
are worth several times the value of her
carcass, it stands to reason that once we
succeed in rearing pullets, egg farming
must be the most profitable business to
engage in.
For each hen that passes through a
laying period there is her own carcass,
and at least one cockerel, that are
necessarily produced and that must be
marketed. Now, the pullet is worth
more for egg producing than can be
realized for her as a broiler or roaster,
and her extra worth may be considered
as counter-balancing the price at which
cockerels must be sold.
The egg crop represents about two-
thirds of the value of all poultry
products, and the demand for the high
grade goods has never been satisfied.
Egg farming cannot easily be overdone,
whereas any other type of poultry
production must compete with the
cockerels and hens that are a by-
product of egg farming.
Egg farming by no means relieves
one from the difficulties of incubation
and growing young stock, but it does
throw these difficult parts of the
business at the natural season of the
year and results in a distribution of
work throughout a longer period of
time.
In the remainder of the volume we
will consider the poultryman as an egg
farmer. We will also, unless otherwise
stated, assume that he is a White
Leghorn egg farmer, who is hatching
by artificial incubation. Such reference
to the marketing of poultry flesh or to
other breeds will be made only in
comparison of this type of the business
or in relation to the production or
handling of farm-grown poultry.
 CHAPTER III
THE POULTRY
PRODUCING
COMMUNITY
The builder of air castles in
Poultrydom invariably starts out with a
resumé of the specialization of the
world's work and the wonderful
advances in the economy of production
of the large corporate organization,
compared with the individual producer.
The lone blacksmith hammering out
a horseshoe nail is contrasted with the
mills of the American Steel Company.
The fond dreamer looks upon the steel
trust, the oil trust, the department store,
the packing house, the chain groceries,
the theatrical trust, and the colossal
enterprises that dominate every field of
industry save agriculture. Here, then,
lies the neglected opportunity for the
industrial dreamer to hop over the
fence, awaken the sleeping farmer, and
fill his own purse with the wealth to be
made by applying modern business
methods to agriculture.
The knowing smile—the farmer may
be asleep and he may not be. Suppose
that he is, does the fond dreamer dream
that he is the first man from the
industrial kingdom of great things to
look with hungry eyes at the rich field
of agricultural opportunity, basking in
last century's sun? Alas, fond dreamer,
your name is legion. Every farmer who
has sent a son to college has known you
and the Hon. William Jennings Bryan
has met you, called you an agriculturist
and defined you as a man who makes
his money in town and spends it in the
country.
But the dreamer is right in his first
premise—great economies in
production are the result of
specialization and combination. Why
not then in agriculture? I'll tell you
why. There is a touch of nature in the
living thing that calls for a closer
interest on the part of the laborer than
the industrial system of the mine and
factory can give.
Why is combined and specialized
production more economical? It may
be because it gets more efficient work
out of labor, it may be that larger
operations make feasible the
employment of more efficient methods
and machinery. The cost of production
may be lowered, by either or both of
these means, or it may be lowered by
an increased efficiency in machinery,
even with a decreased efficiency in
labor.
Combination and specialization so
commonly cut down expenses because
of large operations and the use of better
tools, that we may take this saving for
granted. When it comes to labor there
is a different story. The negro working
with boss and gang, or the machine-
tender in the factory work as well or
better for large than for small concerns,
but the labor of a poultry plant is
different. It is made up of a great many
different operations well scattered in
space and time. For the most part it is
simple labor, but it is essential that it
be performed with reasonable concern
for the welfare of the business.
In other industries, as with men
working at a bench, the presence of a
foreman keeps them busy and their
work may be daily inspected. To have
foremen in poultry work would require
as many foremen as laborers, and even
then they would be as useless, for when
the last round of the brooders is made
at night a foreman standing three feet
away could not know whether the
laborer who had placed his hand in the
brooder had found all well or all
wrong.
It is useless to carry the argument
farther. The labor bill is one of the
biggest items of expense in poultry
production. With a system where the
efficiency of the labor decreases with
the size of the business, large industrial
enterprises are impossible. Such
savings as will be made in buying
supplies, selling, etc., will be wasted in
the reduced efficiency of labor.
The bulk of labor in poultry work
must be self-reliant labor and the only
test for such efficiency is number of
chicks reared and the weight of the egg
basket. Even this will not be a
complete test unless from the income
be subtracted the feed bills.
A system of renting or working on
shares that will gain the advantages of
centralization without losing the
individual interest of the laborer, will
go a long way toward making the
poultry business one wherein large
capital and large brains can find a place
to work. I expect to see in the future
some such system evolved. In fact we
have to-day a profit-sharing plan
between owner and foreman on many
of our best plants. To extend such to
each laborer requires more system and
better superintendence, but it is
feasible and must come. But, better
still is it for the worker to own the
stock. Best yet if he owns both stock
and land, leaving to larger capital only
such phases of the business as involve
great saving when done on a wholesale
basis.
Just as the manufacturer of farm
machinery, the packing of meat and the
manufacture of butter have
successfully been taken out of the
control of the individual farmer and
placed under corporate or co-operative
organization, so the writer expects to
see certain portions of the process of
poultry production removed from the
hands of the farmer and controlled by
more specialized and expert labor. Far
from meaning the lessening of the
earning power of the farmer, every one
of such steps means larger production
and more profits. The ideal of
agricultural economics is to give the
farmer the smallest possible proportion
of the work of agricultural production
in order that the most may be produced
and the farmer's share along with the
others may be largest.

Established Poultry Communities.

In a previous chapter we spoke of the
South Shore roaster district of
Massachusetts. Here is a community
where, in lots of from a dozen to four
or five thousand, are annually produced
seventy-five or one hundred thousand
market fowls of one particular type.
While this business was not built up by
the efforts of a corporation or
individual who planned definitely the
entire project, yet we find a central
influence at work in the person of the
firm of Curtis Bros., who for years
have bought the majority of South
Shore roasters, and who have done a
great deal to advertise the product and
encourage their neighbors to a larger
and more uniform production.
At Little Compton, R. I., is a very
similar parallel of the South Shore
district in the shape of egg farms. Here
we find within a radius of two miles
about one hundred thousand Rhode
Island Red hens owned in flocks of two
thousand or less. The methods used
throughout the community are all alike
and are simple in the extreme. There
are no incubators, no brooders, no
poultry houses, no long houses, no
dropping boards to be scraped every
morning, nothing in fact, but board-
walled, board-roofed, colony houses,
scattered over the grass fields and
similar though smaller fields covered
with coops for hens and chicks.
Feeding is equally simple; a mash of
meat, vegetables and ground grain
mixed once a day and hauled around in
a one-horse cart and hoppers of whole
corn exposed in the houses. The houses
are cleaned twice a year. Little
Compton is, indeed, a community
where all the rules of the poultry books
are regularly violated, and yet a larger
number of successful egg farms can be
seen from the church spire at Little
Compton Corners than most poultry
writers have ever seen or read about.
Strange it is, as Josh Billings puts it,
that "some folks know things that ain't
so."
An illustration published in a recent
issue of the World's Work tells a
remarkable story. A pile of egg shells
as big as a straw stack certainly
indicates "something doing" in the
chicken business, and it is a very proud
monument to Mr. Byce who, some
twenty odd years ago, established an
incubator factory at the town of
Petaluma. Petaluma is in Sonoma
County, California, forty miles north of
San Francisco. In the census year of
1899, Sonoma County produced more
eggs than any other county in the
United States. To-day there are in the
Petaluma region close to one million
hens.
Like the Little Compton district,
Petaluma is a one-breed community,
White Leghorns being the breed used.
The individual flocks range larger than
at Little Compton, chiefly because the
milder climate, smaller breed, and
establishment of the central hatchery
enables one man to take care of more
birds.
When I asked Mr. Byce for a list of
the people in his neighborhood keeping
over one thousand hens, he replied by
sending me a list of twenty-two men
who keep from 8,000 down to 2,500
each, and said that to give those
keeping from one to two thousand,
would practically be to take a census of
the county. The methods of housing
and feeding used are simple and
inexpensive like those at Little
Compton.
The chief reason why Petaluma
shows a more advanced development in
the poultry community than the eastern
poultry growing localities, is to be
found in the climatic advantages which
favor incubation (see Chapter on
Incubation) and the consequent
development of the central hatchery.
Outside of this, the location is not
especially favorable. The temperature
is milder in the winter than in the East,
but the Petaluma winter is one of
continual rain which develops roup to a
greater extent than we have it in the
East. The prices received for high
grade eggs in San Francisco is in the
winter about equal to the top prices in
New York. In the spring and summer
New York will give more for fancy
goods. The cost of corn on the Pacific
Coast is about 40 cents a hundred more
than on the Atlantic Coast. Wheat,
however, is cheaper than in the East,
but not cheap enough to substitute for
the more staple grain.
The eggs from the Petaluma region
are at present marketed largely through
a co-operative marketing association.

Developing Poultry Communities.

I have shown why the large
individual poultry farms with hired
labor have not proven profitable fields
for the investment of capital. Again, I
have shown that in a few localities
where the business was incidentally
started, communities of independent
poultry farmers have grown up which
are very successful, and that there is no
apparent reason why similar
communities elsewhere, if intelligently
located, could not do as well or better.
This looks like an excellent field for
corporate enterprise. Certainly there is
no more reason why the poultry
community cannot be as successfully
promoted as an irrigation project, or a
cheese factory, or a trucking
community. In such a community there
are many functions that can be better
performed by a capitalized body
managed by experts than by individual
poultrymen acting alone.
These functions are:
First, the selection of a location and
the purchase of the land in large
quantities.
Second, laying out this land into
suitable individual holdings, with
regard to economy of water supply and
the collection of the product.
Third, the partial or complete
equipment of these farms at less
expense and in a more suitable manner
than could or would be done by the
individual holders.
Fourth, the sale or rent of these
places to poultrymen at a reasonable
profit on the investment, but at a rate
which will still be below the cost at
which the individual could have
acquired the land. Fifth, the selection
of the stock that would not only be
better adapted to the enterprise than
that which would be acquired by the
individual farmer, but would possess
the uniformity necessary to the
maintenance of a standard grade in the
product.
Sixth, the centralized hatching of the
chicks by which means chicks can be
more cheaply hatched and better
hatched than by the imperfect methods
available to the small poultryman.
Seventh, the purchase of all outside
supplies with the usual savings
involved in large purchases.
Eighth, a teaming system of
delivering such supplies.
Ninth, a general protection against
thieves and predatory animals by an
organized war on all "varments."
Tenth, maintenance of the best
methods in feeding and care by the
employment of skilled advisers, or the
operation of demonstration farms
under the direction of the central
management.
Eleventh, the enforced daily
gathering of all eggs and their
lodgment that same evening in a clean,
dry cooler, with a thermometer
hovering around 29 degrees Fahrenheit.
Twelfth, the strict enforcement of
penalties against the man who attempts
to sell bad eggs.
Thirteenth, the prompt dispatch of
the product to its final market.
Fourteenth, the final sale of the eggs
with opportunities for fancy prices
made possible by an absolutely
guaranteed product in quantities
sufficient to permit of a regular supply
and of advertising the product.
Fifteenth, the conduction of breeding
operations along any desired line, with
the opportunity of combining the
principle of great numbers for selection
with the comparison of all progeny
from ancestry, a method that will bring
results a hundred times more quickly
than the efforts of the small breeder.
Sixteenth, the advantage of the sale
of breeding stock to be acquired from
the free publicity which is showered on
all unique industrial enterprises.
In these sixteen functions there is
ample opportunity for capital, backed
by ability in organization, to reap an
ample reward. Is it a dream? In a sense
yes, but a dream made possible by the
observation of the actual results
achieved in similar lines, and of the
present tendency in the poultry
producing world.
Why has not this thing been done
before? Because no one knew enough
to do it. Why did not the wonderful
trucking regions develop earlier in the
South, and why does it still take
northern settlers, backed by railroad
advertising, to develop the wonderful
modern industries which enables every
city dweller in the North to have
strawberries in February and fresh
vegetables any day in the year?
Why did the California fruit trade
develop? Did anyone suppose forty
years ago that the unsettled valley
around Pasadena would ever produce
one thousand dollars per acre in one
year? These orange groves, too
valuable for agricultural purposes to be
used as town sites, were precarious
experiments until the trans-continental
refrigerator car and the California Fruit
Growers' Exchange paved the way and
put each day in every eastern and
northern city just the quantity of
oranges that the people could consume
at a profitable price.
Mr. Harwood, in the World's Work
for May, 1908, after describing the
"City of a Million Hens," raises the
question, "If in Petaluma, why not
anywhere?" I would like to answer that
question by saying that while anywhere
is a little broad, the reason the industry
has not developed elsewhere has been
because of the diversion of interested
capital towards impractical large
individual poultry plants, manned by
hired labor. Another reason has been
the lack of the technical knowledge
necessary to construct and operate
efficient hatcheries.
The poultryman has been a disciple
of the poultry papers and poultry
fanciers of the day. The poultry papers
and poultry literature has generally
been supported by poultry fanciers and
manufacturers of incubators, patent
nests and portable houses. The good
folks have vied with one another in
complicating the business. They have
built steam-piped houses, with padded
walls and miniature railways with
which daily to haul away the
droppings. A few famous fanciers
selling eggs at $10.00 per setting have
made such business pay, but alas for
the luckless investor in what the
visiting poultry editor would style a
"handsomely equipped modern poultry
plant."
A few years ago a Government
poultry expert paid a visit to Petaluma.
He came back and reported, "It is a
great disappointment, the methods are
very crude." The case is most pathetic.
Here was a man employed by the
people to teach them how to make
poultry pay. His carfare is paid across
the continent that he might visit the
only community in the United States
where at that time any considerable
number of people were making their
living from poultry, and because he did
not find lightning rods on the poultry
houses, he came back with the look of
Naamen who, when he was requested
by Elisha to bathe seven times in the
river Jordan, replied, "It is very crude."

Will Co-operation Work?

That magic thing, "Co-operation,"
while utterly lacking in the Utopian
qualities with which the word artist
paints it, is a decidedly bigger factor in
American affairs than the average man
realizes.
The chief difficulty with co-
operation is that the manager, if not
incompetent, has an excellent
opportunity to be a grafter. In Europe
co-operation in agricultural and
mercantile enterprise is older and
better developed than in this country.
Perhaps the Europeans are less inclined
to be grafters, but a more likely
explanation is that the members of
such associations as these have learned
how to prevent and detect graft, just as
our business men have learned to avoid
losses from the dishonesty of
employes. That this is the true
explanation is substantiated by the fact
that when co-operation once becomes
established in this country, it succeeds
even better than in Europe.
When the creameries were started in
the West several years ago, there was
much complaint of swindlers, fake
stock companies, and co-operative
ventures in which the manager
absconded with the butter money. To-
day more than half of the American
creameries are co-operative and the
number is constantly increasing. They
are efficient and successful in every
way, and to-day make the finest of
butter and pay the highest prices to the
farmer for his cream. But their way
was first paved and the business
developed by successful private
concerns.
Co-operation is entirely feasible and
successful where the people behind the
movement have enough interest in the
enterprise and good enough business
sense to run the proposition as
efficiently as similar private
enterprises are run. The idea that co-
operation must always result in a big
saving is a misconception. Employes
will not work any harder for an
association than for a private employer,
sometimes not as hard. Certainly no
employee will work as hard for an
association as he will for himself.
Why people should expect to buy out
the grocery store and hire the grocer to
run it and save money for themselves,
is a thing I could never understand. But
if there is some great waste that co-
operation will prevent, as where seven
milk wagons drive every morning over
the same route, or where the market of
perishable crops is glutted one day and
starved the next, centralization,
corporate or co-operate, will pay.
I know of no better way to impress
the reader with American co-operation
in actual practice than to quote from a
brief account of the California Fruit
Growers' Exchange.
The Exchange was founded upon the
theory that every member is entitled to
furnish his pro rata of the fruit for
shipment through his association, and
every association to its pro rata to the
various markets of the country. This
theory reduced to practice gives every
grower his fair share, and the average
price of all markets throughout the
season.
Another cardinal provision of the
plan was that all fruit should be
marketed on a level basis of actual
cost, with all books and accounts open
for inspection at the pleasure of the
members. These broad principles of
full co-operation constitute the basis of
the Exchange movement.
The Exchange system is simple, but
quite democratic. The local association
consists of a number of growers
contiguously situated, who unite
themselves for the purpose of
preparing their fruit for market on a co-
operative basis. They establish their
own brands, make such rules as they
may agree upon for grading, packing
and pooling their fruit. Usually these
associations own thoroughly equipped
packing houses.
All members are given a like
privilege to pick and deliver fruit to the
packing house, where it is weighed in
and properly receipted for. Every
grower's fruit is separated into
different grades, according to quality,
and usually thereafter it goes into the
common pool, and in due course takes
its percentage of the returns according
to grade.
Any given brand is the exclusive
property of the Local Association using
it, and the fruit under this brand is
always packed in the same locality, and
therefore of uniform quality. This is of
great advantage in marketing, as the
trade soon learns that the pack is
reliable.
There are more than eighty
associations, covering every citrus fruit
district in California, and packing
nearly two hundred reliable and
guaranteed brands of oranges and
lemons.
The several local Exchanges
designate one man each from their
membership as their representative,
and he is elected a director of the
California Fruit Growers' Exchange. By
this method the policy-making and
governing power of the organization
remains in the hands of the local
Exchanges.
From top to bottom the organization
is planned, dominated and in general
detail controlled absolutely by fruit
growers, and for the common good of
all members. No corporation nor
individual reaps from it either
dividends or private gain.
So far we have dealt almost
exclusively with the organization of the
Exchange, its co-operative aspects, and
general policy at home. Equally
important is its organization in the
markets.
Seeking to free itself from the
shifting influence of speculative
trading, by taking the business out of
the hands of middlemen at home, the
Exchange found it quite as important to
maintain the control of its own affairs
in the markets.
For this purpose the Exchange
established a system of exclusive
agencies in all the principal cities of
the country, employing as agents
active, capable young men of
experience in the fruit business. Most
of these agents are salaried, and have
no other business of any kind to engage
their attention, and none of the
Exchange representatives handle any
other citrus fruits. These agents sell to
smaller cities contiguous to their
headquarters, or in the territory
covered by their districts.
Over all these agencies are two
general or traveling agents, with
authority to supervise and check up the
various offices. These general agents
maintain in their offices at Chicago and
Omaha, a complete bureau of
information, through which all agents
receive every day detailed information
as to sales of Exchange fruit in other
markets the previous day. Possessing
this data, the selling agent cannot be
taken advantage of as to prices. If any
agent finds his market sluggish, and is
unable to sell at the average prices
prevailing elsewhere, he promptly
advises the head office in Los Angeles,
and sufficient fruit is diverted from his
market to relieve it and restore prices
to normal level.
Through these agencies of its own
the Exchange is able to get and
transmit to its members the most
trustworthy information regarding
market conditions, visible supplies, etc.
This system affords a maximum of
good service at a minimum cost. The
volume of the business is so large that
a most thorough equipment is
maintained at much less cost to
growers than any other selling agency
can offer.
 The annual business of the
California Fruit Growers' Exchange
amounts to over ten million dollars,
and the Exchange handles over half the
citrus fruit output of the State. Yet
there are people who say co-operation
in America will not work.

Co-operative Egg Marketing in

Denmark.
I have discussed at length the work
of the California Fruit Growers'
Exchange, as the best example in the
United States of the co-operative
marketing of farm produce. We have
thus far but little co-operative work in
the marketing of poultry products.
Canada has a few examples, but it is to
European countries that we must go for
a full demonstration of the principle of
co-operation when applied to the
products of the hen. In England and in
Ireland co-operative efforts in the
growing, fattening, and marketing of
poultry and eggs are quite common. It
is to Denmark, however, that we must
go to find the most wholesale example
of this truly modern type of business
effort.
The Danes are co-operators in the
fullest sense. They have co-operative
creameries and co-operative packing
houses. The Danish Egg Export Society
is an organization, the plan and work of
which is very much like that of the
California Fruit Growers' Exchange.
 The local branch of the association
buys the eggs of the farmer, paying for
them by weight. Collectors are hired to
gather them at frequent and regular
intervals, and are paid In accordance
with the amount of their collections,
but must stand the loss of breakage.
Each individual poultryman's eggs are
kept separate until they reach a
centralizing station. There are a
number of these central stations at
which the eggs are carefully crated and
packed for shipment to England.
The individual farmer is fined or
taxed for all bad eggs found in his lot.
This fine is deducted from his receipts
and he has nothing to do but to submit
to it or get out of the association. The
latter he cannot afford to do because
the association has its established
brands and can pay him more for his
eggs than he could secure by
attempting to market them himself. As
a result of this strict system of making
the producer responsible for weight and
quality of the eggs the Danish eggs
have become the largest and finest in
the world.
Although the writer firmly believes
in the co-operative marketing of farm
produce, and considers that the success
already secured in this work is
conclusive evidence of the
practicability and desirability of co-
operation, it would not be fair to infer
that co-operation has entirely driven
out private or corporate enterprise. Just
as a goodly per cent. of the citrus fruit
of California is still handled by private
dealers, so in Denmark we find that
nearly one-half of the eggs sent to
England are handled by private
companies. Let it be noted, however,
that these companies maintain a system
of buying on merit which enforces high
quality that is not to be found where
private buyers are without the spur of
co-operative competition. Before co-
operation entered the orange regions of
California, the fruit was poorly packed
and handled and the markets at times
so glutted, that shipments of fruit
sometimes failed to pay the freight,
and this was actually charged back to
the unfortunate grower. Co-operation
has done away with this waste. In like
manner the great loss from
decomposed eggs and half hatched
chicks is unknown to the egg trade of
Denmark.

Corporation or Co-operation?
The community of farmers
producing a large quantity of a single
kind of product is the coming form of
agricultural enterprise. Will this
community be promoted by
corporation or by co-operation?
Arthur Brisbane says, "As individual
control of the Government has been
superceded by collective control, so
individual control of industries will be
followed by collective control. That is
the natural order."
Brisbane is right. The individual, or
the corporation, which is an individual
using other men's money, foreruns co-
operation, because the individual
knows exactly what he wants to do and
the big group of individuals does not
know what they want or how to do it
until individuals have, by concrete
successes, shown them.
When the creameries were started,
co-operative creameries were
unsuccessful and could not compete
with privately owned creameries. The
farmers have now become too wise to
be "easy-marks" to the fake creamery
promoters or to trust their butter sales
to a comparative stranger and co-
operation is a success.
Poultry communities cannot be made
out of whole cloth by the co-operative
plan. Private corporations will be
necessary to launch these enterprises.
When they have reached the stage of
development now to be seen in Little
Compton and Petaluma they are ready
for co-operation.
I have emphasized the point that the
private corporation is the natural
forerunner in this matter in order to
discourage premature or over-
ambitious efforts at co-operation.
Whenever a community of poultrymen
or, for that matter, a community of
growers of any perishable form of
products, who are already successful in
the producing end, wish to take up co-
operation and will see that men are
selected to manage it who will use the
same precautions to guard against
incompetency or graft that they, as
individuals, would use in their own
business, there is excellent chance of
success.
Go slow. Do not expect to get rich
quick by "cutting out the middleman's
enormous profits," for the middleman's
profits are not enormous, and if you see
that your co-operation is not paying,
give it up and confess to yourselves
that you do not know as much about the
business as your private competitors.
 CHAPTER IV
WHERE TO LOCATE
That poultry should be kept on every
farm to supply the farmer's own table
does not permit of argument. When it
comes to production for market, I
believe there are some sections where
it costs more to produce and market
poultry and eggs than is received for
the product when sold. For illustration:
On a farm which is twenty miles from
town and where grain cannot be
profitably grown, the cost of teaming
grain from the railroad station and of
sending the eggs to market as
frequently as is necessary to have a
wholesome product, would certainly
eat up all possible profits.
The farmer thus located would find a
more profitable use for his time in
some industry where the raw material
is near at hand and the product needs
less frequent marketing.

Some Poultry Geography.

When we are discussing poultry on
the general farm, the problem of
location is not to be taken into
consideration, save to the extent that
there are a few localities where food
cost is so high or marketing facilities
so poor as to make even the usual farm
surplus unprofitable.
The map on page 45 shows the
intensity of egg production and also
indicates the location of the more
important localities where poultry
plants have succeeded. The map on
page 47 shows the quality of eggs
coming from various sections, which
indicates pretty closely the general
development of the poultry industry.
These indications, however, are of little
value in locating a poultry plant, for
they refer to the poultry product on the
general farm, and are a matter of the
number and general intelligence of
farmers, rather that a sign of the
suitability of the locality for the
poultry industry.
For purposes of discussion, I have
divided the United States into seven
sections as shown by the dotted lines
on the second map.

Section 1 is the North Woods and

too cold and remote for the poultry
business.
Section 2 includes the great West, of
which an adequate discussion is out of
the question. Of course, the great
majority of this area is too remote from
markets for poultry production. The
locations around the big cities in this
section are excellent for poultry
farming, as they are so far removed
from the great farm region that their
bulk of imported eggs are of necessity
somewhat stale. California is good
chicken country. The Puget Sound
country is rather too damp. In the
interior western regions the chicken
business has not done well, chiefly
because the atmosphere is too dry for
the methods of artificial incubation
attempted.
Section 3 is the great granary of the
world. It is also the home of three-
fourths of the country's poultry crop. It
is a region of corn, cattle and hogs.
Such a country will produce poultry in
a very inexpensive manner. But it is
not the region for special poultry
farms. In the northern portion of this
tract, we find a heavy housing expense
and much winter labor necessary. It is a
region of high priced lands and labor,
and low prices for poultry products.
Even the large cities in this region
offer little in the way of demand for
high grade poultry products. This is
because they are so abundantly
surrounded with farms that all produce
is moderately fresh and plentiful. There
are no successful poultry farms in this
section west of the Mississippi. It is the
natural location of extensive rather
than intensive branches of agriculture.
The only type of commercial poultry
farming that could succeed in any
portion of this section would be a large
community of producers who could
ship their products out regularly in
carload lots. Such development could
only take place in the southern portion
of this region, for the housing expense
is too great for the north. At best the
distance from market is a disadvantage,
for the rate on eggs just about equals
the rate on the quantity of grain
necessary to produce them. The added
time of shipment is something of a
drawback, though in refrigerator cars
this is not serious. After the
establishment of poultry communities
becomes more common, the Oklahoma
and Texas region will become available
for this purpose, but they must be
established in full swing at the start,
for a few isolated poultrymen have no
chance at all in this section, for they
cannot sell their product to advantage.
Section 4. This region, extending
from the Ozarks to Eastern Tennessee,
is one of the very best poultry sections.
The climate is such that green food is
available winter and summer, and the
expense of housing and winter labor is
reasonable. This section is still in the
corn growing region. The question is
almost always one of All poultry farms
in this section must grow their own
grain or buy it of their immediate
neighbors. It will not pay to ship grain
into this region.

When near shipping facilities,

individual poultry farms in Section 4
have a good chance of success,
especially east of the Mississippi. This
is the most favorable region in the
country for the establishment of
poultry communities that are to grow
their own grain. Such poultry farms
will not be expected to confine their
attention as exclusively to the business
as those in the section where it is
profitable to import the grain.
Section 5 is the non-grain growing
region of the South. It at present
produces little poultry. The climate is
all right for the purpose, but the freight
rates on grain from the West are high
and likewise the freight service and
freight rates to the final market are
excessive. Under these conditions
poultry farming will not pay except in
a few localities as in Florida, where
there is a high class local market due to
the popular resorts. If grain could be
profitably grown in this section the
same type of poultry farming that
prevails in Section 4 would be
advisable. Now, grain can be grown in
the cotton belt of the South, and many
Yankee farmers are making good
money doing it. But when grown it is
liable to be worth more to feed mules
than to feed chickens.
Section 6 is the "Down East" section
of dense population. The land for the
most part is rocky, wooded and hilly.
The climate and nature of the soil are
against the economical production of
poultry, but the grain can be profitably
fed, and as the markets are the best in
the country, commercial poultry
farming has gained quite a foothold. If
a man is already located in this section
and wishes to go into the poultry
business I would by all means say, "Go
ahead," but I would not advise an
outsider looking for a location to come
here, for the next section has several
advantages.
Section 7 is the best poultry farming
district in the United States, either for
the individual poultry plant or for the
community of poultry growers. The
reasons for this are:
First: The soil is of a sandy nature
and excellent land for poultry farming
can be had at a low price.
Second: The climate is much more
favorable than farther north or farther
inland.
Third: Grain rates from the West are
very reasonable.
Fourth: The best market in the
country—New York City—is within
easy shipping distance.
The type of poultry farming here to
be recommended, like that of Section
6, is one in which imported grain is
fed. The fertility of this grain, going
back on the light soil, is used to grow
the green food required by the hens,
and, in addition, may be used in a
rotation system for growing truck. It
will not pay to grow any quantity of
grain. Section 7, because of its
advantages over Section 6 in climate
and the availability of large tracts of
suitable land, is a much better location
for the poultry community. Over
Section 4, which is the second best
region for this purpose, it has the
advantage of nearness to markets. The
climatic advantage of Sections 4 and 7
are about on a par. The chief
distinction is the matter of growing
grain or importing it. If you are to grow
your grain, using poultry as a means of
marketing it, Section 4 is the best
locality. If you are to buy grain,
Section 7 is the place.
The boundaries of Section 7 are not
arbitrary and should be noted carefully.
The line runs from Mattawan, New
Jersey, across to the main line of the
Pennsylvania and down this to
Washington. To the north and west of
this, the soils are heavy clays which are
wet, cold, slushy and easily befouled.
Likewise, the line on the south is
distinctly marked by the Norfolk and
Western Railway and is a matter of
freight rates on grain. Norfolk gets a
rate of sixteen and a half cents from
Chicago; a couple of hundred miles
south, the rate is about twice as much.
Cheaper grain rates would of course
extend this belt on down the coast
where the climate is even more
favorable.

Chicken Climate.
Climate is a big figure in the cost of
poultry production. Every day that
water is frozen in winter means
increased labor and decreased egg
yield. Mild winters means cheap
houses, cheap labor, cheap feed (a large
proportion of green food), an earlier
chick season, which, together with the
mild weather and green feed, mean a
large proportion of the egg yield at the
season when eggs are high in price.
The American poultry editor wastes
a great deal of ink explaining why the
Australian egg records of 175 eggs per
hen, cannot be so, because in this
country, the hens at the Maine station
only averaged 125. The Maine
Experiment Station lies buried in a
snow drift for about five months of the
year. The Australian station has a
winter climate equal to that of New
Orleans. The Australian records do not
go below thirty eggs per day per
hundred hens at any time during the
year. Our New York and New England
records run down anywhere from one
to ten eggs per day per hundred hens.
The following table will show the
effect of the climate upon the
distribution of the egg yield throughout
the year. The records at New York are
from a large number of hens of several
different flocks and probably represent
a normal distribution of the egg yield
for that section. The Kansas and
Arkansas lists are taken from the
record of small flocks and are not very
reliable. The fourth column gives the
Australian records with the months
transferred on account of being in the
southern hemisphere. The last column
gives the railroad shipments from a
division of the N.C. & St. L. railroad in
Western Tennessee:

Column Headings:
NY—Central New York per hen per
day
KS—Kansas Ex. Station per hen per
day
AR—Arkansas Ex. Station per hen per
day
AU—Australian Laying Contest per
hen per day
NH—Shipments from New Hampshire
egg farm
TN—Shipments from Western
Tennessee
NY KS AR AU NH TN
January .21 .25 .32 .51 26 1509
February .26 .22 .30 .66 41 1520
March .43 .60 .62 .67 66 2407
April .56 .52 .38 .61 83 1775
May .59 .57 .44 .53 81 1650
June .50 .46 .42 .45 61 1131
July .44 .43 .34 .43 58 878
August .37 .32 .38 .41 54 422
September .26 .28 .29 .29 24 100
October .17 .13 .22 .31 3 541
November .08 .06 .18 .31 2 703
December .14 .25 .15 .40 11 1150
 An equable climate the year round is
the best for the chicken business. The
California coast is fairly equable in
temperature, but its winter rains and
summer drouth are against it. The
Atlantic coast south of New York is
fairly good, probably the best the
country affords. The most southern
portions will be rather too hot in
summer, which will result in a small
August and September egg yield.
Probably the region around Norfolk is,
all considered, the best poultry climate
the country affords.

Suitable Soil.
Soil is important in poultry farming;
in fact it is very important, and many
failures can be traced to soil mistakes.
Rocky and uncultivated lands must not
be chosen. To locate on any soil which
will not utilize the droppings for the
production of green food, is to
introduce a loss sufficient to turn
success into failure.
The ideal soil for poultry is a soil too
sandy to produce ordinary farm crops
successfully, and hence an inexpensive
soil; but because land too sandy to be
used for heavy farming is best for
poultry, this does not mean that any
cheap soil will do. A heavy wet clay
soil worth $150 an acre for dairying is
worth nothing for poultry. Pure sand is
likewise worthless and nothing can be
more pitiable than to see poultry
confined in yards of wind swept sand,
without a spear of anything green
within half a mile.
The soils that are valuable for early
truck are equally valuable for poultry.
Sand with a little loam, or very fine
sand, if a few green crops are turned
under to provide humus, are ideal
poultry soils. The Norfolk fine Sand
and Norfolk Sandy Loam of the U.S.
soil survey, are types of such soil.
These soils absorb the droppings
readily and are never covered with
standing water. The winter snows do
not stay on them. Crops will keep
greener on them in winter than on clay
soils three hundred miles farther south.
 The disadvantage of such soils is
that they lose their fertility by
leaching. The same principles that will
cause the droppings to disappear from
the top of the ground will likewise
cause them to be washed down beyond
the depths of plant roots. This loss
must be guarded against by not going
to the extreme in selecting a light soil
and may be largely overcome by
schemes of running the poultry right
among growing crops or by quick
rotations.
Land sloping to the southward is
commonly advised for the purpose of
getting the same advantages as are to
be had in a sandy soil. In practice the
slope of the land cannot be given great
prominence, although, other things
being equal, one should certainly not
disregard this point. In heavy lands it is
necessary to raise the floors and grade
up around the houses. The quickly
drained soil does away with this
expense.
Timber on the land is a
disadvantage. Poultry farming in the
woods has not been made a success. It's
the same proposition of the droppings
going to waste. I know a man who
bought a timbered tract because it was
cheap and who scraped up the
droppings to sell by the barrel to his
neighbor, who used them to fertilize
his cabbage patch and in turn sold the
poultryman cabbages to feed his hens,
at 5 cents a head. Of course, this man
failed, as does practically every man
who attempts to scrape dropping
boards and carry poultry manure
around in baskets, instead of using it
where it falls.
There is little to be said in favor of
uncleared land for the poultry business,
but there is something that can be said
in favor of the poultry business for
uncleared land. A man who buys a
timbered land for trucking can get no
income whatever the first year, but the
poultryman can begin his operations in
the woods, clearing the land while he is
raising a crop of chickens on it. The
coops may be placed in the cleared
streak and most of the droppings
utilized. In fact, the plan of a streak of
timber alongside the houses is not bad
for a permanent arrangement—the
birds certainly enjoy the shade. But the
shade of growing crops is the most
profitable kind for poultry.

Marketing—Transportation.
The possibilities of working up a
local trade of high grade eggs at fancy
prices varies greatly with the locality.
Large cities and wealthy people are
essentials. Other than this the principal
distinctions are that regions where a
general surplus of eggs are produced
offer little chance for a fancy trade.
Where the great bulk of eggs are
imported fancy trade is more feasible.
St. Louis is the smallest western city
that supports anything like a fancy
trade in eggs and there it is only on a
small scale. Minneapolis, Omaha, etc.,
would not pay 3 cents premium for the
best eggs produced, but cities of the
same size east of the Appalachians and
especially in New England, will pay a
good premium. The Far West or the
mountain districts will pay up better
than the Mississippi Valley. The South
will pay a little better than the upper
Mississippi Valley, but has few cities
of sufficient size to make such markets
abundant. The Southerner has little
regard for quality in produce and the
most aristocratic people consume eggs
regularly that the wife of a Connecticut
factory hand wouldn't have in the
house. The egg farmer who expects to
sell locally had best not locate south of
Washington or west of Pittsburg,
unless he goes to the Pacific Coast.
Where marketing is not done by
wagon the subject of railroad
transportation is practically identical
with the question of marketing. It is the
cost in freight service and freight rates
that count. The proposition of
transportation, especially for the grain
buying poultry farm, catches us coming
and going and both must be considered.
A poultry farm in Section 7 will buy
one hundred pounds of feed per year
per hen and market one-third of a case
of eggs. On this basis the grain rate
from Chicago or St. Louis and the egg
rate to New York must be balanced
against each other. Don't take these
things for granted. Look them up.
Jamesburg and Freehold, two New
Jersey towns ten miles apart and equi-
distant and with equal freight rates
from New York, might seem to the
uninitiated as equally well situated to
poultry farming. We will suppose two
men bought forty-acre farms of equal
quality and equi-distant from the
railroad stations at these two towns.
Suppose, further, they each kept five
thousand hens. Jamesburg is on a
Philadelphia-New York line of the
Pennsylvania and its Chicago grain rate
is the same as that of New York,
namely: 19-1/2 cents per hundred.
Freehold is on a branch line; its rate is
24-1/2 cents. In a year the difference
amounts to $250. Figured at six per
cent. interest, the land at Jamesburg is
worth just about one hundred dollars an
acre more than that at Freehold.
Lumber rates or local lumber prices
should also be taken into consideration.
Whether one plans to ship his product
out by express or freight will, of
course, be an important consideration
in deciding the location.
As a general thing, the individual
poultry farmer will, for shipping his
product, use express east of Buffalo
and north of Norfolk. The poultry
community could use freight in these
same regions and get as good or better
service than by express.
The location in relation to the
railroad station is equally important to
the freight rate. Besides heavy hauling
frequent trips will be necessary in
marketing eggs. These on the larger
farms will be daily or at least semi-
weekly. On the heavy hauling alone, at
25 cents per ton mile, distance from the
railroad will figure up 1-1/4 cents per
hen which, on the basis of the previous
illustration, would make a difference of
twenty-five dollars per acre for every
mile of distance from the station. One
of the most successful poultry farms I
know is right along the railroad and has
an elevator which handles the grain
from the cars and later dumps it into
the feed wagons without its ever being
touched by hand. The labor saving in
this counts up rapidly.
The poultry community can have its
own elevator and the grain can be sold
to the farmer to be delivered directly
into the hoppers in his field with but a
single loading into a wagon.

Availability of Water.
One more point to be considered in
location is water.
The labor of watering poultry by
carrying water in buckets is
tremendous and not to be considered on
any up-to-date poultry plant. Watering
must be accomplished by some
artificial piping system or from spring-
fed brooks. The more length of flowing
streams on a piece of land, provided
the adjacent ground is dry, the more
value the property has for poultry. Two
spring-fed brooks crossing a forty-acre
tract so as to give a half mile of
running water, or a full mile of houses,
would water five thousand hens
without labor. This would mean an
annual saving of at least one man's
time as against hand watering, or a
matter of a thousand dollars or more in
the cost of installation of a watering
system.
If running water cannot be had the
next best thing is to get land with water
near the surface which may be tapped
with sand points. If one must go deep
for water a large flow is essential so
that one power pump may easily supply
sufficient water for the plant.
The land should lay in a gentle slope
so that water may be run over the entire
surface by gravity. Hilly lands are a
nuisance in poultry keeping and raise
the expense at every turn.

A Few Statistics.
The following table does not bear
directly upon the poultry-man's choice
of a location, but is inserted here
because of its general interest in
showing the poultry development of
the country.
It will be noted that the egg
production per hen is very low in the
Southern States. This may seem at
variance with my previous statements.
The poor poultry keeping of the South
is a fault of the industrial conditions,
not of the climate. Chickens on the
Southern farm simply live around the
premises as do rats or English
sparrows. No grain is grown; there are
no feed lots to run to, no measures are
taken to keep down vermin, and no
protection is provided from wind and
rain. In the North chickens could not
exist with such treatment.
The figures given showing the
relation between the poultry and total
agricultural wealth is the best way that
can be found to express statistically the
importance of poultry keeping in
relation to the general business of
farming. These figures should not be
confused with the distribution of the
actual volume of poultry products.
Iowa, the greatest poultry producing
state, shows only a moderate
proportion of poultry to all farm
wealth, but this is because more
agricultural wealth is produced in Iowa
than in all the "Down East" states.
Table showing the development of
the poultry industry in the various
states, according to the returns of the
census of 1900:
No. Percentage No. Fa
of of farm of va
of
States eggs wealth eggs eg
per earned by per pe
capita poultry hen do
9.7
Alabama 124 4.9 48
ce
Arizona 80 4.5 60 19
Arkansas 235 6.8 58 9.1
California 197 5.4 74 15
Colorado 127 5.4 71 15
Connecticut 105 11.3 89 19
Delaware 231 14.7 68 13
Florida 96 8.2 46 13
Georgia 156 4.4 41 10
Idaho 213 5.0 67 16
Illinois 215 3.7 62 10
Indiana 338 10.0 77 10
Iowa 536 7.4 64 10
Kansas 597 8.2 73 9.9
Kentucky 198 8.3 62 9.8
Louisiana 111 4.0 40 10
Maine 233 11.0 100 15
Maryland 126 10.4 71 12
Massachusetts 56 11.7 96 19
Michigan 270 9.7 82 11
Minnesota 296 5.8 67 10
Mississippi 144 4.7 43 9.9
Missouri 291 11.6 68 9.8
Montana 148 4.3 67 21
Nebraska 463 6.1 66 9.9
Nevada 68 3.7 71 20
New
238 11.5 96 17
Hampshire
New Jersey 76 12.0 72 16
New Mexico 45 2.7 65 18
New York 102 7.1 83 13
North
112 5.7 55 10
Carolina
North Dakota 249 2.6 64 10
Ohio 265 9.6 77 11
Oklahoma 315 6.4 60 9.3
Oregon 224 6.2 72 15
Pennsylvania 112 10.8 75 13
Rhode Island 90 19.7 77 20
South
80 4.0 41 10
Carolina
South Dakota 502 5.2 68 10
Tennessee 189 8.4 61 9.8
Texas 228 4.8 52 8.0
Utah 146 5.1 76 12

Vermont 219 7.5 94 15

Virginia 165 8.9 67 11
Washington 171 7.1 74 16
West Virginia 216 10.2 74 10
Wisconsin 268 7.1 68 10
Wyoming 121 2.4 79 17
Entire U.S. 205 7.4 65 11
 CHAPTER V
THE DOLLAR HEN FARM
As has already been emphasized, the
way to get money out of the chicken
business is not to put so much in.
Land, however, well suited to the
purpose, should not be begrudged, for
interest at six per cent. will afford a
very considerable extra investment in
land well suited to the business if it in
any way cuts down the cost of
operation.
 The Plan of Housing.
The houses are the next
consideration. On most poultry farms
they are the chief items of expense. I
know of a poultry farm near New York
City where the house cost $12.00 per
hen. The owner built this farm with a
view of making money. People also
buy stock in Nevada gold mines with a
view of making money. I know another
poultry farm owned by a man named
Tillinghast at Vernon, Connecticut,
where the houses cost thirty cents per
hen. Mr. Tillinghast gets more eggs per
hen than the New York man.
Incidentally, he is sending his son to
Yale, and he has no other visible means
of support except his chicken farm.
 For the region of light soils and the
localities which I have recommended
for poultry farming, the following style
of poultry house should be used:
No floors, single boarded walls, a
roof of matched cypress lumber or of
cheap pine covered with tarred paper.
This house is to have no windows and
no door. The roosts are in the back end;
the front end is open or partly open;
feed hoppers and nests are in the front
end. The feed hoppers may be made in
the walls, made loose to set in the
house, or made to shed water and
placed outside the house. All watering
is to be done outside the houses;
likewise any feeding beyond that done
in hoppers.
 The exact style of the house I leave
to the reader's own plan. Were I
recommending complex houses costing
several dollars per hen, this certainly
would be leaving the reader in the dark
woods. With houses of the kind
described it is hard to go far amiss. The
simplest form is a double pitched roof,
the ridge-pole standing about seven
feet high, and the walls about four. The
house is made eight by sixteen, and one
end—not the side—left open. For the
house that man is to enter, this form
cannot be improved upon.
The only other points are to
construct it on a couple of 4x4 runners
so that it can be dragged about by a
team. Cypress, or other decay-proof
wood should be used for these mud-
sills. The framing should be light and
as little of it used as is consistent with
firmness. If the whole house costs
more than twenty-five dollars there is
something wrong in its planning.
This house should accommodate
seventy-five or eighty hens.
For smaller operations, especially
for horseless, or intensive farming, a
low, light house may be used, which
the attendant never enters. A portion of
the roof lifts up to fill feed-hoppers,
gather eggs or spray. These small
houses may be made light enough to be
moved short distances by a pry-pole,
the team being required only when they
are moved to a new field.
 Not one particle of poultry manure is
to be removed from either style of
house. Instead, the houses are removed
from the manure, which is then
scattered on the neighboring ground
with a fork, or, if desired to be used on
a field in which poultry may not run, it
may be loaded upon a wagon together
with some of the underlaying soil.
There have been books and books
written on poultry houses, but what I
have just given is sufficient poultry-
house knowledge for the Dollar Hen
man. If he hasn't enough intelligence to
put this into practice, he has no
business in the hen business.
Additional book-knowledge of hen-
houses is useless; it may be harmful.
 If you are sure that you are fool-
proof, you may get Dr. Feather or
Reverend Earlobe's "Book of Poultry
House Plans." It will be a good text-
book for the children's drawing lessons.

The Feeding System.

Oyster shells, beef scraps, corn, and
one other kind of grain, together with
an abundance of pasturage or green
feed, is the sum and substance of
feeding hens on the Dollar Hen Farm.
The dry feeds are placed in hoppers.
They are built to protect the feeds from
the weather. The neck must be
sufficiently large to prevent clogging,
and the hopper so protected by slats in
front that the hen cannot toss the feed
out by a side jerk of her head. These
hoppers may be built any size desired.
The grain compartments should, of
course, be made larger than the others.
Weekly filling is good, but where a
team is not owned, it would be better to
have the hoppers larger so that feed
purchased, say, once a month, could be
delivered directly into the hoppers.

Water Systems.
The best water system is a spring-fed
brook.
The man proposing to establish an
individual poultry plant, and who after
reading this book goes and buys a tract
of land where an artificial water system
is necessary, would catch Mississippi
drift-wood on shares. But there are
plenty of such people in the world. A
man once stood all day on London
Bridge hawking gold sovereigns at a
shilling a-piece and did not make a
sale.
Next to natural streams are the made
streams. This is the logical watering
method of the community of poultry
farmers. These artificial streams are to
be made by conducting the water of
natural streams back of the land to be
watered, as in irrigation. It is the
problem of irrigation over again.
Indeed, where trucking is combined
with poultry-growing, fowl watering
should be combined with irrigation.
It may be necessary to dam the
stream to get head, sufficient supply or
both. In sandy soils, ditches leak, and
board flumes must be substituted. The
larger ones are made of the boards at
right angles and tapered so that one end
of one trough rests in the upper end of
the next lower section. The smaller, or
lateral troughs may be made V-shaped.
The cost of the smaller sized flume
is three cents a foot. Iron pipe costs
twelve cents a foot.
The greater the slope of the ground
the smaller may be the troughs, but on
ground where the slopes are great,
more expense will be necessary in
stilting the flumes to maintain the
level, and the harder it will be to find a
large section that can be brought under
the ditch.
Fluming water for poultry is, like
irrigation, a community project. The
greatest dominating people of history
have their origin in arid countries. It
was co-operate or starve, and they
learned co-operation and conquered the
earth. If a man interferes with the
flume, or takes more than his share of
the water, put him out. We are in the
hen, not the hog business.
Community water systems, where
water must be pumped and piped in
iron pipe, is of course a more
expensive undertaking. It will only pay
where water is too deep for individuals
to drive sand points on their own
property. There is certainly little
reason to consider an expensive
method when there are abundant
localities where simple plans may be
used.
On sand lands, with water near the
surface, each farmer may drive sand
points and pump his water by hand. In
this case running water is not possible,
but the pipes or flumes may be
arranged so that fresh pumping flushes
all the drinking places and also leaves
them full of standing water. The
simplest way to arrange this will be by
wooden surface troughs as used in the
fluming scheme. The only difference is
that an occasional section is made
deeper so that it will retain water.
A more permanent arrangement may
be made by using a line of three-
fourths inch pipe. At each watering
place the pipe is brought to the surface
so that the water flows into a
galvanized pan with sloping sides. This
pan has an overflow through a short
section of smaller tubing soldered to
the side of the pan. The pipe line is
parallel with the fence line, the pans
supply both fields. By this arrangement
the entire plant may be watered in a
few minutes. The overflow tubes are on
one side. Using these tubes as a pivot
the pans may be swung out from under
the fence with the foot and cleaned
with an old broom. Where the ground
water is deep a wind mill and storage
tank would be desirable.
 Outdoor Accommodations.
The hen house is a place for
roosting, laying and a protection for the
feed. The hen is to live out doors.
On the most successful New England
poultry farms, warm houses for hens
have been given up. Hens fare better
out of doors in Virginia than they do in
New England, but make more profit out
of doors anywhere than they will shut
up in houses. If your climate will not
permit your hen to live out doors get
out of the climate or get out of the hen
business.
There is, however, a vast difference
in the kind of out-of-doors. The
running stream with its fringe of trees,
brush and rank growing grass, forms
daylight quarters for the hen par
excellence. Rank growing crops, fodder
piled against the fences, a board fence
on the north side of the lot, or little
sheds made by propping a platform
against a stake, will all help. A place
out of the wind for the hens to dust and
sun and be sociable is what is wanted,
and what must be provided, preferably
by Nature, if not by Nature then by the
poultryman.
The hens are to be kept as much as
possible out of the houses, in sheltered
places among the crops or brush. They
should not herd together in a few
places but should be separated in little
clumps well scattered over the land.
These hiding places for the hens must,
of course, not be too secluded or eggs
will be lost.

Equipment for Chick Rearing.

Just as the long houses for hens have
been weighed and found wanting, so
larger brooder houses, with one
exception, have never been established
on what may be called a successful
basis. By establishment on a successful
basis, I mean established so that they
could be used by larger numbers of
people in rearing market chickens.
There are plenty of large brooder
houses in use, just as there are plenty
of yarded poultry plants, but many
intelligent, industrious people have
tried both systems only to find that the
cost of production exceeds the selling
price. This makes us prone to believe
that some of those who claim to be
succeeding may differ from the crowd
in that they had more capital to begin
with and hence last longer.
The one exception I make to this is
that of the South Shore Roaster District
of Massachusetts. Here steam-pipe
brooder houses are used quite
extensively. The logical reason that
pipe brooder houses have found use in
the winter chicken business and not in
rearing pullets is that of season and
profits. When chicks are to be hatched
in the dead of winter the steam-heated
brooder house is a necessity. In this
limited use it is all right, where the
profits per chick are great enough to
stand the expense and losses.
For the rearing of the great bulk of
spring chicks the methods that have
proven profitable are as follows:
First: Rearing with hens as practiced
at Little Compton. For suggestions on
this see the chapter entitled "Poultry on
the General Farm."
Second: Rearing with lamp brooder.
Many large book-built poultry plants
have been equipped with steam, or,
more properly, hot water heated
brooder houses, only to have a practical
manager see that they did not work,
tear out the piping and fill the house
with rows of common lamp brooders.
The advantage claimed for the lamp
brooder is that they can be regulated
separately for each flock. As a matter
of fact, the same regulation for each
flock of chicks could be secured with a
proper type of hot water heaters and
one of the most practical poultry farms
in the country is now installing such a
system.
A brooder system where hot air
under the pressure of a blower or
centrifugal fan would seem ideal. So
far the efforts made along these lines
have been clumsy and unnecessarily
expensive. If the continuous house is
ever made practical, I believe it will be
along this line, but at present I advise
sticking to the methods that are known
to be successful.
Individual lamp brooders in colony
houses are perhaps the most generally
successful means of rearing chicks on
northern poultry farms. They are
troublesome and somewhat expensive,
but with properly hatched chickens are
more successful than hen rearing. In
buying such a brooder the chief points
to be observed are: A good lamp, a
heating device giving off the heat from
a central drum, and an arrangement
which facilitates easy cleaning. The
brooder should be large, having not
less than nine square feet of floor
space. The work demanded of a
brooder is not as exacting as with an
incubator. The heat and circulation of
air may vary a little without harm, but
they must not fail altogether. The
greatest trouble with brooders in
operation is the uncertainty of the
lamp. The brooder-lamp should have
sufficient oil capacity and a large wick.
Brooder-lamps are often exposed to the
wind, and, if cheaply constructed or
poorly enclosed, the result will be a
chilled brood of chicks, or perhaps a
fire.
The chief thing sought in the internal
arrangements of a brooder is a
provision to keep the chicks from
piling up and smothering each other as
they crowd toward the source of heat.
This can be accomplished by having
the warmest part of the brooder in the
center rather than at the side or corner.
If the heat comes from above and a
considerable portion of the brooder be
heated to the same temperature, no
crowding will take place.
The temperature given for running
brooders vary with the machine and the
position of the thermometer. The one
reliable guide for temperature is the
action of the chicks. If they are cold
they will crowd toward the source of
heat; if too warm they will wander
uneasily about; but if the temperature
is right, each chick will sleep stretched
out on the floor. The cold chicken does
not sleep at all, but puts in its time
fighting its way toward the source of
heat. In an improperly constructed or
improperly run brooder the chicks go
through a varying process of chilling,
sweating and struggling when they
should be sleeping, and the result is
puny chicks that dwindle and die.
The arrangement of the brooder for
the sleeping accommodations of the
chicks is important, but this is not the
only thing to be considered in a
brooder. The brooder used in the early
season, and especially the outdoor
brooder, must have ample space
provided for the daytime
accommodation of the chick. In the
colony house brooder such space will,
of course, be the floor of the house.
When operating on a large scale it
will not pay to buy complete brooders.
The lamps and hovers can be purchased
separately and installed in colony
houses which do both for brooders and
later for houses for growing young
stock. The universal hover sold by the
Prairie State Incubator people is about
as perfect a lamp hover as can be made.
The cold brooder, or Philo box, as it
has been popularly called, is the chief
item in a system of poultry keeping
that has been widely advertised. The
principle of the Philo box is that of
holding the air warmed by the chick
down close to them by a sagging piece
of cloth. The cloth checks most of the
radiating heat, but is not so tight as to
smother the chick. This limits the
space of air to be warmed by the chicks
to such a degree that the body warmth
is used to the greatest advantage. That
chickens can be raised in these fire-less
brooders, is not in question, for that has
been abundantly proven, but most
poultrymen believe that it will pay
better, especially in the North, to give
the little fellows a few weeks' warmth.
Curtis Bros. at Ransomville, N.Y.,
who raise some twenty thousand chicks
per year, have adopted the following
system: The chicks are kept under
hovers heated by hot water pipes for
one week, or until they learn to hover.
Then they are put in Philo boxes for a
week in the same building but away
from the pipes. The third week the
Philo boxes are placed in a large,
unheated room. After that they go to a
large Philo box in a colony house.
To make a Philo house of the Curtis
pattern, take a box 5 in. deep and 18 in.
to 24 in. square. Cut a hole in one side
for a chick door, run a strip of screen
around the inside of the box to round
the corners. Now take a second similar
box. Tack a piece of cloth rather
loosely across its open face. Bore a few
augur holes in the sides of either box.
Invert box No. 2 upon box No. 1. This
we will call a Curtis box. It costs about
fifteen cents and should accommodate
fifty to seventy-five chicks.
A universal hover in a colony coop
or colony house, for which a Curtis box
is substituted, as early in the game as
the weather permits, is the method I
advise for rearing young chicks. The
lamp problem we still have with us, but
it is one that cannot be easily solved.
Large vessels or tanks of water which
are regularly warmed by injection of
steam from a movable boiler, offers a
possible way out of the difficulty. On a
plant large enough to keep one man
continually at this work, this plan
might be an improvement over filling
lamps, but for the smaller plant it is
lamps, or go south.
Rearing young chicks is the hardest
part of the poultry business. There is a
lot of work about it that cannot be
gotten rid of. Little chicks must be kept
comfortable and their water and feed
for the first few days must needs be
given largely by hand. They are to be
early led to drink from the regular
water vessels and eat from the hoppers,
but this takes time and patience.
The feeding of chicks I will discuss
in the chapter on "Poultry on the
General Farm," and as the same
methods apply in both cases, I will
refer the reader to that section.
After chicks get three or four weeks
old their care is the simplest part of the
poultry farm work and consists chiefly
of filling feed hoppers and protecting
them from vermin and thieves.
Board floor colony houses are used
as a protection against rats and this
danger necessitates the protection of
the opening by netting and the closing
of the doors at night.
Cockerels must be gotten out of the
flocks and sold at an early age. Those
that are to be kept for sale or use as
breeding birds should be early
separated from the pullets. Coops for
growing chickens, especially Leghorns,
cannot be put among trees, as the birds
will learn to roost in the trees, causing
no end of trouble to get them broken of
the habit.
All pullets save a few culls should be
saved for laying. They are to be kept
two years. They should lay sixty-five to
seventy per cent as many eggs the
second year as the first. They are sold
the third summer to make room for the
growing stock.

Twenty-five Acre Poultry Farms.

This section will be devoted to a
general discussion of the type of
poultry farms best suited to Section 4
and the southerly portions of Section 7
as discussed in the previous chapter.
We will discuss this type of farm
with this assumption: That they are to
be developed in large numbers by co-
operative or corporate effort. This does
not infer that they cannot be developed
by individual effort, and nine-tenths of
the operations will remain the same in
the latter case.
 Suppose a large tract of land
adjacent to railroad facilities has been
found. The land in the original survey
should be divided into long, relatively
narrow strips, lying at right angles to
the slope of the land. The farmstead
should occupy the highest end of the
strip. For a twenty-five acre or one-
man poultry farm these strips should be
about forty rods in width. The object of
this survey is to permit the water being
run by gravity to the entire farm.
The first thing is the farmstead,
including such orchard and garden as
are desired. This stretches across the
entire front end of the place. The
remainder of the strip is fenced in with
chicken fence. The farm is also divided
into two narrow fields by a fence down
the center of the strip. This fence, at
frequent intervals, has removable
panels.
The year's season we will begin late
in the fall. All layers are in field No. 1
pasturing on rape, top turnips or other
fall crops. In lot No. 2 is growing
wheat or rye. As the green feed gets
short in the first lot the hens are let into
lot No. 2. Sometime in March the
houses that have been brought up close
to the gaps are drawn through into the
wheat field. The feed hoppers are also
gradually moved and the hens find
themselves confined in lot No. 2
without any serious disturbance.
Lot No. 1 is broken up as soon as
weather permits and planted in oats,
corn, Kaffir corn and perhaps a few
sunflowers. The oats form a little strip
near the coops and watering places and
the Kaffir corn is on the far side. As
soon as corn planting is over the farmer
begins to receive his chickens from the
hatchery. The brooders are now placed
in the corn field. The object of the corn
is not green food but for a shade and a
grain crop.
The chicks are summered in the corn
field and the hens in the wheat or rye.
Whether the latter will head up will
depend upon the number of the flock. It
will be best to work the houses across
to the far side and let that portion near
the middle fence head up. As the old
grain gets too tough for green food
strips of ground should be broken up
and sown in oats. The grain that
matures will not be cut, but the hens
will be allowed to thresh it out. The
straw may be cut with mower or scythe
for use as nesting material.
Sometime in June or early in July a
little rape vetch or cow-peas is drilled
in between the rows of corn as on the
far side from the chicken coops. During
July or about the first of August, after
all cockerels have been sold, the gates
are opened and the pullets are allowed
to associate with the hens. After this
acquaintance ripens into friendship the
hen houses are worked back into the
pullet lots. Surplus hens are sold off or
new houses inserted as the case may be
until there is room for the pullets in the
houses. Each coop is worked up
alongside a house and after most of the
pullets have taken to the houses the
coops are removed. The vacant lot is
now broken up and sown in a mixture
of fall green crops.
The flock is kept in the corn field
until the corn is ripe. The Kaffir corn
and sunflowers are knocked down
where they stand and are threshed by
the hens. As soon as the corn crop is
ripe the houses are run back and the
corn cut up or husked and the wheat
planted in the corn field.
The next year the lots are transposed,
the young stock being grown in the lot
that had the hens the previous year.
If the ground is inclined to be at all
damp when the fields are broken up the
plowing is done in narrow lands so as
to form a succession of ridges, on
which are placed the coops or houses.
The directions of these ridges will be
determined by the lay of the land—the
object being neither to dam up water or
to encourage washing. The location of
the ridges are alternated by seasons, so
that the droppings from the houses are
well distributed throughout the soil.
This system with the particular crops
found that do best in the locality, give
us an ideal method of poultry
husbandry. We have kept hens and
young stock supplied with green food
the year round; we have utilized every
particle of manure without one bit of
labor. We have a rotation of crops. We
have the benefits to the ground of
several green crops turned under. We
have raised one grain crop per year on
most of the ground. We have no labor
in feeding and watering except the
keeping of the grain, beef and grit
hoppers filled, and the water system in
order.
The number of fowls that may be
kept per acre will be determined by the
richness of the soil. The chief object of
the entire scheme is to provide
abundant green pasture at all times and
to allow the production of a reasonable
amount of grain. With one hundred
hens per acre on the entire tract, and
with houses containing eighty hens
each, it will be necessary to set the
houses ninety-five feet apart. This will
give the flock a tract of 95 by 330 feet
in which to pasture.
The above estimate with a little land
allowed for house, garden, orchard and
a little cow and team pasture, will
permit the keeping of two thousand
hens on a twenty-five acre farm. In
regions where grain is to be raised
most farmers would want more land.
They may also wish to own a few extra
cows, hogs, etc., or to alternate the
entire poultry operations with some
crop that will, on such highly fertilized
land, give a good cash profit. Forty
acres is a good size for such uses.
The cost of land when purchased in
large tracts in Virginia is very small,
but the cost of clearing is often much
more than that of the land. Twenty-five
to fifty dollars an acre should secure
such a tract of land and put it in shape
for poultry farming.
The cost of the farm home, etc., will,
of course vary altogether with the taste
of the occupant. If they are constructed
by a central company, from five
hundred to a thousand dollars should
cover the amount.
The cost of poultry buildings and
equipment used on the farm will
depend largely on the efficiency of the
labor of construction. If constructed in
large numbers by a central company,
the cost would be reduced, but the
company would expect to make a profit
on their work.
A plot laid out for two thousand hens
will require in material: 250 rods of
fence with 6-ft. netting which should
cost about fifty cents a rod. My
estimate of this fence put up would be
$150. If the neighboring field
contained no other poultry, a portion of
this fence might be done away with,
although its protection against dogs
and strangers may be worth while. Of
course, if poultry fields of different
owners lay adjoining, the fence must be
used, but the cost will be reduced one-
half.
The next most expensive piece of
equipment will be a line of about
eighty rods of 3/4 in. gas pipe and
about fifty elbows and twenty-five
galvanized iron pans. The cost of
installation will depend largely on how
deep it is necessary to go to get below
the frost line. One hundred and
seventy-five dollars should cover cost
of material and by the use of a plow the
line ought to be put in for twenty-five
dollars.
The source of water, and the cost of
getting a head, will necessarily vary
with the location. The installation of a
wind mill and tank to hold supply for
several days, or of a small gasoline
engine, would cost in the neighborhood
of one hundred dollars, but it is a
luxury that may be dispensed with if
the well is not too deep.
The houses for the hens, of which
there are twenty-five, are constructed
in accordance with some of the plans
previously discussed. The cost should
be about twenty-five cents per hen.
At least twice as many brooders as
colony coops will be needed as there
are hen houses, but of the lamps and
hovers not over twenty-five will be
required, as the chicks soon outgrow
the need of this aid.
This makes a list of equipment
required for the keeping of two
thousand layers and their replenishing:
25 acres of
farm land,
$1250.00
at $50 per
acre
250 rods of
150.00
fence
One
1000.00
farmstead
One team,
plow and
300.00
farm
implements
One
watering 300.00
system
25 hen
houses, at 500.00
$20
50 colony
coops, at 150.00
$2.50
25 lamps
and hovers, 125.00
at $5
------
$3775.00
[Transcriber's note: "50 colony
coops, at $2.50" is $125.00, not $150.
The total should therefore be $3750
rather than $3775. This was,
presumably, a printing error, because
the correct total is used in the further
calculations below.]
 This is a good, liberal capitalization.
The business can be started with much
less. Figured interest at 6 per cent. we
have $225.00 per year.
The upkeep of the plant will be about
15 per cent. on the capital, not counting
land. This equals $375, which, added to
interest, gives an annual overhead
expense of $600, which is our first item
to be set against gross receipts.
The cost of operation will involve
cost of chicks at hatchery, purchased
feed, seed for ground, and feed for
team.
The price of chicks at the Petaluma
hatcheries is from six to eight cents
each. We expect to raise enough pullets
to make up for the accidental losses,
and to renew bulk of the flock each
year. The number required will, of
course, depend upon the loss. This loss
will be much less when the chicks are
obtained from a modern moisture
controlled hatchery, than from the box
type incubator. I think a 33 per cent.
loss is a liberal estimate, but as I am
treading on unproven ground, I will
make that loss 40 per cent., which is on
a par with old style methods. To
replace 1,000 hens, this will require
3,500 chicks at a cost of about two
hundred and fifty dollars.
Green pasturage throughout the year
will materially cut down the cost of
feed. The corn consumed out of the
hoppers will be about one bushel per
hen. The beef scrap will also be less
than with yarded fowls, perhaps
twenty-five cents per hen. Now, of the
corn we will raise on the land, at least
ten acres. This should yield us five
hundred bushels. This leaves fifteen
hundred bushels of corn to be
purchased. At the present high rates,
this will cost $1,000 which, added to
beef scrap cost, makes an outside feed
cost of $1,500. The seed cost of rye,
rape, cow-peas, etc., will amount to
about $50 per annum. For expense of
production we have:
Interest
and
upkeep of $600.00
plant
Chicks 250.00
Purchased
1000.00
corn
Beef
scrap and 500.00
grit
Seed 50.00
Team
100.00
feed
-------
$2,500.00
This figures out the cost of
production at a little more than a dollar
per hen. The income from the place
should be about as follows: Eleven
hundred cockerels sold as squab
broilers at 40 cents each, $440.00; four
hundred and seventy-five old hens at
30 cents, $140.00.
The receipts from egg yield are, of
course, impossible of very accurate
calculation, for it is here that the
personal element that determines
success or failure enters. The Arkansas
per-hen-day figures (see last chapter),
multiplied by the average quotation for
extras in the New York market, will be
as fair as any, and certainly cannot be
considered a high estimate, as it is only
113 eggs per hen per year.
Price Income
Eggs per for
per doz month
Extras
 hen in from
day New 2000
York layers
January .32 $ .30 $494.00
February .30 .29 404.00
March .62 .22 700.00
April .38 .19 350.00
May .44 .19 429.00
June .42 .18 377.00
July .34 .21 367.00
August .38 .22 429.00
September .21 .25 262.00
October .22 .28 316.00
November .18 .33 267.00
December .15 .32 246.00
------
Total $4,641.00
The total income as figured will be
$5,221. From this subtract the cost of
production, and we have still nearly
$3,000, which is to be combined item
of wages and profit. We have entered
no labor bill because this is to be a one-
man farm, and with the assistance of
the public hatchery and co-operative
marketing association, which will send
a wagon right to a man's door to gather
the eggs, it is entirely feasible for one
man to attend to two thousand hens. In
the rush spring season other members
of the family will have to turn out and
help, or a man may be hired to attend
the plowing and rougher work.
 This is a good handsome income,
and yet the above price of the man's
labor—it is only about one dollar per
hen, which has always been the
estimated profit of successful poultry
keeping. As a matter of fact, this profit
is seldom reached under the old system
of poultry keeping, not because the
above gross income cannot be reached,
but because the expenses are greater.
Under the present methods, with the
exception of the rearing of the young
chicks, one man can easily take care of
three thousand hens. Indeed, practically
the only work in their care is
cultivating the ground and hauling
around and dumping into hoppers,
about two loads of feed per week.
 But, young chicks must be reared,
and this is more laborious. For this
reason I advise going into some other
industry on a part of the land, which
will not require attention in the young
chick season. One of the best things for
this purpose is the cultivation of cane
fruits as blackberries, raspberries and
dewberries. The work of caring for
these can be made to fall wholly
without the young chick season.
Peaches and grapes for a slower profit
can be added, but spraying and
cultivation of these is more liable to
take spring labor. All these fruits have
the advantage of doing well in the same
kind of soil recommended for chickens.
Young chickens may be grown around
such berry crops and removed to
permanent quarters before the berries
ripen. Strawberries would be a very
poor crop because their labor falls in
the chick season.
Another plan, and perhaps a better
one, is to have about three fields, and
rotate in such a manner that a
marketable crop may be always kept
growing in the third field. Any crop
may be selected, the chief labor of
which falls between July and the
following March. Late cabbage and
potatoes, or celery, will do if the
ground is suitable for these crops. Kale
and spinach are staple fall crops. Fall
lettuce could also be grown. If the
market is glutted on such crops, they
can be fed out at home. Whenever a
field is vacant, have some crop
growing on it, if only for purposes of
green manuring. Never let sandy
ground lie fallow.
A modification of the above plans
suited to heavier ground, is to seed
down the entire farm to grass. It is then
divided into three fields and provided
with three sets of colony houses. Coops
are entirely dispensed with, and cheap
indoor brooders are used in the
permanent houses. The pullets stay in
these same houses in the same field
until the moulting season of the third
year, or until they are two and a half
years old. One field will always be
vacant during the fall and winter
season which time may be utilized for
fresh seeding.
The difficulty of maintaining a sod
will necessitate somewhat heavier soil
than by the previous plan. The houses
should be moved around occasionally,
as the grass kills out in the locality.
This plan is a lazy man's way, taking
the least labor of any method of poultry
keeping known. It is adapted to the
cheaper ground in the region farthest
from market. On the Atlantic seaboard,
the more enterprising man will use the
third field for rotation, and sell some of
the fertility of the western grain in the
form of a truck crop.

Five Acre Poultry Farms.

 Can a living for a family be made
from a five acre poultry farm? Yes; by
individual effort, where the marketing
opportunities are good; by corporate or
co-operate effort, any place where the
fundamental conditions are right.
This type of poultry farm is well
suited for development near our large
cities, where the cry of "back to the
land" has filled with new hope the
discouraged dweller in flat and
tenement. No greater chance for
humanitarian work, and at the same
time no greater business opportunity, is
open to-day than that of the promotion
of colonies of small poultry and truck
farms where the parent colony not only
sells the land, but helps the settler to
establish himself in the business and to
successfully market the product. The
natural location for such projects is in
the sandy soils of New Jersey,
Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.
We have already discussed the
twenty-five acre farm, representing the
largest probable unit for such an
enterprise. We will now discuss the
five acre farm which represents the
smallest probable unit.
On the five-acre farm a considerable
difference of methods will be
necessary. In the first place, it is to be a
horseless farm. All hauling and
plowing must be attended to by the
central company, or the same results
could be obtained by a team owned in
common by a small group, say of six
farmers, each of whom is to use the
team one day of the week.
A single isolated farmer in a
community of farms or market
gardeners, could hire a team by the day
as he needed it. I do not recommend
this scheme, however, but would
suggest that the single individual get a
larger plot of ground, at least ten acres,
and a team of his own. In the co-
operative community the five-acre
teamless farm is entirely feasible.
The tract should be surveyed about
twice as long as wide, which, for five
acres, makes it 20 by 40 rods, or 330 by
660 feet. Measure off a strip one
hundred feet back from the road. Fence
the remainder of the tract. Now run a
partition fence down the center until
we have come to within twelve rods of
the back side. Here run a cross fence.
This gives us three yards of about one
and one-half acres each. The gates are
arranged so that one passes through the
three yards in a single trip.
Where the middle partition fence
adjoins the front fence, a well is driven.
A water line is run down the partition
fence to the rear yard.
The plot around the house is set in
permanent crops, such as berries, fruit
trees, asparagus, rhubarb, etc. Of the
other three yards, at least one is kept in
growing marketable crops. Every inch
is cultivated, and crops of the leafy
nature, as lettuce, cabbage, kale and
spinach, are chiefly grown, as they
utilize the rich nitrogenous poultry
manure to the best advantage, and the
waste portions, or worthless crops, are
utilized for the poultry. The method of
supplying the fowls with green food is
entirely by soiling. This means to grow
the food in an adjoining lot and throw
it over the fence. The above mentioned
crops are all good for the purpose.
Rape, which is not grown for human
food, is also excellent.
Kale is one of the very best crops for
soiling purposes. It is planted in the
fall and fed by pulling off the lower
leaves during the winter. In the spring
the hardened stalks stand at a
considerable height and the field may
be used for growing young chicks,
giving shade, and at the same time
producing abundant green feed, without
any immediate labor, which means a
great saving in the busy season.
A set of panels or netting stretched
on light frames is provided. They are of
sufficient number to set along the
longest side of one of the fields. A strip
along the fence, four or five feet wide,
can be planted to sunflowers, corn,
rape, kale, or other rank growing crop
and the panels leaned against the fence
to protect the young plants from the
hens. In this way the fence rows can be
kept provided with the shade of
growing crops, which relieves the
otherwise serious fault of this plan of
poultry farming, in that the hens would
be required to live in absolutely barren
and sunburned lots, for we propose to
keep five or six hundred hens on one
and a half acres of ground, and no
green things could get a start without
protection.
Rotate the houses from field to field
as often as the crops allow. Never
permit hens to run in one bare field for
more than six months at a time. Always
keep every inch of ground not in use by
the chickens, luxuriant in something
green. If you have a crop of vegetables
which are about matured, drill rape or
crimson clover between the rows; by
the time the crop is harvested and the
hens are to be moved in, such crops
will have made a good growth. The
hens will kill it out but it will be a
"profitable killing."
By this system of intensive
combination of trucking and poultry
farming, we have a combination which
for small capital and small lands
cannot be beaten. The hens should
yield better than a dollar profit per
head on this plan; the one and a half
acres automatically fertilized and
intensely cultivated, growing two or
three crops a year, should easily double
the income.
Twelve hundred dollars a year is a
conservative estimate for the net
income from such a plant, and the
original investment, exclusive of
residence, will not be over one
thousand dollars.
 CHAPTER VI
INCUBATION
The differences in the process of
reproduction in birds and mammals is
frequently misunderstood. The laying
of the bird's egg is not analogous to the
birth of young in mammals.
The female, whether bird or beast,
forms a true egg which must be
fertilized by the male sperm cell before
the offspring can develop. In the
mammal, if fertilization does not
occur, the egg which is inconspicuous,
passes out of the body and is lost. If
fertilized, it passes into the womb
where the young develops through the
embryonic stages, being supplied with
nourishment and oxygen directly by the
mother.
In the bird, the egg, fertilized or
unfertilized, passes out of the body
and, being of conspicuous size, is
readily observed. The size of the egg is
due to the supply of food material
which is comparable with that supplied
to the mammalian young during its
stay in the mother's womb.
The reptiles lay eggs that are left to
develop outside of the body of the
mother, subject to the vicissitudes of
the environment. The young of the
bird, being warm blooded, cannot
develop without more uniform
temperature than weather conditions
ordinarily supply. This heat is supplied
by the instinctive brooding habit of the
mother bird.

Fertility of Eggs
In a state of nature the number of
eggs laid by wild fowl are only as
many as can be covered by the female.
These are laid in the spring of the year,
and one copulation of the male bird is
sufficient to fertilize the entire clutch.
Under domestication, the hen lays quite
indefinitely, and is served by the male
at frequent intervals. The fertilizing
power of the male bird extends over a
period of about 15 days.
For most of my readers, it will be
unnecessary to state that the male has
no influence upon the other offspring
than those which he actually fertilizes
within this period. The belief in the
influence of the first male upon the
later hatches by another male is simply
a superstition.
The domestic chicken is decidedly
polygamous. The common rule is one
male to 12 or 15 hens. I have had
equally good results, however, with one
male to 20 hens. In the Little Compton
and South Shore districts, one male is
used for thirty or even forty hens.
By infertile eggs is meant eggs in
which the sperm cell has never united
with the ovum. Such eggs may occur in
a flock from the absence of the male,
from his disinclination or physical
inability to serve the hens, from the
weakness or lack of vitality in the
sperm cells, from his neglect of a
particular hen, from lifelessness, or
lack of vitality in the ovule, or from
chance misses, by which some eggs fail
to be reached by the sperm cells.
In practice, lack of sexual inclination
in a vigorous looking rooster is very
rare indeed. The more likely
explanation is that he neglects some
hens, or that the eggs are fertilized, but
the germs die before incubation begins,
or in the early stages of that process.
The former trouble may be avoided by
having a relay of roosters and shutting
each one up part of the time. The latter
difficulty will be diminished by setting
the egg as fresh as possible, meanwhile
storing them in a cool place. The other
factors to be considered in getting
fertile eggs, are so nearly synonymous
with the problems of health and vitality
in laying stock generally, that to
discuss it here would be but a
repetition of ideas.
In connection with the discussion of
fertile eggs, I want to point out the fact
that the whole subject of fertility as
distinct from hatchability, is somewhat
meaningless. The facts of the case are,
that whatever factors in the care of the
stock will get a large percentage fertile
eggs, will also give hatchable eggs and
vice versa. This is to be explained by
the fact that most of the unfertile eggs
tested out during incubation, are in
reality dead germs in which death has
occurred before the chick became
visible to the naked eye. Such deaths
should usually be ascribed to poor
parentage, but may be caused by wrong
storage or incubation. Likewise, it
would not be just to credit all deaths
after chicks became visible to wrong
incubation, although the most of the
blame probably belongs there.
Likewise, with brooder chicks, we
must divide the credit of their livability
in an arbitrary fashion between
parentage, incubation, and care after
hatching.
By the hatchability of eggs, we then
mean the percentage of eggs set that
hatch chicks able to walk and eat. By
the livability of chicks, we mean the
percentage of chicks hatched that live
to the age of four weeks, after which
they are subject to no greater death rate
than adult chickens. By the livability of
eggs, we mean the product of these two
factors, i.e.: the percentage of chicks at
four weeks of age based upon the total
number of eggs set.
As before mentioned, the fertility of
eggs bears fairly definite relation to the
hatchability, so likewise the
hatchability bears a relation to the
livability of chicks. When poor hatches
occur because of weak germs, as
because of faulty incubation, this same
injury to the chick's organism is carried
over and causes a larger death among
the hatched chicks.
Moreover, the relation between the
two is not the same with all classes of
hatches, but as hatches get poorer the
mortality among the chicks increases at
an accelerating rate. The following
table gives a rough approximation of
these ratios:
Per cent. Per cent.
Per cent. of
of chick of egg
Hatchability.
Livability. Livability.
100 100 100
 90 95 85
80 88 70
70 84 50
60 72 43
50 55 27
40 40 16
30 24 7
20 10 2
10 2 1
These figures are based on incubator
data. Eggs set under hens usually give a
hatchability of 50 per cent. to 65 per
cent., and livability of 70 per cent. to
80 per cent. The reason for the greater
livability is that the real hatchability of
the eggs is 70 per cent. to 75 per cent.,
and is reduced by mechanical breakage.
The hatchability of eggs varies with the
season. This variation is commonly
ascribed to nature, it being stated that
springtime is the natural breeding
season, and therefore eggs are of
greater fertility.
While there may be a little
foundation for this idea, the chief cause
is to be found in the manner of
artificial incubation, as will be
discussed in a later section of this
chapter. The following table is given as
the seasonable hatchability for northern
states. This is based on May hatch of
50 per cent:
January 38
February 42
March 47
April 49
May 50
June 46
July 40
August 40
September 42
October 43
November 40
December 35
Most people have an exaggerated
idea of the hen's success as a hatcher. I
have a number of records of hen
hatching with large numbers of eggs
set, and they are all between 55 per
cent. and 60 per cent. The reasons the
hen does not hatch better are as
follows:
First: Actual infertile eggs—usually,
running about 10 per cent. in the best
season of the year.
Second: Mechanical breakage.
Third: Eggs accidentally getting
chilled by rolled to one side of the
nests, or by the sick, lousy or crazy
hens leaving the nests or standing up
on the eggs.
Fourth: Eggs getting damp from wet
nests, dung or broken eggs; thus
causing bacterial infection and decay.
The last three causes are not present
in artificial incubation. From my
observation they cause a loss of 15 per
cent. of the eggs that fail to hatch,
when hens are managed in large
numbers. This would properly credit
our hens with hatches running from 70
per cent. to 75 per cent., which, for
reasons later explained, is not equal to
hatches under the best known
conditions of artificial incubation.
The assumption that the hen is a
perfect hatcher, even barring accidents
and the inherited imperfection of the
egg, is not, I think, in harmony with
our general conception of nature. Not
only are eggs under the hens subject to
unfavorable weather conditions, but the
hen, to satisfy her whims or hunger,
frequently remains too long away from
the eggs, allowing them to become
chilled.
For directions of how to manage
setting hens, consult the Chapter on
"Poultry on the General Farm."

The Wisdom of the Egyptians.

Up to the present there have been
just three types of artificial incubation
that have proven successful enough to
warrant our attention. These are:
First, the modern wooden-box-
kerosene-lamp incubator which is seen
at its best development in the United
States.
Second, the Egyptian incubator of
ancient origin, which is a large clay
oven holding thousands of eggs and
warmed by smouldering fires of straw.
Third, the Chinese incubator, much
on the principle of the Egyptian
hatchery, but run in the room of an
ordinary house, heated with charcoal
braziers and used only for duck eggs.
I have no accurate information on
the results of the Chinese method, and
as it is not used for hen eggs, we will
confine our attention to the first two
processes only.
I do not care to go into detail in
discussing makes of box incubators,
but I will mention briefly the chief
points in the development of our
present machines.
 The first difficulties were in getting
lamps, regulators, etc., that would give
a uniform temperature. This now has
been worked out to a point where, with
any good incubator and an experienced
operator, the temperature of the egg
chamber is readily kept within the
desired range.
These are two principal types of box
incubators now in use. In the earliest of
these, the eggs were heated by
radiation from a tank of hot water.
These machines depended for
ventilation or, what is much more
important, evaporation, upon chance
air currents passing in and out of augur
holes in the ends or bottom of the
machine.
 The second, or more modern type,
warms the eggs by a current of air
which passes around a lamp flue where,
being made lighter by the expansion
due to heat, the air rises, creating a
draft that forces it into the egg
chamber. There it is caused to spread
by muslin or felt diaphragms so that no
perceptible current of air strikes the
eggs. This type is the most popular
type of small incubator on the market.
Its advantage will be more readily seen
after the discussion of the principles of
incubation.
Hazy tales of Egyptian incubators
have gone the rounds of poultry papers
these many years. More recently some
accurate accounts from American
travelers and European investigators
have come to light, and as a result, the
average poultry editor is kept busy
trying to explain how such wonderful
results can be obtained "in opposition
to the well-known laws of incubation."
The facts about Egyptian incubators
are as follows: They have a capacity of
50 to 100 thousand eggs, and are built
as a single large room, partly
underground and made of clay
reinforced with straw. The walls are
two or three feet thick. Inside, the main
rooms are little clay domes with two
floors.
The hatching season begins the
middle of January and lasts three
months. A couple of weeks before the
hatching begins, the fireproof house is
filled with straw which is set afire,
thoroughly warming the hatchery. The
ashes are then taken out and little fires
built in pots are set around the outside
of the big room. The little clay rooms
with the double floors are now filled
with eggs. That is, one is filled at a
time, the idea being to have fresh eggs
entering and chicks moving out in a
regular order, so as not to cause radical
changes in the temperature of the
hatchery.
No thermometer is used, but the
operator has a very highly cultivated
sense of temperature, such as is
possessed by a cheese maker or
dynamite dryer. About the twelfth day
the eggs are moved to the upper part of
the little interior rooms where they are
further removed from the heated floor.
The eggs are turned and tested out
much as in this country. They are never
cooled and the room is full of the
fumes and smoke of burning straw. The
ventilation provided is incidental.
This is about the whole story save
for results. The incubator men pay back
three chicks for four eggs, and take
their profits by selling the extra chicks
that are hatched above the 75 per cent.
This statement is in itself so
astonishing and yet convincing, that to
add that the hatch runs between 85 per
cent. and 90 per cent. of all eggs set,
and that the incubators of the Nile
Delta hatch about 75,000,000 chicks a
year seems almost superfluous. As for
the explanation of the results of the
Egyptian incubators compared with the
American kerosene lamp type, I think
it can best be brought about by a
consideration in detail of the scientific
principles of incubators.

Principles of Incubation.
HEAT.—To keep animal life, once
started, alive and growing, we need:
First, a suitable surrounding
temperature. Second, a fairly constant
proportion of water in the body
substance. Third, oxygen. Fourth, food.
Now, a fertile egg is a living young
animal and as such its wants should be
considered. We may at once dispose of
the food problem of the unhatched
chick, by saying that the food is the
contents of the egg at the time of
laying, and as far as incubation is
concerned, is beyond our control.
In consideration of external
temperature in its relation to life, we
should note: (A) the optimum
temperature; (B) the range of
temperature consistent with general
good health; (C) the range at which
death occurs. Just to show the principle
at stake, and without looking up
authorities, I will state these
temperatures for a number of animals.
Of course you can dispute the accuracy
of these figures, but they will serve to
illustrate our purpose:
External External External
Optimum Healthful Fatal
Point Range Range
50 to
Man 70 0 to 100
140
70 to
Dog 60 70 to 140
140
30 to
Monkey 90 30 to 140
140
20 to
Horse 80 20 to 120
120
20 to
Fowl 80 20 to 140
140
Newly
40 to
hatched 90 70 to 100
120
chick
Fertile
egg at 31 to
103 32 to 110
start of 125
incubation
Egg
80 to
incubated 103 98 to 105
118
three days
Egg
incubated 50 to
103 75 to 105
eighteen 118
days
This table shows, among other
things, that we are considering in the
chick not a new proposition to which
the laws of general animal life do not
apply, but merely a young animal
during the process of growth to a point
where its internal mechanism for heat
control, has power to maintain the body
temperature through a greater range of
external temperature change.
In the cooling process that occurs
after laying the living cells of the egg
become dormant, and like a hibernating
animal, the actual internal temperature
can be subjected to a much greater
range than when the animal is active.
After incubation begins and cell
activity returns, and especially after
blood forms and circulation
commences, the temperature of the
chick becomes subject to about the
same internal range as with other warm
blooded animals.
In the case of fully formed animals,
the internal temperature is regulated by
a double process. If the external
temperature be lowered, more food
substance is combined with oxygen to
keep up the warmth of the body, while,
if the external temperature be raised,
the body temperature is kept low by the
cooling effects of evaporation. This
occurs in mammals chiefly by
sweating. Birds do not sweat, but the
same effect is brought about by
increased breathing. Now, the chick
gradually develops the heat producing
function during incubation, until
towards the close of the period it can
take care of itself fairly well in case of
lowered external temperature. The
power to cool the body by breathing is
not, however, granted to the unhatched
chick, and for this reason the
incubating egg cannot stand excess of
heat as well as lack of it.
The practical points to be
remembered from the above are:
First: Before incubation begins, eggs
may be subjected to any temperature
that will not physically or chemically
injure the substance.
Second: During the first few days of
the hatch, eggs have no appreciable
power of heat formation and the
external temperature for any
considerable period of time can safely
vary only within the range of
temperature at which the physiological
process may be carried on.
Third: As the chick develops it needs
less careful guarding against cooling,
and must still be guarded against over-
heating.
Fourth: It should be remembered,
however, that eggs are very poor
conductors of heat, and if the
temperature change is not great several
hours of exposure are required to bring
the egg to the new temperature.
Temperature is the most readily
observed feature about natural
incubation and its control was
consequently the first and chief effort
of the early incubator inventors.
A great deal of experimental work
has been done to determine the degree
of temperature for eggs during
incubation. The temperature of the
hen's blood is about 105 to 107 degrees
F. The eggs are not warmed quite to
this temperature, the amount by which
they fail to reach the temperature of the
hen's body depending, of course, upon
the surrounding temperature. 103
degrees F. is the temperature that has
been generally agreed upon by
incubator manufacturers. Some of
these advise running 102 degrees the
first week, 103 degrees the second, 104
degrees the third. As a matter of fact it
is very difficult to determine the actual
temperature of the egg in the box
incubator. This is because the source of
heat is above the eggs and the air
temperature changes rapidly as the
thermometer is raised or lowered
through the egg chamber. The advice to
place the bulb of the thermometer
against the live egg is very good, but in
practice quite variable results will be
found on different eggs and different
parts of the machine.
With incubators of the same make,
and in all appearances identical, quite
marked variation in hatching capacity
has been observed in individual
machines. Careful experimentation will
usually show this to be a matter of the
way the thermometer is hung in
relation to the heating surfaces and to
the eggs. Ovi-thermometers, which
consists of a thermometer enclosed in
the celluloid imitation of an egg, are
now in the market and are perhaps as
safe as anything that can be used.
As was indicated in the previous
section greater care in temperature of
the egg is necessary in the first half of
the hatch. The temperature of 102
degrees F. as above given is, in the
writer's opinion, too low for this
portion of the hatch. An actual
temperature of 104 degrees at the top
of the eggs will, as has been shown by
careful experimental work, give better
hatches than the lower temperature.

Moisture and Evaporation.

The subject of the water content of
the egg and its relation to life, is the
least understood of poultry problems.
The whole study of the water content
of the egg during incubation hangs on
the amount of evaporation. Now, the
rates of evaporation from any moist
object is determined by two factors:
vapor pressure and the rate of
movement of the air past the object. As
incubation is always carried on at the
same temperature, the evaporating
power of the air is directly
proportioned to the difference in the
vapor pressure of water at that
temperature, and the vapor pressure of
the air as it enters the machine. Thus,
in order to know the evaporative power
of the air, we have only to determine
the vapor pressure of the air and to
remember that the rate of evaporation
is in proportion to this pressure, i.e.:
when the vapor pressure is high the
evaporation will be slow and the eggs
remain too wet, and when the vapor
pressure is low the eggs will be
excessively dried out.
The reader is probably more familiar
with the term relative humidity than
the term vapor pressure, but as the
actual significance of relative humidity
is changed at every change in outside
temperature, the use of this term for
expressing the evaporating power of
the air has led to no end of confusion.
The influence of air currents on
evaporation is to increase it directly
proportional with the rate of air
movement. Thus, 10 cubic feet of air
per hour passing through an egg
chamber would remove twice as much
moisture as would 5 cubic feet.
If the percentage of water in any
living body be changed a relatively
small amount, serious disturbances of
the physiological processes and
ultimately death will result. The
mature animal can, by drinking, take
considerable excess of water without
danger, for the surplus will be speedily
removed by perspiration and by the
secretion from the kidneys. But the
percentage of water in the actual
tissues of the body can vary only
within a narrow range of not more than
three or four per cent. The chick in the
shell is not provided with means of
increasing its water content by drinking
or diminishing it by excretion, but the
fresh egg is provided with more
moisture than the hatched chick will
require, and the surplus is gradually
lost by evaporation. This places the
water content of the chick's body at the
mercies of the evaporating power of
the air that surrounds the egg during
incubation.
To assume that these risks of
uncertain rates of evaporation is
desirable, is as absurd as to assume that
the risks of rainfall are desirable for
plant life. As the plants of a certain
climate have become adapted to the
amount of soil moisture which the
climate is likely to provide, so the egg
has by natural selection been formed
with about as much excess of water as
will be lost in an average season under
the natural conditions of incubation.
Plant life suffers in drought or flood,
and likewise bird life suffers in seasons
of abnormal evaporative conditions.
This view is substantiated by the fact
that the eggs of water fowl which are in
nature incubated in damper places,
have a lower water content than the
eggs of land birds.
The per cent. of water contained in
the contents of fresh eggs is about 74
per cent., or about 65.5 per cent. based
on the weight, shell included.
Unfortunately no investigations have
been made concerning the per cent. of
water present in the newly hatched
chick.
Upon the subject of the loss of water
for the whole period of incubation,
valuable data has been collected at the
Utah, Oregon and Ontario Experiment
Stations.
In these tests we find that as a rule
the evaporation of eggs under hens is
less than in incubators. With both hens
and incubators, the rate of evaporation
is greatest at the Utah Station, which
one would naturally expect from the
climate. The eggs under hens at the
Ontario Station averaged about 12 per
cent. loss in weight, and those at the
Utah Station about 15 per cent. At both
stations, incubators without moisture
ran several per cent. higher evaporation
than eggs under hens. The conclusions
at all stations were that the addition of
moisture to incubators was a material
aid to good hatches of livable chicks.
At Ontario the average evaporation
ran from as low as 7 per cent. At Utah
it reached as high as 24 per cent. Now
as the entire loss of weight is loss of
water, the solid contents remaining the
same, and as the original per cent. of
water contained in the egg (shell
included) is only 65.5, the chicks of the
two lots with the same amount of solid
substance would contain water in the
proportion of 58.5 to 41.5. Based on the
weight of the chick, this would make a
difference of water content of over 25
per cent.
That human beings or other animals
could not exist with such differences in
the chemical composition of the body,
is at once apparent. In fact I do not
believe that the chick can live under
such remarkable circumstances. As I
have picked the extreme cases in the
series given, it is possible that these
extremes were experimental errors, and
as in the Utah data, no information is
given as what happened to the chicks, I
have no proof that they did live. But
from the large number of hatches that
were recorded below 9 per cent. and
above 15 per cent., giving a variation
of the actual water content in the
chick's body of about 10 per cent., it is
evident that chicks do hatch under
remarkable physiological difficulties.
One explanation that suggests itself is,
that as there is considerable variation
in evaporation of individual eggs due
to the amount of shell porosity, and the
chicks that hatch in either case may be
the ones whose individual variations
threw them nearer the normal.
By a further study from the Ontario
data of the relation of the evaporation
to the results in livable chicks, it can be
readily observed that all good hatches
have evaporation centering around the
12 per cent. moisture loss, and that all
lots with evaporations above 15 per
cent. hatch out extremely poor.
The general averages of the
machines supplied with some form of
moisture was 35 per cent. of all eggs
set, in chicks alive at four weeks of
age, while the machines ran dry gave
only 20 per cent. of live chicks at a
similar period.
Now, I wish to call attention to a
further point in connection with
evaporation. If the final measure of the
loss of weight by evaporation were the
only criterion of correct conditions of
moisture in the chick's body, the
hatches that show 12 per cent., or
whatever the correct amount of
evaporation may be, should be
decidedly superior to those on either
side. That they are better, has already
been shown. But they are far from what
they should be. An explanation is not
hard to find. The correct content of
moisture is not the only essential to the
chick's well being at the moments of
hatching, but during the whole period
of incubation. Under our present
system of incubation, the chick is
immediately subject to the changing
evaporation of American weather
conditions. The data for that fact,
picked at random, will be of interest.
The following table gives the vapor
pressure at Buffalo, N. Y., for twenty
consecutive days in April:
April
170
1
April 130
2
April
95
3
April
103
4
April
110
5
April
106
6
April
154
7
April
183
8
April
245
9
April 311
10
April
342
11
April
286
12
April
219
13
April
248
14
April
217
15
April
193
16
April
241
17
April
306
18
April
19 261

April
204
20
Supposing a hatch to be started at the
beginning of the above period, by the
end of the first week, with the
excessive evaporation, due to a low
vapor pressure, the eggs would all be
several per cent. below the normal
water content; the fact that the next
week was warm and rainy, and the
vapor pressure rose until the loss was
entirely counterbalanced, would not
repair the injury, even though the eggs
showed at the end of incubation exactly
the correct amount of shrinkage. A man
might thirst in the desert for a week,
then, coming to a hole of water fall in
and drown, but we would hardly accept
the report of a normal water content
found at the post-mortem examination
as evidence that his death was not
connected with the moisture problem.
 The change of evaporation, due to
weather conditions, is, under hens, less
marked than in incubators. This is
because there are no drafts under the
hen, and because the hen's moist body
and the moist earth, if she sets on the
ground, are separate sources of
moisture which the changing humidity
of the atmosphere does not affect.
Among about forty hens set at different
times at the Utah Station and the loss
of moisture of which was determined at
three equal periods of six days each,
the greatest irregularity I found was as
follows: 1st period, 5.81 per cent; 2d
period, 3.86 per cent; 3d period, 6.15
per cent. Compare this with a similar
incubator record at the same station in
which the loss for the three periods was
5.63, 9.18 and 2.15.
I think the reader is now in position
to appreciate the almost
unsurmountable difficulties in the
proper control of evaporation with the
common small incubator in our
climate. It is little wonder that one of
our best incubator manufacturers, after
studying the proposition for some time,
threw over the whole moisture
proposition, and put out a machine in
which drafts of air were slowed down
by felt diaphragms and the use of
moisture was strictly forbidden.
The moisture problem to the small
incubator operator presents itself as
follows: If left to the mercies of chance
and the weather, the too great or too
little evaporation from his eggs will
yield hatches that will prove
unprofitable. In order to regulate this
evaporation, he must know and be able
to control both vapor pressure and the
currents of air that strike the eggs. Now
he does not know the amount of vapor
pressure and has no way of finding it
out. The so-called humidity gauges on
the market are practically worthless,
and even were the readings on relative
humidity accurately determined, they
would be wholly confusing, for their
effect of the same relative humidity on
the evaporation will vary widely with
variations of the out-of-door
temperature.
 If the operator knows or guesses that
the humidity is too low, he can increase
it by adding water to the room, or the
egg chamber, but he cannot tell when
he has too much, nor can he reduce the
vapor pressure of the air on rainy days
when nature gives him too much water.
As to air currents he is little better off
—he has no way to tell accurately as to
the behavior of air in the egg chamber
and changes in temperature of the
heater or if the outside air will throw
these currents all off, since they depend
upon the draft principle.
Taking it all in all, the man with the
small incubator had better follow the
manufacturer's directions and trust to
luck.
 The writer has long been of the
conviction that a plan which would
keep the rate of evaporation within as
narrow bounds as we now keep the
temperature, would not only solve the
problem of artificial incubation, but
improve on nature and increase not
only the numbers but the vitality or
livability of the chicks. With a view of
studying further the relations between
the conditions of atmospheric vapor
pressure, and the success of artificial
incubation, I have investigated climatic
reports and hatching records in the
various sections of the world.
The following are averages of the
monthly vapor pressures at four points
in which we are interested:
 St.
Buffalo, San Ca
Month Louis,
N.Y. Francisco. Eg
Mo.
January 87 98 311
February 81 94 310
March 138 224 337
April 171 283 332
May 301 423 317
June 466 550 345
July 546 599 374
August 496 627 382
September 429 506 389
October 285 327 342
November 271 225 285
December 143 133 243
A study of the extent of daily
variations is also of interest. As a
general thing they are less extreme in
localities when the seasonal variations
are also less. In Cairo, however, which
has a seasonal variation greater than
San Francisco, the daily variations
during the hatching season are much
less than in California. This is due to a
constant wind from sea to land, and an
absolute absence of rainfall, conditions
for which Egypt is noted.
Nearness to a coast does not mean
uniform vapor pressure, for with wind
alternating from sea to land, it means
just the opposite.
As will be readily seen the months in
spring which give the best hatches,
occupy a medium place in the humidity
scale. The fact that both hens and
machines succeed best in this period, is
to me very suggestive of the possibility
that with an incubator absolutely
controlling evaporation, much of the
seasonal variation in the hatchability
would disappear.
The uniform humidity of the
California coast is shown in the above
table. This is not inconsistent with the
excellent results obtained at Petaluma.
The Egyptian hatcher in his long
experience has learned just about how
much airholes and smudge fire are
necessary to get results. With these
kept constant and the atmosphere
constant, we have more nearly perfect
conditions of incubation than are to be
found anywhere else in the world, and I
do not except the natural methods. The
climatic conditions of Egypt cannot be
equaled in any other climate, but as
will be shown in the last section of this
chapter, their effect can be duplicated
readily enough by modern science and
engineering.
Mr. Edward Brown, who was sent
over here by the English Government
to investigate our poultry industry, was
greatly surprised at our poor results in
artificial incubation. Compared with
our acknowledged records of less than
50 per cent. hatches, he quotes the
results obtained in hatching 18,000
eggs at an English experiment station
as 62 per cent. I have not obtained any
data of English humidity, but it is
undoubtedly more uniform than the
eastern United States.

Ventilation—Carbon Dioxide.
The last of the four life requisites we
have to consider is that of oxygen. The
chick in the shell, like a fish, breathes
oxygen which is dissolved in a liquid.
A special breathing organ is developed
for the chick during its embryonic
stages and floats in the white and
absorbs the oxygen and gives off
carbon dioxide. The amount of this
breathing that occurs in the chick is at
first insignificant, but increases with
development. At no time, however, is it
anywhere equal to that of the hatched
chicks, for the physiological function
to be maintained by the unhatched
chicks requires little energy and little
oxidation.
Upon the subject of ventilation in
general, a great misunderstanding
exists. Be it far from me to say
anything that will cause either my
readers or his chickens to sleep less in
the fresh air, yet for the love of truth
and for the simplification of the
problem of incubation, the real facts
about ventilation must be given.
In breathing, oxygen is absorbed and
carbon dioxide and water vapor are
given off. It is popularly held that
abundance of fresh air is necessary to
supply the oxygen for breathing and
that carbon dioxide is a poison. Both
are mistakes. The amount of oxygen
normally in the air is about 20 per cent.
Of carbon dioxide there is normally
three hundredths of one per cent.
During breathing these gasses are
exchanged in about equal volume. A
doubling or tripling of carbon dioxide
was formerly thought to be "very
dangerous." Now, if the carbon dioxide
were increased 100 times, we would
have only three per cent., and have
seventeen per cent. of oxygen
remaining. This oxygen would still be
of sufficient pressure to readily pass
into the blood. We might breathe a
little faster to make up for the lessened
oxygen pressure. In fact such a
condition of the air would not be unlike
the effects of higher altitudes.
Some investigations recently
conducted at the U.S. Experiment
Station for human nutrition, have
shown the utter misconception of the
old idea of ventilation. The respiratory
calorimeter is an air-tight compartment
in which men are confined for a week
or more at a time while studies are
being made concerning heat and energy
yielded by food products. It being
inconvenient to analyze such an
immense volume of air as would be
necessary to keep the room freshened
according to conventional ventilation
standards, experiments were made to
see how vitiated the air could be made
without causing ill effects to the
subject.
This led to a remarkable series of
experiments in which it was repeatedly
demonstrated that a man could live and
work for a week at a time without
experiencing any ill effects whatever in
an atmosphere of his own breath
containing as high as 1.86 per cent. of
carbon dioxide, or, in other words, the
air had its impurity increased 62 times.
This agrees with what every chemist
and physiologist has long known, and
that is that carbon dioxide is not
poisonous, but is a harmless dilutant
just as nitrogen. This does not mean
that a man or animal may not die of
suffocation, but that these are
smothered, as they are drowned, by a
real absence of oxygen, not poisoned
by a fraction of 1 per cent. of carbon
dioxide.
In the same series of experiments,
search was made for the mysterious
poisons of the breath which many who
had learned of the actual harmlessness
of carbon dioxide alleged to be the
cause of the ill effects attributed to foul
air. Without discussion, I will say that
the investigators failed to find such
poisons, but concluded that the sense of
suffocation in an unventilated room is
due not to carbon dioxide or other
"poisonous" respiratory products, but is
wholly due to warmth, water vapor, and
the unpleasant odors given off by the
body.
The subject of ventilation has always
been a bone of contention in incubator
discussions. With its little understood
real importance, as shown in the
previous section, and the greatly
exaggerated popular notions of the
importance of oxygen and imagined
poisonous qualities of carbon dioxide,
the confusion in the subject should
cause little wonder.
A few years ago some one with an
investigating mind decided to see if
incubators were properly ventilated,
and proceeded to make carbon dioxide
determinations of the air under a hen
and in an incubator. The air under the
hen was found to contain the most of
the obnoxious gas. Now, this
information was disconcerting, for the
hen had always been considered the
source of all incubator wisdom. Clearly
the perfection of the hen or the
conception of pure air must be
sacrificed. Chemistry here came to the
rescue, and said that carbon dioxide
mixed with water, formed an acid and
acid would dissolve the lime of an egg
shell. Evidently the hen was sacrificing
her own health by breathing impure air
in order to soften up the shells a little
so the chicks could get out. Since it
could have been demonstrated in a few
hours in any laboratory, that carbon
dioxide in the quantities involved, has
no perceptible effect upon egg shells, it
is with some apology that I mention
that quite a deal of good brains has
been spent upon the subject by two
experiment stations. The data
accumulated, of course, fails to prove
the theory, but it is interesting as
further evidence of the needlessness in
the old fear of insufficient ventilation.
At the Ontario Station, the average
amounts of carbon dioxide under a
large number of hens was .32 of one
per cent., or about ten times that of
fresh air, or one-sixth of that which the
man breathed so happily in the
respiratory calorimeter. With
incubators, every conceivable scheme
was tried to change the amount of
carbon dioxide. In some, sour milk was
placed which, in fermenting, gives off
the gas in question. Others were
supplied with buttermilk, presumably
to familiarize the chickens with this
article so they would recognize it in the
fattening rations. In other machines,
lamp fumes were run in, and to still
others, pure carbon dioxide was
supplied. The percentage of the gas
present varied in the machines from .06
to .58 of one per cent. The results, of
course, vary as any run of hatches
would. The detailed discussion of the
hatches and their relation to the amount
of carbon dioxide as given in Bulletin
160 of the Ontario Station, would be
unfortunately confusing to the novice,
but would make amusing reading for
the old poultryman. Speaking of a
comparison of two hatches, the writer,
on page 53 of the bulletin says, "The
increase in vitality of chicks from the
combination of the carbon dioxide and
moisture over moisture only,
amounting, as it does, to 4.5 per cent.
of the eggs set, seems directly due to
the higher carbon dioxide content." I
cannot refrain from suggesting that if
my reader has two incubators, he might
set up a Chinese prayer machine in
front of one and see if he cannot in like
manner demonstrate the efficacy of
Heavenly supplications in the hatching
of chickens.
The practical bearing of the subject
of ventilation in the small incubator is
almost wholly one of evaporation. The
majority of such machines are probably
too much ventilated. In a large and
properly constructed hatchery, such as
is discussed in the last section of this
chapter, the entire composition of the
air, as well as its movement, is entirely
under control. Nothing has yet been
brought to light that indicates any
particular attention need be given to
the composition of such air save in
regard to its moisture content, but as
the control of this factor renders it
necessary that the air be in a closed
circuit, and not open to all out-doors, it
will be very easy to subject the air to
further changes such as the increasing
oxygen, if such can be demonstrated to
be desirable.

Turning Eggs.
The subject of turning eggs is
another source of rather meaningless
controversy. Of course, the hen moves
her eggs around and in doing so turns
them. Doubtless the reader, were he
setting on a pile of door knobs as big as
his head, would do the same thing. As
proof that eggs need turning, we are
referred to the fact that yolks stick to
the shell if the eggs are not turned. I
have candled thousands of eggs and
have yet to see a yolk stuck to the shell
unless the egg contained foreign
organism or was several months old.
However, I have seen hundreds of
blood rings stuck to the shell. Whether
the chick died because the blood rings
stuck or whether the blood rings stuck
because the chicken died I know not,
but I have a strong presumption that
the latter explanation is correct, for I
see no reason if the live blood ring was
in the habit of sticking to the shell, why
this would not occur in a few hours as
well as in a few days.
In the year 1901 I saw plenty of
chicks hatched out in Kansas in egg
cases, kitchen cupboards and other
places where regular turning was
entirely overlooked.
Mr. J.P. Collins, head of the Produce
Department of Swift & Co., says that
he was one time cruelly deserted in a
Pullman smoker for telling the same
story. The statement is true, however,
in spite of Mr. Collins' unpleasant
experience. Texas egg dealers
frequently find hatched chickens in
cases of eggs.
Upon the subject of turning eggs the
writer will admit that he is doing what
poultry writers as a class do on a great
many occasions, i.e.: expressing an
opinion rather than giving the proven
facts. In incubation practice it is highly
desirable to change the position of eggs
so that unevenness in temperature and
evaporation will be balanced. When
doing this it is easier to turn the eggs
than not to turn them, and for this
reason the writer has never gone to the
trouble of thoroughly investigating the
matter. But it has been abundantly
proven that any particular pains in egg
turning is a waste of time.

Cooling Eggs.
The belief in the necessity of cooling
eggs undoubtedly arose from the effort
to follow closely and blindly in the
footsteps of the hen. With this idea in
mind the fact that the hen cooled her
eggs occasionally led us to discover a
theory which proved such cooling to be
necessary. A more reasonable theory is
that the hen cools the eggs from
necessity, not from choice. In some
species of birds the male relieves the
female while the latter goes foraging.
 But there is no need to argue the
question. Eggs will hatch if cooled
according to custom, but that they will
hatch as well or better without the
cooling is abundantly proven by the
results in Egyptian incubators where no
cooling whatever is practiced.

Searching for the "Open Sesame"

of Incubation.
The experiment station workers
have, the last few years, gone a hunting
for the weak spot in artificial
incubation. Some reference to this
work has already been made in the
sections on moisture and ventilation.
Before leaving the subject I want to
refer to two more efforts to find this
key to the mystery of incubation and in
the one case at least correct an
erroneous impression that has been
given out.
At the Ontario Station a patent
disinfectant wash called "Zenoleum"
was incidentally used to deodorize
incubators. Now, for some reason,
perhaps due to the belief that white
diarrhoea was caused by a germ in the
egg, this idea of washing with
Zenoleum was conceived to be a
possible solution of the incubator
problem. In the numerous experiments
at that station in 1907 Zenoleum
applied to the machine in various ways
was combined with various other
incipient panaceas and at the end of the
season the results of the various
combinations were duly tabulated. The
machine with buttermilk and Zenoleum
headed the list for livable chicks.
For reasons explained in the chapter
on "Experiment Station Work," the
idea of contrasting the results of one
hatch with one sort with the average
results of many hatches of another sort
is very poor science. Feeling that the
Station men would hardly be guilty of
expressing as they did in favor of such
a method without better reason, I very
carefully went over the results and
compared all machines using
Zenoleum with all machines without it.
The results in favor of Zenoleum were
less marked but still perceptible. I was
somewhat puzzled, as I could see no
rational explanation of the relation
between disinfecting incubator walls
and the hatchability of the chick in its
germ-proof cage. Finally I hit upon the
scheme of arranging the hatches by
dates and the explanation became at
once apparent. The hatching
experiments had extended from March
to July, but the Zenoleum hatches were
grouped in April and early in May,
when, as one would expect from
weather conditions, all hatches were
running good. After allowing for this
error Zenoleum appeared as harmless
and meaningless as would the Attar of
Roses.
The second link after the missing
link of incubation to which I wish to
call your attention also occurred at the
Ontario Station. The latter case,
however, is happier in that no
unwarranted conclusions were drawn
and that an interesting bit of scientific
knowledge was added to the world's
store. The conception to be tested was
an offshoot from the carbon dioxide
theory. You will remember at the Utah
Station the idea was that carbon
dioxide was to dissolve the shell so the
chick could break out easier.
At the Guelph Station the conception
was that the carbon dioxide might
dissolve the lime of the shell for the
chick to use in "makin' hisself." As an
egg could not be analyzed fresh and
then hatched, a number were analyzed
from the same hens and others from
those hens were then incubated with
the various amounts of carbon dioxide,
buttermilk, Zenoleum, and other
factors. The lime content of the
contents of the fresh egg averaged
about .04 grams. At hatching time the
lime in the chick's body averaged about
.20 grams and was always several
times as great as the maximum of the
eggs.
Clearly calcium phosphate of the
chick's bones is made by the digestion
of the calcium carbonate from the shell
and its combination with the
phosphorus of the yolk. Certainly a
remarkable and hitherto unexplained
fact. The amount of lime required is
not great enough, however, to
materially weaken the shell, but, of
course, the process is vital to the chick
as bones are quite essential to his
welfare, but it is an "inside affair" of
which the three-tenths of one per cent
of carbon dioxide incidentally present
under the hen is entirely irrelevant.
A further observation made by the
investigator is that the chicks which
obtained the lowest amount of lime
were abnormally weak. As long as we
are powerless to aid the chick in
digesting lime this fact, like the other,
belongs in the field of pure, rather than
applied science. I think that we are safe
in saying that the weakness caused the
shortage of lime rather than vice versa;
if the writer remembers runts in other
animals are usually a little short of
bone material.
The chemist of the station is to be
given special credit for not jumping at
conclusions. In the summary of this
work he states: "There is apparently no
connection between the amount of lime
absorbed by the chick and the amount
of carbon dioxide present during
incubation."

The Box Type of Incubator In

Actual Use.
Although the fact is not so
advertised and frequently not
recognized even by the makers, the
success of existing incubators is
directly proportional to the extent with
which they control evaporation. In
order to show this I have only to call
attention briefly to two or three of the
most successful types of incubators on
the market.
Let me first repeat that evaporation
increases with increased air currents
and with decreased vapor pressure.
Now, the vapor pressure undergoes all
manner of changes with the passing of
storm centers and the changes of
prevailing winds. But there is a general
tendency for vapor pressure to increase
with increase in outside temperature.
Now, the movement of air in all
common incubators depends upon the
draft principle and the greater the
difference in machine temperature and
outside temperature the greater will be
this draft. Thus, we have two factors
combining to cause variation in the rate
of evaporation. The tendency for the
rate of airflow to vary is diminished
when a cellar is used for an incubator
room, but the cellar does not materially
remedy the climatic variation in vapor
pressure.
The general tendency of incubators
as ordinarily constructed, is to dry out
the eggs too rapidly. With a view of
counteracting this, water is placed in
pans in the egg room. A surface of
water exposed to quiet air does not
evaporate as fast as one might think, as
is easily shown by the fact that air
above rivers, lakes and even seas is
frequently far from the saturation
point. The result of the moisture pan
with a given current of air is that the
vapor pressure is increased a definite
amount, but by no means is it regulated
or made uniform. Inasmuch as too
much shrinking is the most prevalent
fault in box incubators, the use of
moisture is on the whole beneficial, but
in hot, murky weather, with less
circulation and higher outside vapor
pressure, the moisture is overdone and
the operator condemns the system.
The subject not being clearly
understood and no means being
available for vapor pressure
determinations, the system results in
confusion and disputes. When the felt
diaphragm machine was brought into
the market it was advertised as a no-
moisture machine. The result of the
diaphragm is that of choking off air
movement and consequently reducing
evaporation. This gives exactly the
same results as the use of moisture, but
the machine is easier to operate and
seemed to do away with the vexatious
moisture problem which, together
perhaps, with some fancied
resemblance of felt diaphragms to hen
feathers, has resulted in the widespread
use of this type of machine.
The latest effort along the lines of
reducing evaporation is the sand tray
machine that followed in the wake of
the Ontario investigation. This device
simply gives a greater evaporating
surface to the water and hence a greater
addition to the vapor pressure. The
results in practice I had given me by a
man who last year hatched sixty-five
thousand chicks and as many more
ducklings.
He said: "The sand tray early in the
season gave the best hatches and most
vigorous chicks we had, but later on
things got too wet and the chickens
drowned." No nicer demonstration of
science in practice could be desired.
In the present-day incubator of either
type we are wholly at the mercy of
sudden climatic changes of vapor
pressure. For the slower changes from
season to season some control by
greater and less amounts of supplied
moisture, or by ventilator slides is
available, but little understood and
seldom practiced.
It will certainly be of interest to my
readers to know the actual hatches
obtained with the prevailing type of
box incubator. By actual hatches we
mean the per cent. of live chicks taken
out of the machine to the per cent. of
eggs put in. The ordinary published
hatches, based on one per cent. of
fertile hatches, are a delusion and a
snare. When eggs are tested out many
dead germs come out with them and
the separation of microscopic dead
germs from the infertile egg is, of
course, impossible. Such padded and
show hatching records do not interest
us.
Where incubators are run on top of
the ground I have found the results to
be poor and to improve, the bigger and
deeper and damper and warmer and
less ventilated the cellar is made. The
reason for this is plain. In such a cellar
the vapor pressure of the air is not only
greater but is less influenced by the
shifting vapor pressure of the outside
air. In a good cellar the operator,
though his knowledge of the factors
with which he deals is grievously
deficient, learns, through long and
costly experience, about what addition
of moisture or about what rate of
ventilation will give him the best
results. In the room more subject to
outside influences, the conditions are
so constantly changing that uniformity
of practice never gives uniform results,
and hence the operator is without
guidance, either intelligent or blind,
and the results are wholly a product of
chance.
As proof of my contention I may
give results of a series of full season
hatches for 1908, each involving
several thousand eggs.
First, a state experiment station, the
name of which I do not care to publish.
Incubators kept in a cement basement
which has flues in which fires were
built to secure "ample ventilation."
This caused a strong draft of cold, dry
air, making the worst possible
condition for incubation. The hatch for
the season averaged 25 per cent. and
was explained by lack of vitality in the
stock.
Second, Ontario Agricultural
College. A room above ground,
moisture used in most machines and
various other efforts being made to
improve the hatches by a staff of half a
dozen scientists. Results: Hatch 48 per
cent.—incubator manufacturers call the
experimenters names and say they are
ignorant and prejudiced.
Third, Cornell University: dry
ventilated basement representing
typical conditions of common
incubator practice of the country.
Results: Hatch 52 per cent., results
when given out commonly based on
fertile eggs and every one generally
pleased.
Fourth: One of the most successful
poultrymen in New York State, who
has, without knowing why, hit upon the
plan of using a no-moisture type of
incubator in a basement which is
heated with steam pipes, which
maintains temperature at 70 degrees
and has a cement floor which is kept
covered with water. Results: Hatch 59
per cent.
Fifth: As a fifth in such a series I
might mention again the Egyptian
machine with the uniform vapor
pressure of the climate and the three
chicks exchanged for four eggs.
While an official in the United
States Department of Agriculture, I
gathered data from original records of
private plants covering the incubation
of several hundred thousand eggs. Such
information was furnished me in
confidence as a public official and as a
private citizen I have no right to
publish that which would mean
financial profit or loss to those
concerned.
Of records where there were ten
thousand or more eggs involved, the
lowest I found was 44 per cent. and the
highest, that mentioned as the fourth
case above, or 59 per cent. The great
majority of these records hung very
closely around the 50 per cent. mark.
The following is a fair sample of
such data. It is the record of hatching
hen eggs for the first six months of
1908, at one of the largest poultry
plants in America:
Per
Eggs Chicks
Month Cent.
Set Hatched
Hatched
January 4,213 1,585 37 2-3
February 6,275 2,339 33 3-4
March 17,990 6,993 38 1-3
April 18,819 10,265 54 1-2
May 24,458 14,438 59
June 13,100 6,614 55
 ------ ------ ------
Total 84,855 42,234 50 p.c.

The Future Method of Incubation.

The idea of the mammoth incubator
which would hatch eggs by the hundred
thousand and a minimum of expense is
the dream of the American incubator
inventor. We have long had available
such methods of insulation and
regulating the supply of heat as would
point to the practicability of such a
dream.
The past efforts in this direction
have fallen down for the following
simple reason: All eggs were placed in
a single big room with a view of the
man's entering the room to take care of
them. Contact with cold walls, the
opening of doors, the hatching of
chicks or introduction of fresh eggs set
up air currents, the hot air rising and
the cold air settling until great
differences in temperature would be
found in the room. No systematic
regulation of evaporation was
contemplated, as the principles at stake
or the means of such regulation were
unknown.
The attempt just referred to was
made several years ago by one of the
most successful of incubator
manufacturers and because of his
failure other inventors were inclined to
steer clear of the proposition.
Meanwhile the need of such an
incubator has grown enormously. At
the time that above effort was made no
duck ranch existed whose annual
production ran over thirty or forty
thousand ducklings, whereas we now
have several in the one hundred
thousand class.
Much more remarkable has been the
growth of the day-old chick business.
The discovery that newly hatched
chicks could be successfully shipped
hundreds of miles with less loss than
shipping eggs for hatching, has resulted
in a few years' time in the growth of
hatcheries of considerable size where
chicks are hatched by means of
common incubators. Still another
opportunity for the use of large
hatcheries has been by the growth of
poultry communities. There are other
communities besides those mentioned
in this book which would amply
support public hatcheries. If half the
poultry growers of Lancaster County,
Pa., were to be prevailed upon to
patronize a public hatchery, the county
would support between fifteen and
twenty 100,000 egg incubators. Any of
the numerous trolley centers in
Indiana, Ohio and Southern Michigan
would likewise be profitable locations
for the establishment of public
hatcheries.
The demand for the incubator of
large capacity has, within the last year
or so, brought two or three "mammoth"
incubators into the market. The devices
I now refer to consist of a row of box
incubators which, instead of being
heated by single lamps, are heated by
continuous hot water pipes. This
scheme effects a considerable saving in
fuel cost and labor, but the bulkiness of
construction and the woeful lack of
evaporation control are still to be dealt
with.
The writer now wishes briefly to
describe the plan of construction and
operation of a new type of hatchery, the
success of which has recently been
made feasible by inventions and
technical knowledge hitherto
unavailable. The plan of the hatchery is
on that of a cold storage plant as far as
insulation and general construction go.
The eggs are kept in bulk in special
cases which are turned as a whole and
may rest on either of four sides. At
hatching time the eggs are spread out
in trays in a special hatching room,
which is only large enough to
accommodate chicks to the amount of
one-sixth of the incubator capacity, for
twice a week deliverings, or one-third
if weekly deliveries are desired.
There are no pipes or other sources
of heat in the egg chambers. All
temperature regulation is by means of
air heated (or cooled as the case may
be) outside of the egg rooms and forced
into the egg rooms by a motor driven
cone fan, maintaining a steady current
of air, the rate of movement of which
may be varied at will. The air
movement maintained will always be
sufficiently brisk, however, to prevent
an unevenness of temperature in
different parts of the room.
So simple is this that the reader will
doubtless wonder why it was not
developed earlier. The reason is that air
subject to the climatic influences will,
with any forced draft sufficient to
equalize temperature, result in a fatal
rate of evaporation. Sprinkling the air
has not generally been thought
practical because of the notion that air
must not be used in the egg chamber
but once, which involved quite a waste
of heat necessary in warming a large
bulk of air and evaporating sufficient
water. Moreover, no means has, in the
past, been available for making a
sufficiently accurate measurement of
the evaporating power of the air.
The hair hygrometers commonly
sold to incubator operators are known
by scientists to be absolutely
unreliable. The range between the wet
and dry bulb thermometers was found
in the Ontario experiments to give
readings with and without fanning that
varied 15 to 20 per cent. in relative
humidity which, at the temperature of
an egg chamber, would amount to a
variation of three to four hundred of
vapor pressure units, which, with the
forced draught plan, would ruin a hatch
of eggs in a few hours. The sling
psychrometer as used by the U.S.
Weather Bureau should, in the hands of
an expert, give results making possible
measurements accurate to two or three
per cent. of relative humidity or forty
to sixty units of vapor pressure. In
contrast with these blundering
instruments we now have available an
instrument with which the writer has
frequently determined vapor pressure
accurately to within a range of two or
three vapor pressure units and the
instrument is capable of being
constructed for even finer work.
As it is only by means of air with the
moisture content absolutely controlled
that the use of a large room becomes
possible, we can now see why this type
of hatching remained so long
undeveloped. By means of such vapor
pressure control the large egg chamber
is not only feasible but the rate of
evaporation at once becomes subject to
the control of the operator and we
achieve a perfection in artificial
incubation hitherto unattained.
The means by which the air moisture
is regulated is similar to that used in
up-to-date cold storage plants where
the air is made moist by sprinkling and
dried with deliquescent salts. The
regulation of vapor pressure, like that
of temperature, may be by electrically
moved dampers which switch a greater
or less proportion of the incoming
current to the sprinkler or dryer as the
case may be. The ordinary incubator
thermostat gives the necessary impulse
for the control of the temperature
dampers, while the instrument above
referred to is used for the vapor
pressure control.
As the entire air circuit is closed, the
chemical composition of the air may
also be regulated at will. This results in
a reduction of the quantity of heat
required to a minimum; in fact, with
the incubator in full swing, the air will,
at times, need cooling rather than
warming.
The question of the cost of
incubation by this method, or of profit
of such a hatchery operated for the
public is almost wholly one of the size
of operations. Where sufficient eggs
may be obtained and sufficient demand
exists for the chicks to make it
profitable to operate, the additional
cost of hatching extra chicks will be
insignificant compared with the present
system.
The Egyptian poultryman gives four
eggs for three chicks, but the American
poultryman would be willing to give
four eggs for one chick, as is shown by
the fact that he sells eggs for from 1 to
3 cents apiece and buys day-old chicks
for ten to fifteen cents. A plant with a
seasonable capacity of 100,000 eggs
has a basis to work upon something as
follows:
With a fifty per cent. hatch and
chicks at 10 cents each there would be
a gross income of $5,000 annually.
From this we must subtract for eggs at
2 cents each, $2,000. Salary for
operator $1,000, wages for helper $300.
Fuel, supplies and repairs $500. Cost of
delivery and sales of chicks $200. This
leaves a residue of $1,000, which
would pay a 20 per cent. interest on the
necessary investment of $5,000.
Personally, I think this is about the
minimum unit of hatching that would
prove worth while as independent
institutions.
Any increase in the percentage of the
hatch would, of course, reduce the unit
of size necessary for profitable
operation. Upon a single poultry plant
as a duck farm the cost of operation
would be materially reduced, as the
operator himself would take the place
of the intelligent manager and the cost
of gathering eggs and the delivery of
the product would be eliminated.
The most profitable method of
hatchery operation undoubtedly will be
upon a plan analogous to what, in
creamery operation, is called
centralization. The success of this
scheme depends upon the fact that
transportation and agencies at country
stores are relatively less important
items of expense than plant
construction and high salaries for
skilled labor. A hatchery with a million
capacity can be built and run at not
more than twice the cost of one
hundred-thousand plant and better men
can be kept in charge of it. A portion of
the saving will of course be expended
in maintaining a system of buying eggs
and selling chicks.
The material advantage of operating
a hatchery in connection with a high-
class egg handling and poultry packing
establishment, or as one feature of a
poultry community, is at once
apparent, for the system of collecting
the market produce will be utilized for
gathering eggs and distributing chicks,
each business helping the other.
The public hatchery also gives an
excellent opportunity for the
introduction of good stock among
farmers who would be too shiftless to
acquire it by ordinary methods.
 CHAPTER VII
FEEDING
The old adage that a little knowledge
is a dangerous thing is nowhere better
illustrated than in the scientific phases
of poultry feeding. The attempted
application of the common theoretical
feeding standards to poultry has caused
not only a great waste of time but has
also resulted in expenditures for high-
priced feeds when cheaper feeds would
have given as good or better results.
The so-called science of food
chemistry is really a rough
approximation of things about which
the actual facts are unknown. Such
knowledge bears the same relation to
accurate science as the maps of
America drawn by the early explorers
do to a modern atlas. Like these early
efforts of geography the present
science of food chemistry is all right if
we realize its incompleteness. In
practice, the poultryman, after a
general glance at the "map," will find a
more reliable guide in simpler things.
I am writing this book for the
poultryman, not the professor, and
because I state that the particular kind
of science wherein the professor has
taken the most pains to teach the
poultryman is comparatively useless, I
fear it may arouse a mistrust of the
value of science as a whole. I know of
no way to prevent this except to point
out the distinction between scientific
facts and guesses couched in scientific
language.
When a scientist states that a hen
cannot lay egg shells containing
calcium without having calcium in her
food, that is a fact, and it works out in
practice, for calcium is an element, and
the hen cannot create elementary
substances. When the same scientist,
finding that an egg contains protein,
says that wheat is a better egg food
than corn because it has the largest
amount of protein, that is a guess and
does not work in practice because
protein is not a definite substance, but
the name of a group of substances of
which the scientist does not know the
composition, and which may or may
not be of equal use to the hen in the
formation of eggs.
All substances of which the world is
made are composed of elements which
cannot be changed. When these
elements are combined they form
definite substances with definite
proportions entirely independent of the
original elements. The pure diamond is
carbon. Gasoline is carbon and
hydrogen. Several hundred other things
are also carbon and hydrogen. Sugar is
carbon combined with hydrogen and
oxygen. These three elements make
several thousand different substances,
including fats, alcohol and
formaldehyde. Hydrocyanic acid is
carbon combined with hydrogen and
nitrogen, and is the most deadly poison
known.
The failure of food science is partly
because we do not know the
composition of many of the substances
of food and partly because these
substances are changed in the animal
body in a manner which we do not
understand and cannot control.

Conventional Food Chemistry

The conventional analysis of feeding
stuff divides the food substances in
water, carbohydrates, fat, protein and
ash. The amount of water in the body is
all-important, but, with the exception
of eggs during incubation, I confess I
prefer to rely upon the chicken's
judgment as to the amount required.
The carbohydrate group contains
starch, sugar, cellulose and a number of
other things. Carbohydrates constitute
two-thirds to three-fourths of all
common rations and nine-tenths of that
amount is starch. The proposition of
how much carbohydrates the hen eats is
chiefly determined by the quantity of
grain she consumes.
Of fats there are many kinds of
which the composition is definitely
known. The amount of fats the hen eats
is unimportant because she makes
starch into fat. The protein or nitrogen
containing substances of the diet is the
group of food substances over which
most of the theories are expounded.
The hen can make egg fat from corn
starch or cabbage leaves because they
contain the same elements. She cannot
make egg white from starch or fat
because the element of nitrogen which
is in the egg white is lacking in the
starch and fats.
The substances that have nitrogen in
them are called protein. They are very
complex and difficult to analyze. In
digestion these proteins are all torn to
pieces and built up into other kinds of
protein. Just as in tearing down an old
house, only a portion of the material
can be used in a new house, so it is
with protein and laboratory analysis
cannot tell us how much of the old
house can be utilized in building the
new one.
In practice the whole subject
simmers down to the proposition of
finding out by direct experiment
whether the hen will do the work best
on this or that food, irregardless of its
nitrogen content as determined in the
laboratory.
The results of many experiments and
much experience has shown that lean
meat protein will make egg protein and
chicken flesh protein and that
vegetable protein pound for pound is
not its equal. I know of no results that
have proven that the high priced
vegetable foods such as linseed meal,
gluten feed, etc., have proven a more
valuable chicken food than the
cheapest grains.
With cows and pigeons this is not
the case, but the hen is not a vegetarian
by nature and high priced vegetable
protein doesn't seem to be in her line.
Of the three standard grains there is
some indication of the value of the
proteids for chickens and of the
following ranks, 1st oats, 2d corn, 3d
wheat.
The false conceptions of the value of
wheat proteids has been specially the
cause of much waste of money.
Digestive trials and direct experiments
both show that, as chicken foods, wheat
is worth less, pound for pound, than
corn and yet, though much higher in
price, it is still used not only as a
variety grain, but by many poultrymen
as the chief article of diet. Wheat
contains only 3 per cent. more proteid
than corn. The man who substitutes
wheat at one and one-half cents a
pound for corn worth one cent a pound
pays 17 cents a pound for his added
protein. In beef scrap he could get the
protein for 5 cents a pound and have a
very superior article besides.
Milk as a source of protein ranks
between the vegetable proteids and
those of meat. It is preferably fed
clabbered. The dried casein recently
put on the market is a valuable food but
is not worth as much as meat food and
will not be extensively utilized until
the demand for meat scrap forces up
the price to a point where the casein
can be sold more cheaply. Meat scrap,
to be relished by the chickens, must not
be a fine meal, but should consist of
particles the size of wheat kernels or
larger. The fine scrap gives the
manufacturer a chance to utilize dried
blood and tankage which is cheaper in
quality and price than particles of real
meat.
The last and least understood of the
groups of food substances is mineral
substance or ash. Now, the chemist
determines mineral substance by
burning the food and analyzing the
residue. In the intense heat numerous
chemical changes take place and the
substances that come out of the furnace
are entirely different from those
contained in the fresh food.
The lay reader will probably ask why
the chemist does not analyze the
substances of the fresh material. The
answer is that he doesn't know how.
Progress is made every year but the
whole subject is yet too much clouded
in obscurity to be of any practical
application. At present the feeding of
mineral substance, like the feeding of
protein, can best be learned by
experimenting directly with the foods
rather than by attempting to go by their
chemical composition.
In practice it is found that green feed
supplies something which grain lacks,
presumably mineral salts. Moreover we
know that such food fed fresh is
superior to the same substance dried.
This may be because of chemical
changes that occur in curing or simply
because of greater palatability.
The other chief source of mineral
matter is meat preparations with or
without ground bone. Recent
experiments at Rhode Island have
attempted to show the relative value of
the mineral constituents of meat by
adding bone ash to vegetable proteids,
as linseed and gluten meal. The results
clearly indicate that mineral matter of
animal origin greatly improves the
value of the vegetable diet, but that the
latter is still sadly deficient. Of course
the burning process used in preparing
the bone ash may have destroyed some
of the valuable qualities of the mineral
salts. Practically, we do not care
whether the value of animal meal be
due to protein, mineral salts or both.
In time the world will become so
thickly populated that we cannot afford
to rear cattle and condemn a portion of
the carcass to go through another life
cycle before human consumption. By
that time the necessary food salts will
doubtless be known and we will be able
to medicate our corn and alfalfa and do
away with the beef scrap. The
poultrymen will do well, however, not
to count on the chemistry of the future,
for the chemist that makes the "tissue
salts" for the hen may manufacture
human food with Niagara power and
fresh eggs will come in tin cans.

How the Hen Unbalances Balanced

Rations.
Let the poultryman who figures the
nutritious ratio of chicken feed try this
simple experiment. Place before a half
dozen newly hatched chicks a feed of
one of the commercial chick feeds.
When they have had their fill, sacrifice
these innocents on the altar of science
and open their crops. He will find that
one chick has eaten almost exclusively
of millet seed, another has preferred
cracked corn, another has filled up
heavily on bits of beef scrap and mica
crystal grit, while a fourth fancied oats
and granulated bone. In short the chick
has, in three minutes, unbalanced the
balanced ration that it took a week to
figure out. This experiment can be
varied by placing hens in individual
coops and setting before each weighed
portions of every food in the
poultryman supply man's catalogue.
There is only one kind of feeding
that will balance rations and that is to
feed exclusively on wet mash. This is
successfully done in the duck business,
but the duck is a Chinese animal and
his ways are not the ways of the more
fastidious hen.
In dairy work the individual
preferences of the cows are given
attention and their whimsy catered to
by the herdsman. I know of nothing
that makes a man more feel his kinship
to the beast than to hear a good
dairyman talk of the personalities and
preferences of his feminine co-
operators.
With commercial chicken work,
humanly guided individual feedings is
out of the question, though, if used, it
might hasten the coming of the two-
egg-per-day hen. Individual feeding
with the hen as sole judge as to what
she shall eat, which means each food in
separate hoppers and free range, is the
best system of chicken feeding yet
evolved.
The duty of the poultryman is to
supply the food, giving enough variety
to permit of the hens having a fair
selection. In practice this means that
every hen must have access to water,
grit (preferably oyster shell), one kind
of grain, one kind of meat, and one
kind of green food. In practice it will
pay to add granulated bone for growing
stock. One or two extra grains for
variety and as many green foods as
conveniences will permit to increase
palatability—hence increase the
amount of food consumed, for a heavy
food consumption is necessary for egg
production.
As corn is the cheapest food known,
let it be the bread at the boarding house
and other grains the rotating series of
hash, beans and bacon. The grain
hopper may have two divisions. The
corn never changes but the other should
have a change of grain occasionally.
The extent of the use made of the
various grains will be determined by
their price per pound.
The proportions of food of the
various classes that will be consumed
is about as follows:
Of 100 lbs. of dry matter: 8 to 12 lbs.
meat; 66 to 75 lbs. grain; 15 to 25 lbs.
green food.
 The profits of the business will be
increased by supplying the green food
in such tempting forms as to increase
the amount consumed and cut down the
use of grains.
The methods we have been
describing in which various dry
unground grains, beef scrap and oyster
shell, each in a separate compartment,
are exposed before the hen at all times,
together with the abundant use of green
food, either as pasture or a soiling crop,
is the method of feeding assumed
throughout this book.
The hopper feeding of so-called dry
mash or ground grain mixture has been
quite a fad in the last few years. The
tendency of the hens to waste such food
has occasioned considerable trouble.
They are picking it over for their
favorite foods and trying to avoid
disagreeable foods. This difficulty is
relieved when the food be separated
into its various components and the hen
offered each separately. As a matter of
fact, there is no occasion for feeding
ground feed except in fattening rations
and here the wet mash is desirable.
The use of the products of wheat
milling has been the chief excuse for
such practices, but unless these get
considerably lower in price per pound
than corn they may be left off the bill-
of-fare to advantage. The great use
made of these products in poultry
feeding was chiefly a result of the
attempted application of the balanced
ration idea, but as has already been
shown the efforts to raise the protein
ratio with grain foods is generally false
economy.
The old-fashioned wet mash which
the writer does not recommend because
of the labor involved, is, nevertheless,
a fairly profitable method of poultry
feeding. It is used in the Little
Compton district of Rhode Island and
was also used in the famous Australian
egg laying contests elsewhere
described. Personally I would prefer
feeding ground grain wet, especially
wheat bran and middlings, to feeding it
dry.
The scattering of grain in litter so
generally recommended in poultry
literature is all right and proper, but is
rather out of place in commercial
poultry farming. It is used on the large
poultry plants with the yards and long
houses, but is not used on colony farms
or in any of the poultry growing
communities. I should recommend
littered houses for Section 6 and the
northern half of Section 3 (see Chapter
IV), but with warmer soils and climate
where the snow does not lie on the
ground it would add a labor expense
that would very seriously handicap the
business.
The systems of poultry feeding that
are commonly advertised are based
either on some patent nostrum or a
recommendation of green food in novel
form, such as sprouted oats. The joke
about poultry feed at 10 cents a bushel,
absurd though it may seem, has caught
lots of dollars. To take a bushel of oats
worth 50 cents, add water, let them
sprout and have five bushels costing 10
cents, is certainly a wonderful
achievement in wealth getting. The
only reason a man couldn't run a soup
kitchen on the same principle is that he
can't do a soup business by mail.
Sprouted oats are a good green food,
however, though somewhat laborious
to prepare. I should certainly
recommend them if for any reason the
regular green food supply should run
out.
 The points already mentioned are
about all the practical suggestions that
the science of animal nutrition has to
offer the poultryman. The discussion of
feeding from its technical viewpoint is
sufficiently covered in the chapter on
"Farm Poultry" and the discussion of
the management and economics of
various types of poultry production.
 CHAPTER VIII
DISEASES
For the study of the classification
and description of the numerous
ailments by which individual fowls
pass to their untimely end, I
recommend any of the numerous books
written upon the subject. Some of these
works are more accurate than others,
but that I consider immaterial. The
study of these diseases is good for the
poultryman, it gives his mind exercise.
When a boy in high school I studied
Latin for the same purpose.

Don't Doctor Chickens.

For the cure of all poultry diseases
when they have passed a point when
the fowl does not eat or for other
reasons recovery is improbable, I
recommend a blow on the head—the
hatchet spills the blood which is
unwise.
The usual formula of "burn or bury
deeply" is somewhat troublesome,
unless you have a furnace running. A
covered pit is more convenient if far
enough removed from the house that
the odor is not prohibitive. A post with
a tally card may be planted near by.
This part of the poultry farm may be
marked "Exhibit A," and shown first to
the visitor during the busy season. If he
is one of those prospective pleasure
and profit poultrymen who propose to
disregard all facts of biology and
economics of production, you may save
yourself the trouble of showing him the
rest of the plant. Unfortunately, this
scheme is not open to the poultryman
who has breeding stock for sale.
I have frequently had the question
put to me in the smoker of a Pullman
car, "Do not epidemic diseases make
the poultry business precarious?" Such
questions came from farm-raised men,
but not from poultry farmers.
Poultrymen should figure a certain loss
of birds just as insurance companies
figure on the human death rate, but to
all practical intents and purposes the
epidemic disease has been banished
from the poultry farms and seldom if
ever enters the records in answer to the
question, "Why do poultry farms fail?"
Some of my readers may take
exception to me either in regard to roup
or white diarrhoea. Roup is a disease of
the wrong system and careless
management. White diarrhoea, so-
called, is a matter of wrong incubation.
The high mortality of young chicks,
though not an epidemic disease, shares
with excessive cost of production, very
much of the responsibility for poultry
farm failures. At the present writing
the poultry editors of the country are
having much discussion over the
conclusion of Dr. Morse of the Bureau
of Animal Industry to the effect that
white diarrhoea is caused by an
intestinal parasite similar to the germ
that causes human dysentery. Dr.
Morse's opportunities for investigation
have been somewhat limited and as the
intestines of any animal are always
swarming with various organisms, it
will take very conclusive evidence to
prove that the doctor is right.
Practically the naming of the germs
that attend the funeral is not
particularly important for the reason
that it has been thoroughly
demonstrated that with good parentage,
good incubation and good brooder
conditions, white diarrhoea is
unknown.

The Causes of Poultry Diseases.

Poultry ailments are assignable to
one of the three following causes, or a
combination of these: First, hereditary
or inborn weakness; second,
unfavorable conditions of food,
surroundings, etc.; third, bacteria or
animal parasites.
A great many chickens die while yet
within the shell, or during the growing
process, there being no assignable
reason save that of inherited weakness.
To this class of troubles the only
remedy is to breed from better stock. It
is as much the trait of some birds to
produce infertile eggs or chicks of low
vitality as it is for others to produce
vigorous offspring.
The second class of ailments needs
no discussion save that accorded it
under the general discussions of the
method of conducting the business.
The third class of ailments includes
the contagious diseases. It is now
believed that most common diseases
are caused by microscopic germs
known as bacteria. These germs in
some manner gain entrance to the body
of an animal, and, growing within the
tissues, give off poisonous substances
known as toxins, which produce the
symptoms of the disease. The ability to
withstand disease germs varies with the
particular animal and the kind of
disease. As a general rule it may be
stated that disease germs cannot live in
the body of a perfectly vigorous and
healthy animal. It is only when the
vitality is at a low ebb, owing to
unfavorable conditions or inherited
weakness, that disease germs enter the
body and produce disease.
The bacteria which cause disease,
like other living organisms, may be
killed by poisoning. Such poisons are
known as disinfectants. If it were
possible to kill the bacteria within the
animal, the curing of disease would be
a simple matter, but unfortunately the
common chemical poisons that kill
germs kill the animal also. The only
thing that can be relied upon to kill
disease germs within the animal, is a
counter-poison developed by the
animal itself and known as anti-toxin.
Such anti-toxins can be produced
artificially and are used to combat
certain diseases, as diphtheria and
small-pox in human beings and
blackleg in cattle. Such methods of
combating poultry diseases have not
been developed, and due to the small
value of an individual fowl would
probably not be commercially useful
even if successful from a scientific
standpoint. The only available method
of fighting contagious diseases of
poultry is to destroy the disease germs
before they enter the fowls and to
remove the causes which make the
fowl susceptible to the disease.
Contagious diseases of poultry may
be grouped into two general classes:
First, those highly contagious; second,
those contracted only by fowls that are
in a weakened condition. To the first
class belong the severe epidemics, of
which chicken-cholera is the most
destructive.

Chicken-Cholera.
The European fowl-cholera has only
been rarely identified in this country.
Other diseases similar in symptoms
and effect are confused with this. As
the treatment should be similar the
identification of the diseases is not
essential.
Yellow or greenish-colored
droppings, listless attitude, refusal of
food and great thirst are the more
readily observed symptoms. The
disease runs a rapid course, death
resulting in about three days. The death
rate is very high. The disease is spread
by droppings and dead birds, and
through feed and water. To stamp out
the disease kill or burn or bury all sick
chickens, and disinfect the premises
frequently and thoroughly. A spray
made of one-half gallon carbolic acid,
one-half gallon of phenol and twenty
gallons of water may be used.
Corrosive sublimate, 1 part in 5000
parts of water, should be used as
drinking water. This is not to cure sick
birds, but to prevent the disease from
spreading by means of the drinking
vessels. Food should be given in
troughs arranged so that the chickens
cannot infect the food with the feet. All
this work must be done thoroughly, and
even then considerable loss can be
expected before the disease is stamped
out. If cholera has a good start in a
flock of chickens it will often be better
to dispose of the entire flock than to
combat the disease. Fortunately cholera
epidemics are rare and in many
localities have never been known.

Roup.
This disease is a representative of
that class of diseases which, while
being caused by bacteria, can be
considered more of a disease of
conditions than of contagion. Roup
may be caused by a number of different
bacteria which are commonly found in
the air and soil. When chickens catch
cold these germs find lodgment in the
nasal passages and roup ensues. The
first symptoms of roup are those of an
ordinary cold, but as the disease
progresses a cheesy secretion appears
in the head and throat. A wheezing or
rattling sound is often produced by the
breathing. The face and eyes swell, and
in severe cases the chicken becomes
blind. The most certain way of
identifying roup is a characteristic
sickening odor. The disease may last a
week or a year. Birds occasionally
recover, but are generally useless after
having had roup.
Sick birds should be removed and
destroyed, but the time usually spent in
doctoring sick birds and disinfecting
houses can in this case be better
employed in finding and remedying the
cause of the disease. Such causes may
be looked for as dampness, exposure to
cold winds, or to a sudden change in
temperature as is experienced by
chickens roosting in a tight house. Fall
and winter are the seasons of roup,
while it is poorly housed and poorly
fed flocks that most commonly suffer
from this disease. Flocks that have
become thoroughly roupy should be
disposed of and more vigorous birds
secured. The open front house has
proved to be the most practical scheme
for the reduction of this disease.

Chicken-Pox, Gapes, Limber Neck.

Chicken-pox or sore-head is a
disease peculiar to the South. It attacks
growing chickens late in the summer.
Southern poultrymen who give
reasonable attention to their stock, find
that, while this disease is a source of
some annoyance, the losses are not
severe and that it may be readily
controlled. In the first place, the animal
epidemic of pox can be practically
avoided by bringing the chicks out
early in the season. If the disease does
develop in the flock, the birds are taken
from the coops at night and their heads
dipped in a proper strength of one of
the coal tar disinfectants. Such
treatment once a week has generally
been effective. This disease is an
exception to the general rule that
disinfectants which kill germs also kill
the chicken. The explanation is that
chicken-pox is an external disease.
Gapes is given in every poultry book
as one of the prominent poultry
diseases, but are not common in the
Northern and Western States. Gapes
are caused by a parasitic worm in the
windpipe. Growing chicks are affected.
The remedy is to move the chicks to
fresh ground and cultivate the old.
Limber neck is not a disease, but is
the result of the fowl's eating maggots
from dead carcasses. It can be
prevented by not allowing dead
carcasses to remain where the chickens
will find them. No practical cure is
known.

Lice and Mites.

The parasites referred to as chicken-
lice include many different species, but
in habit they may be classed as body-
lice and roost-mites. The first, or true
bird-lice, live on the body of the
chicken and eat the feathers and skin.
The roost-mite is similar to a spider
and differs in habits from the body-
louse in that it sucks the blood of the
chicken and does not remain on the
body of the fowl except at night.
Body-lice are to be found upon
almost all chickens, as well as on many
other kinds of birds. Their presence in
small numbers on matured fowls is not
a serious matter. When body-lice are
abundant on sitting hens they go from
the hen to the newly hatched chickens,
and may cause the death of the chicks.
The successful methods of destroying
body-lice are three in number: First,
dust or earth wallows in which the
active hens will get rid of lice. Such
dust baths should be especially
provided for yarded chickens and
during the winter. Dry earth can be
stored for this purpose. Sitting hens
should have access to dust baths.
Second: The second method by which
body-lice may be destroyed is the use
of insect powder. The pyrethrum
powder is considered the best for this
purpose, but is expensive and difficult
to procure in the pure state. Tobacco
dust is also used. Insect powder is
applied by holding the hen by the feet
and working the dust thoroughly into
the feathers, especially the fluff. The
use of insect powder should be
confined to sitting hens and fancy
stock, as the cost and labor of applying
is too great for use upon the common
chicken. The third method is suitable
for young chickens, and consists of
applying some oil and grease on the
head and under the wings. Do not
grease the chick all over. With
vigorous chickens and correct
management the natural dust bath is all
that is needed to combat the lice.
The roost-mite is probably the cause
of more loss to farm poultry raisers
than any other pest or disease. The
great difficulty in destroying mites on
many farms is that chickens are
allowed to roost in too many places. If
the chicken-house proper is the only
building infected with mites the
difficulty of destroying them is not
great. Plainness in the interior
furnishings of the chicken-house is also
a great advantage when it comes to
fighting mites. The mites in the
daytime are to be found lodged in the
cracks near the roosting-place of the
chickens.
Mites can be killed with various
liquids, the best in point of cheapness
is boiling water. Give the chicken-
house a thorough cleaning and scald by
throwing dippers of hot water in all
places where the mites can find
lodgment. Hot water destroys the eggs
as well as the mites. Whitewash is a
good remedy, as it buries both mites
and eggs beneath a coating of lime
from which they cannot emerge. Pure
kerosene or a solution of carbolic acid
in kerosene, at the rate of a pint of acid
to a gallon of oil, is an effective lice-
paint. Another substance much used for
destroying insects or similar pests is
carbon bisulphide. This is a liquid
which evaporates readily, the vapor
destroying the insects or mites. Carbon
bisulphide or other fumigating agents
are not effective in the average
chicken-house because the house
cannot be tightly closed. The liquid
lice-killers on the market are very
effective. They are usually composed
of the remedies just mentioned, or of
something of similar properties.
 CHAPTER IX
POULTRY FLESH AND
POULTRY FATTENING
The poultry flesh which is used for
food may be grouped into three
divisions.
First: Poultry carcasses grown
especially for market.
Second: Poultry carcasses consisting
of hens and young male birds that are
sold from the general farms where the
pullets are kept for egg production.
 Third: The cockerels and old hens
sold as a by-product from egg farms.
The third class hardly needs our
consideration in the present chapter.
This stock, usually Leghorns, like
Jersey veal, is to be disposed of at
whatever price the market offers.
The cockerel will, if growing nicely,
be fairly plump and the hens, if on
hopper rations of corn and beef scrap,
will be about as fat as they can be
profitably made, and to waste further
effort upon them would not pay.
Leghorn cockerels and hens are a
wholesome enough meat, but will
never command fancy prices nor
warrant extra pains.
 In class two we find the great mass
of the poultry flesh of the country. This
stock consisting chiefly, as it does, of
Plymouth Rocks and Wyandottes, is
well worth some extra pains toward
increasing its quantity and quality.
Within the last ten or fifteen years
several changes have been brought
about in the general methods of
handling farm poultry. Formerly it was
thought desirable to market all stock
not kept as layers while in the broiler
stage of from 1-1/2 to 2 pounds. Since
the introduction of the custom of
holding fall broilers over in cold
storage, the price has fallen until it is
now more profitable to market the
surplus cockerels from the farm at
three or four months of age. At this
period the flesh has cost less per pound
to produce than at either an earlier or
later stage. For such purposes only the
well fleshed type of American breeds
has been found desirable. The Leghorns
and similar breeds are too small and
become staggy too soon.
Contrary to a common belief and to
the custom in the poultry books of
classifying the Asiatics as meat breeds,
the Brahmas and Cochins are among
the very poorest fowls that can be used
for farm production of poultry meat. At
the age spoken of these breeds are
lanky and unsightly and not wanted by
poultry packers.
Consecutively with and perhaps
responsible for change of sentiment
that demands that broilers be allowed
to grow into four pound chickens, we
find the development of the crate
fattening industry.

Crate-Fattening.
The introduction of crate-fattening
into the Central West occurred about
1900. The credit of this introduction
belongs to the large meat packing
firms. At the present time the business
is not confined to the meat packers, but
is shared by independent plants
throughout the country.
The plants of the West range from a
few hundred to as high as 20,000
capacity. They are constructed for
convenience and a saving of labor, and
in this respect are decidedly in advance
of the European establishments where
fattening has been long practiced.
The room used for fattening is well
built and sanitary. A good system of
ventilation is essential, as murky, damp
air breeds colds and roup. The coops
are built back to back, and two or more
coops in height. Each coop is high and
wide enough to comfortably
accommodate the chickens, and long
enough to contain from five to twelve
chickens. The chickens stand on slats,
beneath which are dropping-boards that
may be drawn out for cleaning. The
dropping-boards and feeding-troughs
are often made of metal. Strict
cleanliness is enforced. No droppings
or feed are allowed to accumulate and
decompose.
As is a general rule in meat
production, young animals give much
better returns for food consumed than
do mature individuals. With the young
chicken the weight is added as flesh,
while the hen has a tendency, which
increases with age, to turn the same
food into useless fat. For this reason
the general practice is to fatten only the
best of the young chickens. The head
feeder at a large and successful poultry
plant gave the following information
on the selection of birds for the
fattening-crates:
"The younger the stock the more
profitable the gain. All specimens
showing the slightest indication of
disease are discarded. The Plymouth
Rock is the favorite breed, and the
Wyandotte is second. Leghorns are
comparatively fat when received, and,
while they do well under feed and
'yellow up' nicely, they do not gain as
much as the American breeds. Black
chickens are not fed at all. Brahmas
and Cochins are not considered good
feeders at the age when they are
commonly sold. Chickens in fair flesh
at the start make better gains than those
that are extremely lean or very fat. But,
contrary to what the amateur might
assume, the moderately fat chicken
will continue to make fair gains, while
the very lean chicken seldom returns a
profit."
The idea has been somewhat
prevalent that there is some guarded
secret about the rations used in crate-
fattening. This is a mistaken notion.
The rations used contain no new or
wonderful constituent, and although
individual feeders may have their own
formulas, the general composition of
the feed is common knowledge. The
feed most commonly used consists of
finely ground grain, mixed to a batter
with buttermilk or sour skim-milk. The
favorite grain for the purpose is oats
finely ground and the hulls removed.
Oats may be used as the sole grain, and
is the only grain recommended as
suitable to be fed alone. Corn is used,
but not by itself. Shorts, ground barley
or ground buckwheat are sometimes
used. Beans, peas, linseed and gluten
meals may be used in small quantities.
When milk products are obtainable
they are a great aid to successful
fattening. Tallow is often used in small
quantities toward the finish of the
feeding period. The assumption is that
it causes the deposit of fat-globules
throughout the muscular tissues, thus
adding to the quality of the meat. The
following simple rations show that
there is nothing complex about the
crate-fed chicken's bill of fare:
No. 1.—Ground oats, 2 parts; ground
barley, 1 part; ground corn, 1 part;
mixed with skim-milk.
No. 2.—Ground corn, 4 parts;
ground peas, 1 part; ground oats, 1
part; meat-meal, 1 part; mixed with
water.
A ration used by some fatters with
great success is composed of simply
oatmeal and buttermilk.
The feed is given as a soft batter and
is left in the troughs for about thirty
minutes, when the residue is removed.
Chickens are generally fed three times
per day. Water may or may not be
given, according to the weather and the
amount of liquid used in the food.
The chicken that has been crate-
fattened has practically the same
amount of skeleton and offal as the
unfattened specimen, but carries one or
two pounds more of edible meat upon
its carcass. Not only is the weight of
the chicken and amount of edible meat
increased, but the quality of the meat is
greatly improved, consisting of juicy,
tender flesh. For this reason the crate-
feeding process is often spoken of as
fleshing rather than as fattening.
The enforced idleness causes the
muscular tissue to become tender and
filled with stored nutriment. The
fatness of a young chicken, crate-fed
on buttermilk and oatmeal, is a
radically different thing from the
fatness of an old hen that has been
ranging around the corn-crib.
 The crate-fattening industry while
deserving credit for great improvement
in the quality of chicken flesh in the
regions where it has been introduced,
cannot on the whole be considered a
great success. It is commonly reported
that some of the firms instrumental in
its introduction lost money on the deal.
The crate-fattening plant has come to
stay in the communities where careful
methods of poultry raising are
practiced, and where the stock is of the
best, but when a plant is located in a
newly settled region where the poultry
stock is small and feed scarce, the
venture is pretty apt to prove a fiasco.
While poultryman at the Kansas
Experiment Station, the writer made a
large number of individual weighings
of fowls in the crates of one of the
large fattening plants of the state.
These weighings pointed out very
clearly why the expected profits had
not been realized. The birds selected
for weighing were all fine, uniform
looking Barred Rock Cockerels. At the
end of the first week they were found
to still appear much the same, but when
handled a difference was easily
noticed. By the end of the second week
a few birds had died and many others
were in a bad way. The individual
changes of weight ran from 2-1/2
pounds gain to 3/4 pound loss, and
many of the lighter birds were of very
poor appearance. It is simply a matter
of forced feeding being a process that
makes trouble with the health of the
chicken if all is not just right.
It is probable that in the future more
fattening will be done on the farm, or
by the farmer operating in a small way
among his neighbors. The reason for
this is that the saving of labor in the
large plant is hardly as great as the
added loss from the shrinkage of the
birds due to the excitement of shipping
and crowding, and the introduction of
disease by the mingling of chickens
from so many different sources.
The Canadians especially have
encouraged fattening on the farm. The
following is a hand-bill gotten out by
an enterprising Canadian dealer for
distribution among the farmers of his
locality:

HOW TO FATTEN
CHICKENS FOR THE EXPORT
TRADE.
To fatten birds for the export
trade, it is necessary to have proper
coops to put them in. These should
be two feet long, twenty inches
high and twenty inches deep, the
top, bottom and front made of slats.
This size will hold four birds, but
the cheapest plan is to build the
coops ten feet long and divide them
into five sections.
What to feed.
 Oats chopped fine, the coarse
hulls sifted out, two parts; ground
buckwheat, one part; mix with
skim-milk to a good soft batter,
and feed three times a day. Or,
black barley and oats, two parts
oats to one part barley. Give clean
drinking water twice a day, grit
twice a week, and charcoal once a
week. During the first week the
birds are in the coops they should
be fed sparingly—only about one-
half of what they will eat. After
that gradually increase the amount
until you find out just how much
they will eat up clean each time.
Never leave any food in the
troughs, as it will sour and cause
trouble. Mix the food always one
feed ahead. Birds fed in this way
will be ready for the export trade in
from four to five weeks. Chickens
make the best gain put in the coop
weighing three to four pounds.
We Supply the Coops.
We have on hand a number of
coops for fattening chicks, which
we will loan to any person, "free of
charge", who will sign an
agreement to bring all chicks
fattened in them to us. Every
farmer should have at least one of
these coops, as this is the only way
to fatten chicks properly. In this
way you can get the highest market
price. We can handle any quantity
 of chicks properly fatted.
ARMSTR
BROS.

The farmer who does not think it

worth while to construct fattening-
crates for his own crop of chickens,
may get very fair results by simply
enclosing the chickens in some vacant
shed. To these may feed a ration of
two-thirds corn meal and one-third
shorts, or some of the more
complicated rations used at the
fattening plants may be fed.
In the East, poultry fattening on the
general farm is not dissimilar from the
practices in the Central West, but we
find a larger use of cramming
machines, caponizing, and the growing
of chickens for meat as an industry
independent of keeping hens for egg
production.
The cramming machine is a device
by means of which food in a semi-
liquid state is pumped into the bird's
crop, through a tube inserted in the
mouth. This means of feeding is much
more used in Europe than in this
country. It requires good stock and
careful workmen. The method will
probably slowly gain ground in this
country. The feed used in cramming is
similar to that used in ordinary crate
feeding, except that it is mixed as a
thin batter.
 Caponizing.
Caponizing is the castration of male
chickens. Capons hold the same place
in the poultry market as do steers in the
beef market.
Caponizing is practiced to quite an
extent in France, and to a less degree in
England and the United States.
Much the larger part of the industry
is confined to that portion of the United
States east of Philadelphia, though
increasing numbers of capons are being
raised in the North Central States.
During the winter months capon is
regularly quoted in the markets of the
larger eastern cities. Massachusetts and
New Jersey are the great centers for the
growing of capons, while Boston, New
York, and Philadelphia are the great
markets. In many eastern markets the
prices paid for dressed capons range
from 20 to 30 cents a pound. The
highest prices usually prevail from
January to May, and the larger the
birds the more they bring a pound.
The purpose of caponizing is not, as
is sometimes stated, to increase the
size of the chicken, but to improve the
quality of the meat. The capon fattens
more readily and economically than
other birds. As they do not interfere
with or worry one another, large flocks
may be kept together.
The breeds suitable for caponizing
are the Asiatics and Americans.
Brahmas will produce, with proper care
and sufficient time, the largest and
finest capons. On the ordinary farm,
where capons would be allowed to run
loose, Plymouth Rocks would prove
more profitable. Plymouth Rocks,
Brahmas, Langshans, Wyandottes,
Indian Games, may all be used for
capons. Leghorns are not to be
considered for this purpose.
Capons should be operated upon
when they are about ten weeks or three
months old and weigh about two
pounds.
The operation of caponizing is
performed by cutting in between the
last two ribs. Both testicles may be
removed from one side or both sides
may be opened. The cockerel should be
starved for twenty-four hours in order
to empty the intestines. Asiatics are
more difficult to operate on than
Americans, the testicles being larger
and less firm. There is always some
danger of causing death by tearing
blood vessels, but the per cent. of loss
with an experienced operator is very
small. Loss by inflammation is still
more rare. The testicle of a bird is not
as highly developed as in a mammal,
and if the organ is broken and a small
fragment remains attached it will
produce birds known as slips. Some
growers advise looking over the capons
and puncturing the wind puffs that
gather beneath the skin. This, however,
is not necessary.
A good set of tools is indispensable
and can be purchased for from $2 to $3.
As a complete set of instructions is
furnished with each set it is
unnecessary to go into details here. The
beginner should, however, operate on
several dead cockerels before
attempting to operate on a live one.
After caponizing the bird should be
given plenty of soft feed and water.
The capon begins to eat almost
immediately after the operation is
performed, and no one would suppose
that a radical change had taken place in
his nature.
The feeding of capons differs little
from the feeding of other growing
chickens. Corn, wheat, barley and
Kaffir-corn would be suitable grain,
while beef-scrap would be necessary to
produce the best growth.
About three weeks before marketing
place the capons in small yards and
feed them three or four times a day,
giving plenty of corn and other feed, or
fatten them in one of the ways
indicated in the section on fattening
poultry. Corn meal and ground oats,
equal parts by weight, moistened with
water or milk, make a good mash for
fattening capons.
In dressing capons leave the head
and hackle feathers, the feathers on the
wings to the second joint, the tail
feathers, including those a little way up
the back, and the feathers on the legs
halfway up to the thigh. These feathers
serve to distinguish capons from other
fowls in the market. Do not cut the
head off, for this is also a
distinguishing feature of the capon, on
account of the undeveloped comb and
wattles.
The price received for capons is
greater than any other kind of poultry
meat except early broilers. There may
be trouble in some localities in getting
dealers to recognize capons as such and
pay an advanced price.
On several farms in Massachusetts,
500 to 1,000 capons are raised
annually, and on one farm 5,000
cockerels are held for caponizing. The
industry is growing rapidly year by
year and the supply does not equal the
demand.
It is to be expected that the amount
of caponizing done in the West will
gradually increase. Those wishing to
try the growing of capons will do well
to secure an experienced operator.
Good men at this work receive five
cents per bird. Poor operators are dear
at any price, as they produce a large
number of worthless slips.
 CHAPTER X
MARKETING POULTRY
CARCASSES
In the marketing of poultry carcasses
as in other phases of the industry, we
really have two systems to discuss. The
one is used for the marketing of the
product of the farm of the Central
West, and the other the product of the
poultryman or eastern farmer, who is
near a large market and who will be
repaid for taking special pains in
preparing his poultry for market.
 Farm-Grown Chickens.
At the present time almost the entire
poultry crop of the Central West is sold
from the farm as live poultry. This
farm stock is purchased by produce
buyers or general merchants and
shipped to the nearest county seat or
other important town, where there are
usually one or more poultry-killing
establishments. These establishments
may vary from a simple shed, where
the chickens are picked and packed in
barrels, to the more modern poultry-
packing establishment, with its
accommodations for fattening,
dressing, packing, freezing, and
storing.
The poultry-buying stations may be
branches of the larger packing
establishments, branch houses of large
produce firms, or small firms operating
independently and selling in the open
market.
The chickens as purchased are
grouped into the following classes:
Springs, hens, old roosters and (at
certain seasons) young roosters or
staggy cockerels. Early in the season
small springs are quoted as broilers,
while capons form a separate item
where such are grown.
Chickens are starved before killing,
for the purpose of emptying the crop,
and, to some degree, the intestines. If
this is not done the carcass presents an
unsightly appearance and spoils more
readily in storage.
The method of picking is not always
the same, even in the same plant.
Scalding is frequently used for local
trade, in the summer season, or with
cheap-grade stuff. The greater portion
of the stock is picked dry. The pickers
are generally paid so much per bird. In
some plants men do the roughing while
girls are employed as pinners. Pickers
work either with the chickens
suspended by a cord or fastened upon a
bench adopted to this purpose. The
killing is done by bleeding and
sticking. The last thrust reaches the
brain and paralyzes the bird. The
manner of making these cuts must be
learned by practical instruction. The
feathers are saved, and amount to a
considerable item. White feathers are
worth more than others. The head and
feet are left on the chicken and the
entrails are not removed.
The bird, after being chilled in ice-
water or in the cooling room, is ready
for grading and packing. This, from the
producer's standpoint, is the most
interesting stage in the process, for it is
here that the quality of the stock is to
be observed. The grading is made on
three considerations: (1) The general
division of cocks, springs, hens and
capons is kept separate from the
killing-room; (2) the grading for
quality; (3) the assortment according to
size.
 The grading for quality depends on
the general shape of the chicken, the
plumpness or covering of meat, the
neatness of picking, the color of skin
and legs, and the appearance of the feet
and head, which latter points indicate
the age and condition of health. The
culls consist of deformed and scrawny
chickens. The seconds are poor in
flesh, or they may be, in the case of
hens, unsightly from overfatness. They
are packed in barrels and go to the
cheapest trade. Those carcasses slightly
bruised or torn in dressing also go in
this class. Although a preference is
generally stated for yellow-skinned
poultry, the white-skinned birds, if
equal in other points, are not
underranked in this score. The skin
color that is decidedly objectionable is
the purplish tinge, which is a sign of
diseased stock. Black pin-feathers and
dark-colored legs are a source of
objection. Especially is this true with
young birds which show the pin-
feathers. Feathered legs are slightly
more objectionable than smooth legs.
Small combs and the absence of spurs
give better appearance to the carcass.
The following is the nomenclature
and corresponding weights of the farm
marketed chickens. In each class there
will be seconds and culls. The seconds
of each group are kept separate, but not
graded so strictly or perhaps not graded
at all for size. The culls are packed in
barrels and all kinds of chickens from
fryers to old roosters here sojourn
together until they reach their final
destination, as potted chicken or
chicken soup.
Broilers—Packed in two weights.
1st: Less than two pounds; 2d: between
2 and 2-1/2 pounds.
Chickens—Packed in three weights.
1st: between 2-1/2 and 3 pounds; 2d:
between 3 and 3-1/2 pounds; 3d:
between 3-1/2 and 4 pounds.
Roasters—Packed in two weights.
1st: between 4 and 5 pounds; 2d: above
5 pounds.
Stag Roosters—Cockerels, showing
spurs and hard blue meat, packed in
two weights. 1st: under 4 pounds; 2d:
above 4 pounds.
Fowls, are hens. They are packed in
three sizes. 1st: under 3-1/4 pounds;
2d: between 3-1/4 and 4-1/2 pounds;
3d: over 4-1/2 pounds.
Old Roosters—Packed in barrels.
One grade only.
After packing, chickens may be
shipped to market immediately, or they
may be frozen and stored in the local
plant. Shipments of any importance are
made in refrigerator cars.
The poultry that is shipped to the
final market alive is gradually
diminishing in quantity, as poultry
killing plants are built up throughout
the country. The live poultry shipments
are chiefly made in the Live Poultry
Transportation Cars. The following
figures give the number of such cars
that moved out of the States named in a
recent year:
Iowa 645
Missouri 630
Illinois 624
Kentucky 472
Nebraska 395
Kansas 370
Minnesota 174
Ohio 173
Tennessee 169
Michigan 165
S. Dakota 103
Oklahoma 101
Indiana 100
Wisconsin 93
Texas 91
Arkansas 47
The most of this live poultry goes to
New York and other eastern cities and
is consumed largely by the Hebrew
trade.

The Special Poultry Plant.

The special egg farmer of the East
should sell his poultry alive to the
regular dealer. The exception to this
advice may be taken in the case of
squab broilers for which some local
dealers will not pay as fancy a price as
may be obtained by dressing and
shipping to the hotel trade.
The grower of roasters and capons
will probably want to market his own
product. As to whether it will pay him
to do so will depend upon whether his
dealer will pay what the quality of the
goods really demands. The dealer can
afford to do this all right, if he will
hustle around and find an outlet for the
particular grade of goods, for he is in
position to kill and dress the fowls
more economically than the producer.
I have never been able to study out
why the average writer upon
agricultural subjects is always advising
the farmer to attempt to do difficult
work for which special firms already
exist. In the case of fattening just
referred to, there is reason why the
farmer may be able to do the work
more successfully than the special
establishment, but why any one should
urge the farmer to turn the woodshed
into a temporary poultry packing
establishment I can hardly see. If the
farmer has nothing to do he had better
get a job at the poultry killing house
where they have ice water and barrels
in which to put the feathers.
I do not think it worth while in this
book for me to attempt to describe in
detail the various methods of killing
and packing poultry for the various
retail markets. The grower who
contemplates killing his own stuff had
better spend a day visiting the produce
houses and market stalls and inquire
which methods are locally in demand.

Suggestions from Other Countries.

In European countries generally, and
especially in France and England, great
pains is taken in the production of
market poultry. Each farmer and each
neighborhood become known in the
market for the quality of their poultry,
and the prices they receive vary
accordingly. In these countries more
poultry is fattened and dressed by the
growers than in the United States
where we have greater specialization of
labor.
 In countries that have an export trade
different systems have originated. In
Denmark and Ireland co-operative
societies are organized to handle
perishable farm products. These,
however, deal more with eggs than
with poultry. In portions of England the
fattening is done by private fatteners.
The country being thickly settled, the
chickens are collected directly from the
farms by wagons making regular trips.
This allows the rejection of the poor
and immature specimens, whereas a
premium may be paid on better stock.
The greatest fault of poultry buying
as conducted in this country is the evil
of a uniform price. After chickens are
dressed the difference of quality is
readily discerned, and the price varies
from fancy quotations to almost
nothing for culls. The packer pays a
given rate per pound for live hens or
for spring chickens. The price is paid
alike for the best poultry received or
for the scrawniest chickens that can be
coaxed to stand up and be weighed. The
prices paid is the average worth of all
chickens purchased at that market. All
farmers who market an article better
than the average are unjust losers,
while those who sell inferior stock
receive unearned profits. The producer
of good stock receives pay for the extra
quantity of his chickens, but for the
extra quality no recognition whatever
is given. To the deserving producer, if
quality was recognized, it would result
in a greatly increased stimulation of
the production of good poultry. Any
packer, if questioned, will state that he
would be willing to grade chickens and
pay for them according to quality, but
that he does not do so because his
competitor would pay a uniform price
and drive him out of business. The man
who receives an increased price would
say little of it, while the man who sells
poor chickens, if he failed to receive
the full amount to which he is
accustomed, would think himself
unjustly treated and use his influence
against the dealer. A recognition of
quality in buying is for the interest of
both the farmer and the poultry dealer,
and a mutual effort on the part of those
interested to put in practice this reform
would result in a great improvement of
the poultry industry.

Cold Storage of Poultry.

The growth of the cold storage of
poultry has been phenomenal. Poultry
is packed in thin boxes that will readily
lose their heat and these are stacked in
a freezer with a temperature near the
zero point. The temperature used for
holding poultry are anywhere from 0
degree up to 20 degrees. Poultry is held
for periods of one to six weeks at
temperature above the freezing point.
Frozen poultry will keep almost
indefinitely save for the drying out,
which is due to the fact that
evaporation will proceed slowly even
from a frozen body. The time frozen
poultry is stored varies from a few
weeks to eight or ten months.
The usual rule is that any crop is
highest in price when it first comes on
the market and cheapest just after the
point of its greatest production. Thus,
broilers are high in May and cheap in
September. In such cases the goods are
carried from the season of plenty to the
following season of scarcity. This
period is always less than a year. The
idea circulated by wild writers, that
cold storage poultry was kept several
years is an economic impossibility.
The interest on the investment alone
would make the holding of storage
goods into the second season of plenty,
quite unprofitable, but when the costs
of storage, insurance and shrinkage are
to be paid, storing poultry for more
than one season becomes absurd. The
fowl that has been once frozen cannot
be made to look "fresh killed" again.
For that reason packers like to get a
monopoly on a particular market so
that the two classes of goods will not
have to compete side by side. The
quality of the frozen fowl when served
is very fair, practically as good as and
some say better than the fresh killed.
Cold storage poultry is best thawed
out by being placed over night in a tank
of water. Poultry prejudice prevents the
practice of retailing the goods frozen,
though this method would be highly
desirable.

Drawn or Undrawn Fowls.

Within the last two or three years
there has been a great hue and cry
about the marketing of poultry without
drawing the entrails.
The objection to the custom rests
upon the general prejudice to allowing
the entrails of animals to remain in the
carcass. If a little thought is given the
subject, however, it is seen that human
prejudice is very inconsistent in such
matters. We draw beef and mutton
carcasses, to be sure, but fish and game
are stored undrawn, and as for oysters
and lobsters we not only store them
undrawn but we eat them so.
The facts about the undrawn poultry
proposition are as follows: The
intestines of the fowl at death contain
numerous species of bacteria, whereas
the flesh is quite free from germs. If
the carcass is not drawn, but
immediately frozen hard, the bacteria
remain inactive and no essential
change occurs. If the carcass is stored
without freezing, or remains for even a
short time at a high temperature, the
bacteria will begin to grow through the
intestinal walls and contaminate the
flesh.
Now, if the fowl is drawn, the
unprotected flesh is exposed to
bacterial contamination, which results
in decomposition more rapidly than
through the intestinal walls. The
opening of the carcass also allows a
greater drying out and shrinkage.
If poultry carcasses were split wide
open as with beef or mutton, drawing
might not prove as satisfactory as the
present method, but since this is not
desirable, and since ordinary laborers
will break the intestines and spill their
contents over the flesh, and otherwise
mutilate the fowl, all those who have
had actual experience in the matter
agree that drawing poultry is
unpractical and undesirable.
As far as danger of disease or
ptomaine poison is concerned, chances
between the two methods seem to offer
little choice.
The Bureau of Chemistry of the U.S.
Department of Agriculture has
conducted a series of experiments
along the line of poultry storage. So far
as the results have been published,
nothing very striking has been learned.
From what has been published, the
writer is of the opinion that the
somewhat mysterious changes that
were observed in the cold storage
poultry were mostly a matter of drying
out of the carcass.

Poultry Inspection.
The enthusiastic members of the
medical profession, and others whose
knowledge of practical affairs is
somewhat limited, occasionally come
forth with the idea of an inspection of
poultry carcasses similar to the Federal
inspection of the heavier meats.
The reasons that are supposed to
warrant the Federal meat inspection are
precaution against disease and the idea
of enforcing a cleanliness in the
handling of food behind the consumer's
back, which he would insist upon were
he the preparer of his own food
products.
No doubt there is well established
evidence that some diseases, such as
the dread trichinosis, are acquired by
the consumption of diseased meat. As
far as it is at present known there are
no diseases acquired from the
consumption of diseased poultry flesh,
but, as we do not know as much about
the bacteria that infests poultry as we
do of that of larger animals, there is no
positive proof that such transmission of
disease could not occur. Thorough
cooking kills all disease germs, and
poultry is seldom, if ever, eaten
without such preparation.
The idea of protecting people from
uncleanly methods of handling their
foods, concerning which they cannot
themselves know, is somewhat of a
sentimental proposition. In practice it
amounts to nothing, save as the popular
conception of this protection increases
the demand for the product which is
marked "U.S. Inspected and Passed."
It may be interesting to some of the
reformers of 1906 to know that the
meat inspection bill then forced upon
Congress by a clamoring public was
desired by the packers themselves.
Because Congress would not listen to
the packers, and the Department of
Agriculture, the Chief Executive very
kindly indulged in a little conversation
with a few reporters, the results of
which gave Congress the needed
inspiration.
It cost the Government three million
dollars to tell the people that their
meats are packed in a cleanly manner.
If the people want this, it is all well and
good. The tax it places upon the price
of meat is less than half of one per
cent.
A similar inspection of the killing
and packing of poultry would involve a
very much higher rate of taxation,
because of the fact that poultry
products are packed in small
establishments scattered throughout the
entire country.
One reason that the meat packers
wanted the United States Inspection, is
because it puts out of business the little
fellow to whom the Government cannot
afford to grant inspection. A few of the
very largest poultry packers would like
to see poultry inspection for the same
reason, but with the business so
thoroughly scattered as to render
Government inspection so expensive as
to be quite impracticable, any such bill
would certainly be killed in a
congressional committee.
Any practical means to bring about
the cleanly handling, and to prevent the
consumption of diseased poultry,
should certainly be encouraged. This
can be done by the education of the
consumer. Poultry carcasses should be
marketed with head and feet attached
and the entrails undrawn. By this
precaution the consumer may tell
whether the fowl he is buying is male
or female, young or old, healthy or
diseased. All cold storage poultry
should be frozen and should be sold to
the consumer in a frozen condition.
 I am not in favor of the detailed
regulation of business by law, but I do
believe that the legal enforcement of
these last precautions would be a good
thing.
 CHAPTER XI
QUALITY IN EGGS [*]
* [Much of the matter in this and the
following chapter is taken from the writer's
report of the egg trade of the United States,
published as Circular 140 of the Bureau of
Annual Industry of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture. In the present volume,
however, I have inserted some additional
matters which policy forbade that I discuss
in a Federal document.]
Because of the readiness with which
eggs spoil, the term "fresh" has become
synonymous with the idea of desirable
quality in eggs. As a matter of fact the
actual age of an egg is quite
subordinate to other factors which
affect the quality.
An egg forty-eight hours old that has
lain in a wheat shock during a warm
July rain, would probably be swarming
with bacteria and be absolutely unfit
for food. Another egg stored eight
months in a first-class cold storage
room would be perfectly wholesome.

Grading Eggs.
Eggs are among the most difficult of
food products to grade, because each
egg must be considered separately and
because the actual substance of the egg
cannot be examined without destroying
the egg. From external appearance,
eggs can be selected for size, color,
cleanliness of shell and freedom from
cracks. This is the common method of
grading in early spring when the eggs
are uniformly of good quality.
Later in the season the egg candle is
used. In the technical sense any kind of
a light may be used as an egg candle. A
sixteen candle power electric lamp is
the most desirable. The light is
enclosed in a dark box, and the eggs are
held against openings about the size of
a half dollar. The candler holds the egg
large end upward, and gives it a quick
turn in order to view all sides, and to
cause the contents to whirl within the
shell. To the expert this process reveals
the actual condition of the egg to an
extent that the novice can hardly
realize. The art of egg candling cannot
be readily taught by worded
description. One who wishes to learn
egg candling had best go to an adept in
the art, or he may begin unaided and by
breaking many eggs learn the essential
points.
Eggs when laid vary considerably in
size, but otherwise are a very uniform
product. The purpose of the egg in
nature requires that this be the case,
because the contents of the egg must be
so proportioned as to form the chick
without surplus or waste, and this
demands a very constant chemical
composition.
 For food purposes all fresh eggs are
practically equal. The tint of the yolk
varies a little, being a brighter yellow
when green food has been supplied the
hens. Occasionally, when hens eat
unusual quantities of green food, the
yolk show a greenish brown tint, and
appear dark to the candler. Such eggs
are called grass eggs; they are perfectly
wholesome.
An opinion exists among egg men
that the white of the spring egg is of
finer quality and will stand up better
than summer eggs. This is true enough
of commercial eggs, but the difference
is chiefly, if not entirely, due to
external factors that act upon the egg
after it is laid.
 There are some other peculiarities
that may exist in eggs at the time of
laying, such as a blood clot enclosed
with the contents of the egg, a broken
yolk or perhaps bacterial
contamination. "Tape worms," so-
called by egg candlers, are detached
portions of the membrane lining of the
egg. "Liver spots" or "meat spots" are
detached folds from the walls of the
oviduct. Such abnormalities are rare
and not worth worrying about.
The shells of eggs vary in shape,
color and firmness. These variations
are more a matter of breed and
individual idiosyncrasy than of care or
feed.
The strength of egg shells is
important because of the loss from
breakage. The distinction between
weak and firm shelled eggs is not one,
however, which can be readily
remedied. Nothing more can be advised
in this regard than to feed a ration
containing plenty of mineral matter
and to discard hens that lay noticeably
weak shelled or irregularly shaped
eggs.
Preference in the color of eggs shells
is a hobby, and one well worth catering
to. As is commonly stated, Boston and
surrounding towns want brown eggs,
while New York and San Francisco
demand white eggs. These trade fancies
take their origin in the circumstances
of there being large henneries in the
respective localities producing the
particular class of eggs. If the eggs
from such farms are the best in the
market and were uniformly of a
particular shade, that mark of
distinction, like the trade name on a
popular article, would naturally
become a selling point. Only the select
trade consider the color in buying.
Eggs of all Mediterranean breeds are
white. Those of Asiatics are brown.
Those of the American breeds are
usually brown, but not of so uniform a
tint.
The size of eggs is chiefly controlled
by the breed or by selection of layers of
large eggs. In a number of experiments
published by various experiment
stations, slight differences in the sizes
of the eggs have been noted with
varying rations and environment, but
this cannot be attributed to anything
more specific than the general
development and vigor of the fowls.
Pullets, at the beginning of the laying
period, lay an egg decidedly smaller
than those produced at a later stage in
life.
The egg size table below gives the
size of representative classes of eggs.
These figures must not be applied too
rigidly, as the eggs of all breeds and all
localities vary. They are given as
approximate averages of the eggs one
might reasonably expect to find in the
class mentioned.
 EGG SIZE TABL

GEOGRAPHICAL BREED
CLASSIFICATION CLASSIFICATIONS

Purebred flocks of
Southern Iowa's American varieties
"Two ounce eggs" of "egg farm
Leghorns."
Poorest flocks of Games and
Southern Dunghills Hamburgs.
Average Tennessee Poorest strains of
or Texas eggs. Leghorns.
Average for the
United States as The mixed barnyard
represented by fowl of the western
farm, largely of
Kansas, Minnesota Plymouth Rock
and Southern origin.
Illinois.

Average size of
American Brahmas
eggs produced in
and Minorcas.
Denmark.
Equaled by several
Selected brands of pens of Leghorns in
Danish eggs. the Australian laying
contest.

How Eggs Are Spoiled.

Dirty eggs are grouped roughly in
three classes: (A) Plain dirties, those to
which soil or dung adheres; (B) stained
eggs, those caused by contact with
damp straw or other material which
discolors the shell (plain dirties when
washed usually show this appearance);
(C) smeared eggs, those covered with
the contents of broken eggs.
For the first two classes of dirty eggs
the producer is to blame. The third
class originates all along the route
from the nest to consumer. The
percentage of dirty eggs varies with the
season and weather conditions, being
noticeably increased during rainy
weather. In grading, about five per
cent. of farm grown eggs are thrown
out as dirties. These dirties are sold at a
loss of at least twenty per cent.
The common trade name for cracked
eggs is checks. Blind checks are those
in which the break in the shell is not
readily observable. They are detected
with the aid of the candle, or by
sounding, which consists of clicking
the eggs together. Dents are checks in
which the egg shell is pushed in
without rupturing the membrane.
Leakers have lost part of the contents
and are not only an entire loss
themselves, but produce smeared eggs.
The loss from breakage varies
considerably with the amount of
handling in the process of marketing. A
western produce house, collecting from
grocers by local freight will record
from four to seven per cent. of checks.
With properly handled eggs the loss
through breakage should not run over
one or two per cent.
 Eggs in which the chick has begun to
develop are spoken of as "heated" eggs.
Infertile eggs cannot heat because the
germ has not been fertilized and can
make no growth. That such infertile
eggs cannot spoil is, however, a
mistaken notion, for they are subjected
to all the other factors by which
eggs may be spoiled. The sale of
eggs tested out of the incubators has
been encouraged by the dissemination
of the knowledge that infertile eggs are
not changed by incubation. Eggs
thrown out of an incubator will be
shrunken and weakened, and some of
them may contain dead germs and the
remains of chicks that have died after
starting to develop. Such eggs may be
sold for what they are, but should never
be mixed with other eggs or sold as
fresh. When carefully candled they
should be worth ten or twelve cents a
dozen.
Fertile eggs, at the time of laying,
cannot be told from infertile eggs, as
the germ of the chick is microscopic in
size. If the egg is immediately cooled
and held at a temperature below 70
degrees, the germ will not develop. At
a temperature of 103 degrees, the
development of the chick proceeds
most rapidly. At this temperature the
development is about as follows:
Twelve hours incubation: When
broken in a saucer, the germ spot,
visible upon all eggs, seems somewhat
enlarged. Looked at with a candle such
an egg cannot be distinguished from a
fresh egg.
Twenty-four hours: The germ spot
mottled and about the size of a dime.
This egg, if not too dark shelled, can
readily be detected with the candle, the
germ spot causing the yolk to appear
considerably darker than the yolk of a
fresh egg. Such an egg is called a heavy
egg or a floater.
Forty-eight hours: By this time the
opaque white membrane, which
surrounds the germ, has spread well
over the top of the yolk, and the egg is
quite dark or heavy before the light.
Blood appears at about this period, but
is difficult of detection by the candler,
unless the germ dies and the blood ring
sticks to the membrane of the egg.
Three days: The blood ring is the
prominent feature and is as large as a
nickel. The yolk behind the membrane
has become watery.
Four days: The body of the chick
becomes readily visible, and prominent
radiating blood vessels are seen. The
yolk is half covered with a water
containing membrane.
These stages develop as given,
occurring at a temperature of 103
degrees. As the temperature is lowered
the rate of chick development is
retarded, but at any temperature above
70, this development will proceed far
enough to cause serious injury to the
quality of the eggs.
For commercial use eggs may be
grouped in regard to heating as
follows:
(1) No heat shown. Cannot be told at
the candle from fresh eggs.
(2) Light floats. First grade that can
be separated by candling,
corresponding to about twenty-four
hours of incubation. These are not
objectionable to the average housewife.
(3) Heavy floats. This group has no
distinction from the former, except an
exaggeration of the same feature.
These eggs are objectionable to the
fastidious housewife, because of the
appearing of the white and scummy
looking allantois on the yolk.
(4) Blood rings. Eggs in which blood
has developed, extending to the period
when the chick becomes visible. (5)
Chicks visible to the candle.
The loss due to heated eggs is
enormous; probably greater than that
caused by any other source of loss to
the egg trade. The loss varies with the
season of the year, and the climate. In
New England heat loss is to be
considered as in the same class as loss
from dirties and checks. In Texas the
egg business from the 15th of June
until cool weather in the fall is
practically dead. People stop eating
eggs at home and shipping out of the
State nets the producer such small
returns by the time the loss is allowed
that, at the prices offered, it hardly
pays the farmer to gather the eggs. In
the season of 1901 hatched chickens
were commonly found in cases of
market eggs, throughout the trans-
Mississippi region, and eggs did well
to net the shippers three cents per
dozen.
Damage to eggs by heating and
consequent financial loss is
inexcusable. In the first place, market
eggs have no business being fertilized,
but whether they are or not they should
be kept in a place sufficiently cool to
prevent all germ growth.
The egg shell is porous so that the
developing chick may obtain air. This
exposes the moist contents of the egg
to the drying influence of the
atmosphere. Evaporation from eggs
takes place constantly. It is increased
by warm temperatures, dry air and
currents of air striking the egg.
When the egg is formed within the
hen the contents fill the shell
completely. As the egg cools the
contents shrink, and the two layers of
membrane separate in the large end of
the egg, causing the appearance of the
bubble or air cell. Evaporation of water
from the egg further shrinks the
contents and increases the size of the
air cell. The size of the air cell is
commonly taken as a guide to the age
of the egg. But when we consider that
with the same relative humidity on a
hot July day, evaporation would take
place about ten times as fast as on a
frosty November morning, and that
differences in humidity and air currents
equally great occur between localities,
we see that the age of an egg, judged by
this method, means simply the extent
of evaporation, and proves nothing at
all about the actual age.
Even as a measure of evaporation,
the size of the air cell may be
deceptive, for when an egg with an air
cell of considerable size is roughly
handled, the air cell breaks down the
side of the egg, and gives the air cell
the appearance of being larger than it
really is. Still rougher handling of
shrunken eggs may cause the rupture of
the inner membrane, allowing the air to
escape into the contents of the egg.
This causes a so-called watery or
frothy egg. The quality is in no wise
injured by the mechanical mishap, but
eggs so ruptured are usually
discriminated against by candlers.
In this connection it might be well to
speak further of the subject of "white
strength," by which is meant the
stiffness or viscosity of the egg white.
The white of an egg is a limpid, clear
liquid, but in the egg of good quality
that portion immediately surrounding
the yolk appears to be in a semi-solid
mass. The cause of this appearance is
the presence of an invisible network of
fibrous material. By age and
mechanical disturbance this network is
gradually broken down and the liquid
white separates out. Such a weak and
watery white is usually associated with
shrunken eggs. These eggs will not
stand up well or whip into a firm froth
and are thrown in lower grades.
The weakness of the yolk
membranes also increases with age,
and is objectionable because the
breakage of the yolk is unsightly and
spoils the egg for poaching.
The shrunken egg is most abundant
in the fall, when the rising prices tempt
the farmer and grocery man to hold the
eggs. This holding is so prevalent, in
fact, that from August to December full
fresh eggs are the exception rather than
the rule.
While we have called attention to
evaporation as the most pronounced
fault of fall eggs, losses from other
causes are greatly increased by the
holding process.
If the eggs are held in a warm place,
heat and shrinkage will case the
greatest damage; if held in a cellar, rot,
mold, and bad odors will cause the
chief loss.
The loss due to shrunken eggs is not
understood nor appreciated by those
outside the trade. Such ignorance is due
to the fact that the shrunken is not so
repulsive as the rotten or heated egg.
But the inferiority of the shrunken egg
is so well appreciated by the consumer
that high class dealers find it
impossible to use them without ruining
their trade. The result is that shrunken
eggs are constantly being sent into the
cheaper channels, with the result that
all lower grades of eggs are more
depreciated in the fall of the year than
at any other time.
In the classes of spoiled eggs, of
which we have thus far spoken, the
proverbial rotten egg has not been
considered. The term "rot" in the egg
trade is used to apply to any egg
absolutely unfit for food purposes. But
I prefer to confine the term "rotten
egg" to the egg which contains a
growth of bacteria.
The normal egg when laid is germ
free. But the egg shell is not germ
proof. The pores in the egg shell proper
are large enough to admit all forms of
bacteria, but the membrane inside the
shell is germ proof as long as it
remains dry. When this membrane
becomes moist so that bacteria may
grow in it, these germs of decay
quickly grow through it and
contaminate the contents of the egg.
Heat favors the growth of bacteria in
eggs and sufficient cold prevents it, but
as bacteria cannot enter without
moisture on the surface of the egg we
can consider dampness as the cause of
rotten eggs. Moisture on the shell may
come from an external wetting, from
the "sweating" of eggs coming out of
cold storage, or by the prevention of
evaporation to such an extent that the
external moisture of the egg thoroughly
soaks the membrane. The latter
happens in damp cellars, and when
eggs are covered with some impervious
material.
Rotten eggs may be of different
kinds, according to the species of germ
that causes the decomposition. The
specific kinds of egg rotting bacteria
have not been worked out, but the
following three groups of bacterially
infected eggs are readily
distinguishable in the practical work of
egg candling.
(1) Black rots. It is probable that
many different species of bacteria
cause this form of rotten eggs. The
prominent feature is the formation of
hydrogen sulphide gas, which blackens
the contents of the egg, gives the
characteristic rotten egg smell and
sometimes causes the equally well
known explosion.
(2) Sour eggs or white rots. These
eggs have a characteristic sour smell.
The contents become watery, the yolk
and the whites mix and the whole egg
is offensive to both eye and nose.
(3) The spot rot. In this the bacterial
growth has not contaminated the whole
egg, but has remained near the point of
entrance. Such eggs are readily picked
out with the candle, and when broken
open show lumpy adhesions on the
inside of the shell. These lumps are of
various colors and appearances. It is
probable that these spots are caused as
much by mold as by bacteria, but for
practical purposes the distinction is
immaterial.
In practice it is impossible to
separate rotten from heated eggs for
the reason that in the typical nest of
spoiled eggs found around the farm,
both causes have been at work. Dead
chicks will not necessarily cause the
eggs to decay, but many such eggs do
become contaminated by bacteria
before they reach the candler, and
hence, as a physician would say, show
complications.
The loss of eggs that are actually
rotten is not as great as one might
imagine. Perhaps one or two per cent.
of the country's egg crop actually rot,
but the expenses of the candling
necessitated, and the lowering of value
of eggs that contain even a few rotten
specimens are severe losses.
Moldy or musty eggs are caused by
accidentally wet cases or damp cellars
and ice houses. The moldy egg is most
frequently a spot rot. In the musty egg
proper the meat is free from foreign
organisms, but has been tainted by the
odor of mold growth upon the shell or
packing materials.
The absorption of odors is the most
baffling of all causes of bad eggs. Here
the candler, so expert in other points, is
usually helpless. Eggs, by storage in
old musty cellars, or in rooms, with
lemons, onions and cheese, may
become so badly flavored as to be
seriously objected to by a fancy trade,
and yet there is no means of detecting
the trouble without destroying the egg.
Such eggs occur most frequently
among the held stock of the fall season.

The Loss Due to Carelessness.

The egg crop of the country, more
than ninety-five per cent. of which
originates on the general farm, is
subject to immense waste due to
ignorant and careless handling. The
great mass of eggs for sale in our large
cities possess to a greater or less
degree the faults we have discussed.
Some idea of the loss due to the
present shiftless method of handling
eggs, may be obtained by a comparison
of the actual average prices received
for all eggs sold in New York City, and
the wholesale prices quoted by a
prominent New York firm dealing in
high grade goods. The contrasted price
for the year 1907 are as follows:
Prices Wholesale
at prices for
which strictly
total
 goods fresh
moved. eggs
January 25.8 January 42
February 24.5 February 40
March 19.3 March 32
April 16.9 April 30
May 16.6 May 31
June 15.5 June 32
July 15.6 July 35
August 17.7 August 38
September 20.7 September 40
October 21.4 October 42
November 26.0 November 45
December 27.7 December 48
The total values figured by
multiplying these prices by the New
York receipts, are as follows:
Amount
actually $23,832,000
received
Values at
quotations
for 44,730,000
strictly
fresh
No one would contend it is possible
to bring the entire egg crop of the
country up to the latter value, but the
fact that there is a definite market for
eggs of first class quality at almost
double the figures for which the egg
crop as a whole is actually sold, is a
point very significant to the ambitious
producer of high grade eggs.

Requisites of the Production of

High Grade Eggs.
(a) Hens that produce a goodly
number of eggs, and at the same time
an egg that is moderately large
(average two ounces each). Plymouth
Rocks, Wyandottes, Rhode Island
Reds, Orpingtons, Leghorns, Minorcas
are the varieties which will do this.
(b) Good housing, regular feeding
and watering, and above all clean, dry
nests.
(c) Daily gathering of eggs, when the
temperature is above 80 degrees,
gathering twice a day.
 (d) The confining of all broody hens
as soon as discovered.
(e) The rejection as doubtful of all
eggs found in a nest which was not
visited the previous day. (Such eggs
should be used at home where each
may be broken separately).
(f) The placing as soon as gathered
of all summer eggs in the coolest spot
available.
(g) The prevention at all times of
moisture in any form coming in contact
with the egg's shell.
(h) The selling of young cockerels
before they begin to annoy the hens.
Also the selling or confining of old
male birds from the time hatching is
over until cool weather in fall.
(i) The using of cracked and dirty, as
well as small eggs, at home. Such eggs
if consumed when fresh are perfectly
wholesome, but when marketed are
discriminated against and are likely to
become an entire loss.
(j) Keeping eggs away from musty
cellars or bad odors.
(k) Keeping the egg as cool and dry
as possible while en route to market.
(l) The marketing of all eggs at least
once per week and oftener, when
facilities permit.
(m) The use of strong, clean cases or
cartons and good fillers.
 CHAPTER XII
HOW EGGS ARE
MARKETED
The methods by which the larger
number of American eggs pass from
the producer to consumer is as follows:
The eggs are gathered by the farmer
with varying regularity and are brought
perhaps on the average of once a week,
to the local village merchant.
This merchant receives weekly
quotations from a number of
surrounding egg dealers and at
intervals of from two days to two
weeks, ships to such a dealer, by local
freight. The dealer buys the eggs case
count, that is, he pays for them by the
case regardless of quality. He then
repacks the eggs in new cases and, with
the exception of a period in the early
spring, candles them.
This dealer, in turn, receives
quotations from city egg houses and
sells to them by wire. He usually ships
in carload lots. The city receiver may
also be a jobber who sells to grocers, or
he may sell the car outright to a
jobbing house. The jobber re-candles
the eggs, sorting them into a number of
grades, which are sold to various
classes of trade. The last link in the
chain is the housewife, who by 'phone
or personal call, asks for "a dozen nice
fresh eggs."
This most frequently repeated story
of the American egg applies
particularly in the case of eggs
produced west of the Mississippi and
marketed in the very large cities of the
East.
We will now discuss the various
steps of the egg trade, pointing out the
reason for the existence of the present
methods and their influence upon
quality and consequent value.

The Country Merchant.

The country merchant is the logical
business link between the farmer and
the outside world and usually continues
to act as the farmers' buyer and seller
until the commodity dealt in becomes
of such importance as to demand more
specialized form of marketing. Eggs
being a perishable crop continuously
produced, must be marketed at frequent
intervals, and the trips to the general
store, necessary to supply the
household needs, offers the only
convenient opportunity for such
marketing.
The merchant buys eggs because by
doing so he can control his selling
trade.
The farmer trades where he sells his
eggs, because it is convenient to do
both errands at one place, and also
because he wishes to avoid affronting
the merchant by breaking the
established custom of trading out the
amount.
For these reasons the merchant
knows that to buy eggs means to sell
goods, and he therefore bids for eggs.
His competitors across the street, and
in other towns, also bid for eggs. The
effect to the merchant of lowering the
price of his goods or raising the price
of eggs is financially the same. In
either case it is the matter of cutting
the prices under the spur of
competition. Now, the articles on
which the merchant make his chief
profits from the farmers' trade are dry
goods and notions. Such articles are not
standardized, but vary in a manner
quite impossible of estimation by the
unsophisticated. On the other hand,
eggs are quoted by the dozen, and all
that run may read.
Suppose, for illustration, two
merchants in the same town are each
doing a business with a twenty per
cent. profit, and are buying eggs at ten
cents and selling for eleven, the cent
advance being sufficient to pay for
their labor, incidental loss, and a small
profit. Now one merchant concludes to
play for more trade. If he marks his
goods down he would gain some trade,
but many people would fear his goods
were cheap. But if he puts up a placard,
"Eleven Cents Paid For Eggs," the
farmers will throng his store and never
question the quality of his goods. This
move having been successful, his rival
across the street quietly stocks up with
a cheaper line of dry goods, and some
fine morning puts out a card, "Twelve
Cents For Eggs." The farm wagons this
week will be hitched on the other side
of the street.
The rate of business at ten per cent.
being insufficient to maintain two men
in the town, a mutual understanding is
gradually brought about by which the
prices of goods sold are worked back to
the basis of twenty per cent. gross
profit, but the false price of eggs will
serve to draw the trade from
neighboring towns and is therefore
maintained.
As a matter of fact the price paid to
farmers for eggs by the general stores
of the Mississippi Valley is frequently
one to two cents above the price at
which the storekeeper sells the product.
Allowing the cost of handling, we have
a condition prevailing in which the
merchant is handling eggs at from five
to ten per cent. loss, and it stands to
reason that he is making up the loss by
adding that per cent. to his profits on
his goods. Some of the effects of this
system are:
1—The inflated prices of
merchandise is an injustice to the
townspeople and to farmers not selling
produce, in fact it amounts to a
taxation of these people for the benefit
of the egg producers. 2—The inflated
prices of merchant's wares work to his
disadvantage in competition with mail
order or out-of-town trade. 3—The
farmer who exchanges eggs for dry
goods is not being paid more for his
eggs, save as the tax on the
townspeople contributes a little to that
end, but is in the main merely
swapping more dollars. 4—The use of
eggs as a drawing card for trade works
in favor of inferior produce, and the
loss to the farmer through the lowering
of prices thus caused, is much greater
than his gain through the forced
contributions of his neighbors.
 The Huckster.
The huckster or peddling wagon
which gathers eggs and other produce
directly from the farm, prevail east and
south of a line drawn from Galveston
to Chicago through Texarkana, Ark.,
Springfield, Mo., and St. Louis. North
and west of this line the huckster is
almost unknown.
The huckster wagons may be of the
following types:
1—An extension of the local grocery
store, trading merchandise for eggs. 2
—An independent traveling peddler. 3
—A cash dealer who buys his load, and
hauls it to the nearest city where he
peddles the produce from house to
house or sells it to city grocers. 4—A
representative of the local produce
buyer. 5—A fifth style of egg wagon
does not visit the farm at all, but is a
system of rural freight service run by a
produce buyer for the purpose of
collecting the eggs from country stores.
As far as the quality of product and
advantage to the farmer is concerned,
the fourth style of huckster is
preferable. This style exists chiefly in
Indiana and Michigan, and the better
settled regions of Kentucky and
Tennessee. The writer found hucksters
in southern Michigan working on a
profit of one-half a cent per dozen,
while in the mountains of Tennessee he
found a huckster paying ten cents for
eggs that were worth eighteen cents in
Chattanooga, and twenty-three cents in
New York.
The huckster scheme of gathering
eggs would seemingly be a means of
obtaining good eggs because of the
advantage of regularity of collection,
but in reality it does not always work
out that way. While it must be admitted
that in the isolated regions of the
Middle and Southern States the
presence of the huckster is the only
factor that makes egg selling possible,
it is also true that the peddling huckster
of those regions usually disregards the
first principles of handling perishable
products. He makes a week's trip in sun
and rain with his load of produce, with
the result that the quality of his
summer eggs is about as low as can be
found.
In the more densely populated region
with a twice or thrice a week, or even
daily service, the huckster egg becomes
the finest farm grown egg in the
market.
The second step in the usual scheme
of egg marketing is the sale of eggs
collected by the small storekeeper to
the produce man or shipper.

The Produce Buyer.

Throughout the Mississippi Valley
there are wholesale produce houses at
all important railroad junctions. A
typical house will ship the produce of
one to three counties. These houses,
once a week or oftener, send out postal
card quotations. These quotations read
so much per case, and are usually case
count, with a reservation, however, of
the privilege to reject or charge loss on
goods that are utterly bad. Each
grocery receives quotations from one
to a dozen such houses, and perhaps
also from commission firms in the
nearest city. The highest of these
quotations gets the shipment.
The buyer repacks the eggs and
usually candles them, the strictness of
the grading depending upon the
intended destination. The loss in
candling is generally kept account of,
but is seldom charged back to the
shipper. The egg man wants volume of
business, and if he antagonizes a
shipper by charging up his loss, the
usual result will be the loss of trade. So
the buyer estimates his probable loss
and lowers his price enough to cover it.
By loss off, or "rots out," is meant
the subtraction of the bad eggs from
the number to be paid for. Buying on a
candled or graded basis, usually not
only means rots cut, but that a variation
of the price is made for two or more
grades of merchantable eggs.
Much discussion prevails among the
western egg buyers as to whether eggs
should be bought loss off or case count.
Loss off buying seems to be more
desirable and just, but in practice is
fraught with difficulties.
If the loss off buyer feels he is losing
business, he may instruct his candler to
grade more closely, which means he
will pay less. Whether done with
honest or dishonest intention, the buyer
thus sets the price to be paid after he
has the goods in his own hands, and
this is an obviously difficult
commercial system.
Where the buyer in one case changes
the grading basis to protect himself,
there are probably ten cases where the
eggs really deserve the loss charged;
but the tenth chance gives the seller an
opportunity to nurse his loss with the
belief that he has been robbed by the
buyer. Such an uncertain feeling is
disagreeable, and the results are that
where one or two competing egg
dealers buys loss off, and the other case
count, the case count man will get most
of the business.
The case count method being the
path of least resistance, the loss off
system can only succeed where there is
some factor that overcomes the
disinclination of a shipper to let the
other man set the price. This factor
may be: 1st—An exceptional
reputation of a particular firm for
honesty and fair dealing. 2d—
Exceptional opportunities for selling
fancy goods, enabling the loss off
buyer to pay much higher rates for
good stuff. 3d—A condition that
prevails in the South in the summer,
where the losses are so heavy that the
dealers will not take the risk involved
in case count buying. 4th—Some sort
of a monopoly.
A monopoly for enforcing the loss
off system of buying has been brought
about in some sections of the West by
agreement among egg dealers. In such
cases the usual experience has been
that some one would get anxious for
more business, and begin quoting case
count, the result being that he would
get the business of the disgruntled
shippers in his section. When one
buyer begins quoting case count, the
remainder rapidly follow suit and case
count buying is quickly re-established.
 The City Distribution of Eggs.
In name, city egg dealers are usually
commission houses, but in practice the
majority of large lots of eggs are now
bought by telegraph and the prices
definitely known before shipment.
In the larger cities eggs are dealt in
by a produce board of trade. Such
exchanges frequently have rules of
grading and an official inspector. This
gives stability to egg dealing and
largely solves the problem of
uncertainty as to quality, so annoying
to the country buyer. In the city even,
where official grading is not resorted
to, personal inspection of the lot by the
buyer is practical, and one may know
what he is getting.
 In many cases, especially in smaller
cities, the receiver is the jobber and
sells to the grocers. In larger cities the
receiver sells to a firm who makes a
business of selling them to groceries,
restaurants, etc.
The jobber grades the eggs as the
trade demands. In a western city this
may mean two grades—good and bad;
in New York, it may mean seven or
eight grades, and the finer of these ones
being packed in sealed cartons, perhaps
each egg stamped with the dealer's
brand.
The city retailer of eggs include
grocers, dairies, butcher shops, soda
fountains, hotels, restaurants and
bakeries. The soda fountain trade and
the first-class hotel are among the high
bidder for strictly first-class eggs.
Many such institutions in eastern cities
are supplied directly from large poultry
farms. The figures at which such eggs
are purchased are frequently at a given
premium above the market quotation,
or a year round contract price for a
given number of eggs per week. This
premium over common farm eggs may
range from one or two cents in western
cities, to five to twenty cents in New
York and Boston. An advance of ten
cents over the quotation for extras or a
year round contract price of thirty-five
cents per dozen, might be considered
typical of such arrangements in New
York City.
 Some of the larger chain grocers in
New York City are in the market for
strictly fresh eggs and have even
installed buying departments in charge
of expert egg men.
The great bulk of eggs move through
the channels of the small restaurant,
bakery and grocery. In the small cities
of the Central West the grocer handles
eggs at a margin of one to three cents.
In the South and farther West the
margin is two to seven cents, the retail
price always being in the even nickel.
In the large eastern city there exists the
custom unknown in the West of having
two or more grades of eggs for sale in
the same store. All eggs offered for
sale are claimed by the salesman to be
"strictly fresh" or the "best," and yet
these eggs may vary if it be April from
fifteen cents to forty cents, or if in
December from thirty cents to seventy-
five cents per dozen. The New York
grocers' profit is from two to five cents
on cheap eggs, but runs higher on high
grade eggs, frequently reach twenty
cents a dozen and sometimes going as
high as forty cents for very fancy stock.
City retailing is by far the most
expensive item in the marketing of
eggs. As an illustration of the profits of
the various handlers of eggs might be
as follows:
Paid the
farmer in $.15
Iowa
Profit of
.00
country store
Gross profit .00-
of shipper 3/4
Freight to .01-
New York 1/2
Gross profit .00-
of receiver 1/2
Gross profit .01-
of jobber 1/2
Loss from .01-
candling 1/2
Gross profit .04-
of retailer 1/2
-----
--
Cost to
consumer $.25
The cheapest grade of eggs sold are
taken by bakeries and for cooking
purposes at restaurants. When cooked
with other food an egg may have its
flavor so covered up that a very
repulsive specimen may be used.
Measures have been frequently taken
by city boards of health to stop the sale
of spot rots and other low grade eggs.
The great difficulty with such
regulations is that they are difficult of
enforcement because no line of
demarcation can be drawn as in the
case of adulterated or preserved
products.
That embryo chicks and bacterially
contaminated eggs are consumed by
the million cannot be doubted, but the
individual examination of each egg
sold would be the only way in which
the food inspectors can prevent their
use. The egg from the well-kept flock
whose subsequent handling has been
conducted with intelligence and
dispatch is the only egg whose "purity"
is assured with or without law. The
encouragement of such production and
such handling is the proper sphere of
governmental regulations in regard to
this product.

Cold Storage of Eggs.

The supply of eggs ranges from
month to month, the heavy season of
production centering about April and
the lightest run being in November.
The cold storage men begin storing
eggs in March or April and continue to
store heavily until June, after which
time the quality deteriorates and does
not keep well in storage. This storage
stock begins to move out in September
and should be cleaned up by December.
Great loss may result if storage eggs
are held too long.
The effect of the storage business is
to even up the prices for the year. The
reduction of the exceedingly high
winter prices is unfortunate for those
who are skilled enough to produce
many eggs at that season of the year,
but on a whole the storage business
adds to the wealth-producing powers of
the hen, for it serves to increase the
annual consumption of eggs and
prevents eggs from becoming a drug on
the market during the season of heavy
production.
March and April eggs are, in spite of
a long period of storage, the best
quality of storage stock. This is
accounted for by the fact that owing to
cooler weather and rising price eggs
leave the farm in the best condition at
this season of the year.
Because eggs are spoiled by hard
freezing, they must be kept at a higher
temperature than meat and butter.
Temperatures of from 29 degrees to 30
degrees F. are used in cold storage of
eggs. At such temperatures the eggs, if
kept in moist air, become moldy or
musty. To prevent this mustiness the
air in a first class storage room is kept
moderately dry. This shrinks the eggs,
though much more slowly than would
occur without storage.
The growth of bacteria in cold
storage is practically prevented, but if
bacteria are in the eggs when stored
they will lie dormant and begin activity
when the eggs are warmed up.
Of the cold storage egg as a whole
we can say it is a wholesome food
product, though somewhat inferior in
flavor and strength of white to a fresh
egg. The cold storage egg can be very
nearly duplicated in appearance and
quality by allowing eggs to stand for a
week or two in a dry room. Cold
storage eggs, when in case lots, can be
told by the candler because of the
uniform shrinkage, the presence of
mold on cracked eggs and perhaps the
occasional presence of certain kinds of
spot rots peculiar to storage stock, but
the absolute detection of a single cold
storage egg, so far as the writer knows,
is impossible.
It may be further said that with the
present prevailing custom of holding
eggs without storage facilities for the
fall rise of price, eggs placed in cold
storage in April are frequently superior
to the current fall and early winter
receipts. Cold storage eggs are
generally sold wholesale as cold
storage goods, but are retailed as
"eggs." The fall eggs offered to the
consumer cover every imaginable
variation in quality and the poorest
ones sold may be a cold storage
product, or they may not be.
The Bureau of Chemistry of the
United States Department of
Agriculture has recently announced the
finding of certain crystals in the yolks
of cold storage eggs that are not
present in the fresh stock. This finding
of a laboratory method of detecting
cold storage stock was at first taken to
be a great discovery. Further
investigation, however, indicates that
the crystal mentioned forms as the egg
ages and that the rate of formation
varies with the individual eggs and
probably also with the temperature, so
that while crystals may indicate an
aged egg, the discovery only means
that the microscopist in the laboratory
can now do in a half hour what any egg
candler in his booth can do in ten
seconds.
At the present writing (February,
1909) there has been much talk of laws
against the sale of cold storage eggs as
fresh. The Federal Pure Food
Commission, under the general law
against misbranding, have made one
such prosecution. Many States have
agitated such laws but little or nothing
has been done. I find that the idea of
such a law is quite popular, especially
with poultrymen. Contrary to popular
opinion, the cold storage men and
larger egg dealers are not opposed to
the law. The people that are hit are the
small dealers and especially the city
grocers. These fellows buy the eggs at
wholesale storage prices and sell them
at retail prices for fresh, thus making
excessive profits but cutting down the
amount of the sales. This lessens the
demand for storage stock and lowers
the wholesale price. This is the reason
the wholesaler and warehouse man are
in favor of the law.
We may all grant that the
opportunity given the small dealers to
grab quick gains and in so doing hurt
the trade ought to be abolished. But
how are we to do it? "Have State and
Federal branding of the cases as they
go into or come out of storage," says
one--an excellent plan, to be sure by
which the grocers could buy one case
of fresh, eggs and a back room full of
storage goods and do Elijah's flour
barrel trick to perfection.
Clearly government inspection and
stamping of each egg is the only
method that would be effective and the
consideration of what this means turns
the whole matter into a joke. The
official inspection now maintained by
the boards of trade of the larger cities
may be extended and the producers,
dealers and consuming public may be
educated to appreciate quality in eggs,
as they have been in dairy products.
City and State laws may also be made
which will taboo the sale of spot eggs
or eggs that will float on water.
Meanwhile, a great opportunity is open
for the man who has high grade eggs
for sale, whether he be producer or
tradesman.
Many eggs that would not do for
ordinary storage are preserved by
direct freezing. These eggs are broken
and carefully sorted and placed in large
cans and then frozen. Such a product is
disposed of to bakers, confectioners
and others desiring eggs in large
quantities. Another method of
preserving eggs is by evaporation.
Evaporated or dried egg is, weight
considered, about the most nourishing
food product known. The chief value of
such an article lies in provisioning
inaccessible regions. There is no
reason, however, why this product
should not become a common article of
diet during the season of high prices of
eggs. Dried eggs can be eaten as
custards, omelets, or similar dishes.

Preserving Eggs Out of Cold

Storage.
Occasional articles have been
printed in agricultural papers calling
attention to the fact that the cold
storage men were reaping vast profits
which rightfully belonged to the
farmer. Such writers advise the farmer
to send his own eggs to the storage
house or to preserve them by other
means.
As a matter of fact the business of
storing eggs has not of late years been
particularly profitable, there being
severe losses during several seasons;
Even were the profit of egg storing
many times greater than they are the
above advice would still be unwise, for
the storing, removing and selling of a
small quantity of eggs would eat up all
possible profit.
The only reliable methods of
preserving eggs outside of cold storage
are as follows:
 Liming: Make a saturated solution of
lime, to which salt may be added, let it
settle, dip off the clear liquid, put the
eggs in while fresh, keep them
submerged in the liquid and keep the
liquid as cold as the available location
will permit.
Water glass: This is exactly the same
as liming except that the solution used
is made by mixing ten per cent. of
liquid water glass or sodium silicate
with water.
Liming eggs was formerly more
popular than it is to-day. There are still
two large liming plants in this country
and several in Canada. In Europe both
lime and water glass are used on a
more extensive scale.
 All limed or water glassed eggs can
be told at a glance by an experienced
candler. They pop open when boiled.
When properly preserved they are as
well or better flavored than storage
stock, but the farmer or poultryman
will make frequent mistakes and thus
throw lots of positively bad eggs on the
market. These eggs must be sold at a
low price themselves, and by their
presence cast suspicion on all eggs,
thus tending to suppress the price paid
to the producers. The farmers' efforts
to preserve eggs has in this way acted
as a boomerang, and have in the long
run caused more loss than gain to the
producers.
For the poultryman with his own
special outlet for high grade goods, the
use of pickling or cold storage is
generally not to be considered for fear
of hurting his trade. Any scheme that
would help to overcome the difficulty
of getting sufficient fresh eggs to
supply such customers in the season of
scarcity would be of great advantage.
The proposition of pickling a limited
number of eggs and selling them for
"cooking" purposes, explaining just
what they are, ought to offer something
of a solution, although, to the writer's
knowledge, it has not been done.

Improved Methods of Marketing

Farm-Grown Eggs.
The loss to the farmers of this
country from the careless handling of
eggs is something enormous. No great
or sudden change in this state of affairs
can be brought about, but a few points
on how this loss may be averted will
not be out of order.
Numerous efforts have recently been
made in western states to prevent the
sale of bad eggs by law. Minnesota
began this work by arresting several
farmers and dealers. The parties
invariably pleaded guilty. A number of
other States followed the example of
Minnesota in challenging the sale of
rotten eggs, but few prosecutions were
made.
Such laws mean well enough, but the
only efficient means of enforcing them
would be to have food inspectors who
are trained as practical candlers.
The present usefulness of the laws is
in calling the attention of the farmer to
the mistake that he may be carelessly
committing, and in placing over him a
fear of possible disgrace in case of
arrest and prosecution.
The weakness of the law is the
difficulty of its enforcement because of
the number of violations, and the
difficulty of drawing distinct lines in
regard to which eggs are to be
considered unlawful.
Education of the farmer as to the
situation is, of course, the surest means
of preventing the loss, but the
education of ten millions of farmers is
easier to suggest than to execute. The
most effective plan of education would
be the introduction of a method of
buying eggs similar to the one in vogue
in Denmark, in which every producer is
paid strictly in accordance with the
quality of his eggs.
With our complicated system
involving five to six dealers between
the producer and the consumer, such a
system is well nigh impossible. With
the introduction of co-operative buying
or the community system of
production, paying for quality becomes
entirely possible.
For enterprising farming
communities, the following plans offer
a cure for the evil of general store
buying that take good and bad alike and
causes the worthy farmer to suffer for
the carelessness and dishonesty of his
neighbor.
First: The encouragement of the cash
buying of produce, and, if possible, the
candling of all eggs with proper
deduction for loss.
Second: The buying of eggs by co-
operative creameries. The greatest
difficulty in this has been the
opposition of the merchants, who
through numerous ways available in a
small town, may retaliate and injure
the creamery patronage to an extent
greater than the newly installed egg
business will repay.
 Third: The agreement of the
merchants to turn all egg buying over
to a single produce buyer. This has
been successfully done in a few
instances, but there are not many towns
in which those interested will stick to
such an agreement. The worst fault
with this plan is that the moment the
egg buyer is given a monopoly he is
tempted to lower the farmer's prices for
the purpose of increasing his own
profits.
Fourth: A modification of the above
scheme is the case in which the
produce buyer is on a salary and in the
employment of the merchants. This
scheme has been successfully carried
into effect in some Nebraska towns. It
may be the ultimate solution of the egg
buying in the West. It eliminates the
temptation of the buyer to use his
privilege of monopoly to fatten his own
pocket-book. The weakness of the plan
is that a salaried man's efficiency in the
close bargaining necessary to sell the
goods is inferior to that of the man
trading for himself. Other difficulties
are: Getting a group of merchants who
will live up to such an agreement; the
farmers object to driving to two places;
the competition of other towns; the
merchants' realization that, the farmer
with cash in his pocket or a check good
at all stores, is not as certain a trader as
one standing, egg basket on arm, before
the counter; and last, and most
convincing, the merchant's further
realization that any fine Saturday
morning, with eggs selling at fifteen
cents at the produce house, he may
stick out a card "Sixteen Cents Paid for
Eggs" and make more money in one
day than his competitors did all week.
Fifth: Co-operative egg buying by
the farmers themselves. This has been
discussed in a previous chapter. It is all
right in localities where the business is
big enough to warrant it and the
farmers are intelligent and enthusiastic
to back it up and stick to it.

The High Grade Egg Business.

There are many excellent
opportunities for men of moderate
capital and ability in the high grade egg
trade. The produce business on its
present line, either at the country end
or at the city end, is as open as any
well-known form of business enterprise
can be. The chances of success for a
man new to the trade will be better,
however, if he can find a niche in the
business where he may crowd in and
establish himself before the old firms
realize what is up. The proposition of
buying high grade eggs from producers
and selling direct to consumers is a
proposition of this kind.
The little game of existence is
chiefly one of apeing our betters and
strutting before the lesser members of
the flock. The large cities are full of
people in search of some way to
display their superior wealth, taste and
exclusiveness. If an ingenious dealer
takes a dozen eggs from common
candled stock, places them in a blue
lined box and labels them "Exquisite
Ovarian Deposital," he can sell quite a
few of them at a long price, but the
game has its limits. Now, let this man
secure a truly high grade article from
reliable producers, teach his customers
the points that actually distinguish his
eggs from common stock, and he can
get not only the sucker trade above
referred to but a more satisfactory and
permanent trade from that class of
people who are willing to pay for
genuine superiority but whose ears
have not quite grown through their
hats.
An express messenger running out of
St. Louis became interested in the egg
trade. He arranged with a few country
friends to ship him their eggs. These he
candled in his house cellar and began
selling them to a limited trade in the
wealthy section of the city. At first he
delivered the eggs himself. This was in
the World's Fair year of 1904. In 1908
he did a $100,000 worth of business
and his type of business shows a much
better percentage of profit than that of
the ordinary type of dealer.
In Chicago, one of the large dairy
companies established an egg
department and placed a young man in
charge of it. The eggs in this case are
not bought of farmers but are secured
from country produce buyers whom the
Chicago company have encouraged to
educate their farmers to bring in a high
grade of goods. These people buy their
eggs in Tennessee in the winter and in
Minnesota in the summer, thus getting
the best eggs the year round. They sell
by wagon on regular routes. The
business is growing nicely and pays
good profits.
Other similar concerns are operating
in Chicago and other large cities. They
are not numerous, however, and there
is room for more. The reason the
business has not been overdone is
chiefly because of the difficulty of
getting sufficiently really high grade
eggs in the season of scarcity. Southern
winter eggs are destined to relieve this
situation more and more.
Another great difficulty with a plan
that attempts to buy eggs directly from
the producer is that premium offered
on the goods tempts the farmer to go
out and buy up eggs from his
neighbors. This brings disastrous
results in the quality of the goods and
the farmer must be dropped from the
list. In order to make a success, a
system of buying directly from
producers must be based upon a
grading scheme that will pay for the
actual quality of the eggs. No fear then
need be exercised as to whether the
farmer sells his own eggs or those of
his neighbor.
The following extract from Farmer's
Bulletin 128 of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture has been used as
advertising "dope" in the sale of high
grade eggs:
"Under certain conditions eggs may
be the cause of illness by
communicating some bacterial disease
or some parasite. It is possible for an
egg to become infected with micro-
organisms, either before it is laid or
after. The shell is porous, and offers no
greater resistance to micro-organisms
which cause disease than it does to
those which cause the egg to spoil or
rot. When the infected egg is eaten raw
the microorganisms, if present, are
communicated to man and may cause
disease. If an egg remains in a dirty
nest, defiled with the micro-organisms
which cause typhoid fever, carried
there on the hen's feet or feathers, it is
not strange if some of these bacteria
occasionally penetrate the shell and the
egg thus becomes a possible source of
infection. Perhaps one of the most
common troubles due to bacterial
infection of eggs is the more or less
serious illness sometimes caused by
eating those which are 'stale.' This
often resembles ptomaine poisoning,
which is caused, not by micro-
organisms themselves, but by the
poisonous products which they
elaborate from materials on which they
grow.
"In view of this possibility, it is best
to keep eggs as clean as possible and
thus endeavor to prevent infection.
Clean poultry-houses, poultry-runs and
nests are important, and eggs should
always be stored and marketed under
sanitary conditions. The subject of
handling food in a cleanly manner is
given entirely too little attention."
The reprint upon the succeeding
pages will give some idea of the
advertising literature used in selling
high grade eggs. This is a copy of a
hand-bill inserted in the egg boxes of a
prominent Chicago dealer:
 MOORE'S BREAKFAST
EGGS
are guaranteed to be perfect in
quality when you receive them and
to remain so until all eaten up. If
for any reason they are not
satisfactory return the Eggs to your
dealer and get your money back.
(Signature.)
WE URGE YOU
to assist us in our endeavor to
furnish you at all times with the
finest Eggs by being careful to
KEEP THEM DRY
A damp "filler" will in 24 hours
make the finest fresh Eggs taste
like old Cold Storage Eggs.
 The flavor of an Egg cannot be
detected even by the powerful
electric lights used to inspect every
Egg in this package, so it might be
possible for a "strong" Egg to get
by our inspectors, but in the past
the cause of nearly every complaint
has been traced to the consumer's
ice box or pantry window sill.
REMEMBER
Eggs are 25c-40c per doz. retail
only when fine Eggs are scarce.
Ordinarily we can get a sufficient
supply from the farmers bringing
milk daily to the creameries where
we make Delicia Pure Cream
Butter, but in times of scarcity we
often have to go as far as
 Oklahoma, Arkansas or Tennessee
to find the best Eggs. These are not
equal to our creamery Eggs but are
the freshest and best to be had and
are vastly superior to the old Cold
Storage Eggs that flood the market
at such times.
Be Sure This Seal is Unbroken
When You Get the Eggs
W. S. MOORE & CO.,
Chicago Office—131 South
Water Street.

Buying Eggs By Weight.

Whenever an improved method of
buying is installed, eggs should be
bought of the producer by weight. As
far as selling to the consumer is
concerned, the present scheme is more
feasible; this scheme is to grade
according to the size and other
qualities, and sell by the dozen, the
price per dozen varying according to
the grade.
Buying by weight simplifies the
problem of grading. It will, in addition,
only be necessary to have a fine of so
much for eggs that are wrong in
quality. For rotten or heated eggs
should be deducted an amount
considerably in excess of their value,
for their presence is a source of danger
to the reputation of the brand.
Shrunken eggs are hard to classify. In
order that this may be done fairly and
uniformly the specific gravity or brine
test should be used. All eggs that float
in a given salt brine of, say, 1.05
specific gravity should be fined. Two
or more grades can be made in this
fashion if desired.

The Retailing of Eggs by the

Producer.
In poultry papers the poultryman has
been commonly advised to get near a
large city and retail his own eggs at a
fancy price. This sounds all right on
paper but in practice it works out
differently. A man cannot be in two
places or do two things at the same
time. The poultryman's time is
valuable on his plant, and the question
is whether he can handle city sales as
well as a man who made it his
business. If the poultryman tries to
retail his own goods he will be working
on too small a scale to advertise his
goods or to make deliveries
economically. The man making a
specialty of the city end can sell ten to
a hundred times as much produce as
one poultryman can produce.
With a group of poultry farmers
working co-operatively, or a large
corporation having contracts with
producers, the producing and selling
end can be brought under the same
management advantageously. The
isolated poultryman, unless he find a
market at his very door, will do better
to permit at least one middleman to
slip in between himself and the
consumer. But there is no reason why
he should not know this middleman
personally and insist upon a method of
buying that will pay him upon the
merits of his goods.
Consigning eggs or any other
produce to commission men, without a
definite understanding, will always be,
as it always has been, a source of
dissatisfaction and loss. There is a
great opportunity here for the man who
can organize a system that shall do
away with commission houses, other
intermediate steps, and form the single
step from producer to consumer. Some
people say that farmers cannot be dealt
with in this manner. Such people would
probably have said as much about
general merchandising before the days
of the mail order houses.
It is all a matter of efficient
organization. A system of business
fitted to deal in carload lots will, of
course, fail when dealing with half
cases. It is more difficult to deal in
little things than in big ones because
the margin is closer, but it can and will
be done.

The Price of Eggs.

We will consider the price of all
eggs from the quotation of Western
firsts in the New York market. The
reason for this is evident. Every egg
raised east of Colorado is in line for
shipment to New York. If other towns
get eggs they must pay sufficiently to
keep them from going to New York.
In pricing eggs we have first to
consider the price of Western firsts in
New York and secondly the quality
relation of the particular grade to
Western firsts and the consequent
relation in price.
The price of eggs varies with the
price of other commodities as the
periods of prosperity and adversity
follow one another through the years.
As is well known, all prices in the
'90's passed through a period of
depression. For eggs this reached a
base in 1897. Since then there has been
a gradual climb till this realized a high
point in 1904, remained high till 1907.
In the spring of 1908 egg prices
dropped again, but the fall prices of
1908 were exceptionally high. As this
work goes to press (May, 1909) eggs
are going into storage at the highest
May price on record.
The prices of eggs also vary
independently of other commodities
because of a gradual changing relation
between production and consumption.
As stated in the first chapter the prices
of poultry products have shown a
general rise when compared with other
articles. This has been most marked
since 1900. As for the future we cannot
prophesy save to say that there is
nothing in sight to lead us to believe
that we will not go still higher in egg
prices.
A third variation in the price of eggs
is the one caused by the seasonal
relation of production and
consumption. This change is from year
to year fairly constant. Its normal may
be seen in the scientifically smoothed
curve in plate IV. This curve is based
upon the New York prices for the last
eighteen years.
In addition to these broader
influences there are disturbing
tendencies that cause the market to
fluctuate back and forth across the line
where the more general influences
would place it.
Of those general factors, weather is
the most important. Storms, rain and
cold in the egg producing region
decrease the lay, lower supplies and
raise the price. This is due both to the
fact that laying is cut down and that the
country roads become impassable and
the farmers do not bring the eggs to
town. As long as there are storage eggs
in the warehouses weather conditions
are not so effective, but when these are
gone, which is usually about the first of
the year, the egg market becomes
highly sensitive to all weather changes.
Suppose late in February storms and
snows force up the price of eggs. This
is followed by a warm spell which
starts the March lay. The roads,
meanwhile, are in a quagmire from
melting snows. When they do dry up
eggs come to town by the wagon loads.
A drop of ten cents or more may occur
on such occasions within a day or two's
time. This is known as the spring drop
and for one to get caught with eggs on
hand means heavy losses.
When once eggs have suffered this
drop to the spring level or the storage
price for the season, the prices for
April, May and June will remain fairly
steady. About the last week in June the
summer climb begins. This goes on
very steadily with local variation of
about the same as those of the spring
months. The storage eggs begin to
come out in August and at first sell
about the same as fresh. As the season
advances the fresh product continues to
rise in price. The storage egg price will
remain fairly uniform. By November
the season of high prices is reached. If
storage eggs are still plentiful and the
weather is mild sudden variations in
price may occur. These are caused by a
fear that the storage eggs will not all be
consumed before spring. If an
oversupply of eggs have been stored a
warm spell in winter will make a heavy
drop in the market, but if storage eggs
are scarce the sudden variations will be
up-shots due to cold waves. From
November until spring egg prices are a
creature of the weather maps and
sudden jumps from 5 to 10 cents may
occur at any time.
 The price curve of 1908, which is
represented by the dotted line in plate
IV will illustrate these general
principles. In the lower portion of plate
IV is given the curves for the New
York receipts. The heavy line
represents the smoothed or normal
curve, deduced from eighteen years'
statistics and calculated for the year
1908. The dotted line shows the actual
receipts of 1908. A comparison week
by week of the receipts and price will
show the detailed workings of the law
of supply and demand.
Aside from the weather there are
other factors that perceptibly affect the
receipts and price of eggs. A high price
of meat will increase farm and village
consumption of eggs and cut down the
receipts that reach the city. Abundance
of fruit in the city market will cut down
the demand for eggs. A cold, wet
spring will increase the mortality of
chicks and cause a decreased egg yield
the following season, due to a scarcity
of pullets. Scarcity and high price of
feed will cut down the egg yield. High
price of hens is said by some to cut
down the egg yield, but I think this is
doubtful, as the impulse to sell off the
hens is counteracted by the desire to
"keep 'em and raise more."
The following are the quotations
taken from the New York Price-Current
for November 14, 1908:
State, Pennsylvania and nearby fresh
eggs continue in very small supply and
of more or less irregular quality, a
good many being mixed with held eggs
—sometimes with pickled stock. The
few new laid lots received direct from
henneries command extreme prices—
sometimes working out in a small way
above any figures that could fairly be
quoted as a wholesale value. We quote:
Selected white, fancy, 48@50c.; do.,
fair to choice, 35@46c.; do., lower
grades, 26@32c.; brown and mixed,
fancy, 38@40c.; do., fair to choice,
30@36c; do., lower grades, 25@28c.
N.Y. Mercantile Exchange
Official Quotations.
Fresh gathered,
@37
extras, per dozen
Fresh gathered,
32 @33
firsts
Fresh gathered,
29 @31
seconds
Fresh gathered,
25 @28
thirds
Dirties, No. 1 21 @22
Dirties, No. 2 18 @20
Dirties, inferior 12 @17
Checks, fresh
gathered, fair to 18 @20
prime
Checks, inferior 12 @16
Refrigerator, @24-
firsts, charges 24 1/2
paid for season
Refrigerator, @23-
23
firsts, on dock 1/2
Refrigerator,
22- @23-
seconds, charges
1/2 1/2
paid for season
Refrigerator, 21- @22-
seconds, on dock 1/2 1/2
Refrigerator,
20 @21
thirds
22-
Limed, firsts @23
1/2
Limed, seconds 21 @22
The writer was in the New York
market at the time and saw many cases
of White Leghorn eggs sell wholesale
at as high as 55 cents. These were
commonly retailed at 5 cents each.
There were a good many brands
retailing at 65 cents and one of the
largest high class groceries was selling
for 70 cents. This is practically double
the official quotations and three times
that of cold storage stock.
The above prices represent a fair
sample of the fall prices of 1908. It
should be noted that the 1908 fall
prices were relatively somewhat better
than the rest of the season.
The time of high prices is also the
time of the greatest variation in the
price of the different grades. In the
springtime all eggs are fairly fresh and
good, and the fanciest eggs bring
wholesale only two or three cents
above quotations. There are a few
retailers who hold the spring prices to
their customers up above the general
market. One New York firm that does a
large high class egg business never lets
their price at any season go below 40
cents. This, of course, means big
profits and sales only to those who,
when they are satisfied, never bother
about price.
In the fall any man who has fresh
eggs can sell them at very near the
highest price, but in the spring only a
small per cent. can go at fancy prices
and the great majority of even the high
grade eggs must go at very ordinary
prices. In the summer months there is
not so much demand in the cities, as
the wealthy are not there to buy. The
coast and mountain resorts are then
good markets for fancy produce.
 CHAPTER XIII
BREEDS OF CHICKENS
I do not place much dependence on
the results of breed tests. Indeed, I
consider the almost universal use of the
Barred Rock in the most productive
farm poultry regions in the United
States, and the equal predominance of
S.C. White Leghorns on the egg farms
of New York and California, as far
more conclusive than any possible
breed tests.

Breed Tests.
 In Australia there has been
conducted a series of breed tests so
remarkable and extensive that the
writer considers them well worth
quoting. The Hawkesbury Agricultural
College tests extend over a period of
five years, the pens entered were of six
birds each, and the time one year. The
results were as follows:
Yield Average
No. of
of Yield of
Pens
Highest All
Competing
Pen Pens
1903 70 218 163
1904 100 204 152
1905 100 235 162
1906 100 247 177
1907 60 245 173
The winners and losers for five years
were as follows:
Winning Losing
Pen Pen
Silver Silver
1903
Wyandotte Wyandotte
Silver Partridge
1904
Wyandotte Wyandotte
S.C.W. S.C.W.
1905
Leghorns Leghorns
Black Golden
1906
Langshans Wyandotte
S.C.W. S.C.B.
1907
Leghorns Leghorns
As a matter of fact, the winning pen
means little for breed comparison. This
is shown by the winning and losing
pens frequently being of the same
breed.
The average for hens of one breed
for the whole five years is more
enlightening. For the three most
popular Australian breeds, these grand
averages are:
Wt.
Average Av. Eggs.
No. Egg Oz.
Hens Yield Per
Doz.
S.C.W.
564 175.5 26.4
Leghorns
Black
Orpingtons 522 166.6 26.1

Silver
474 161.1 24.9
Wyandottes
These figures are undoubtedly the
most trustworthy breed comparisons
that have ever been obtained. When we
go into the other breeds, however, with
smaller numbers entered, the results
show chance variation and become
untrustworthy, for illustration: R.C.
Brown Leghorns, with 42 birds entered,
have an average of 176.4. This does not
signify that the R.C. Browns are better
than the S.S. Whites, for if the Whites
were divided by chance into a dozen
lots of similar size, some would
undoubtedly have surpassed the R.C.
Browns. As further proof, take the case
of the R.C.W. Leghorns with 36 birds
entered and an egg yield of 166.9. Both
breeds are probably a little poorer
layers than S.C. Whites, but luck was
with the R.C. Browns and against the
R.C. Whites. For a discussion of this
principle of the worth of averages from
different sized flocks see Chapter XV.
All Leghorns in the tests with 846
birds entered, averaged 170.3 eggs
each. All of the general purpose breeds
(Rocks, Wyandottes, Reds and
Orpingtons), with 1416 birds entered,
averaged 160.2. The comparison
between the Leghorns and the general
purpose fowls as classes is undoubtedly
a fair one. A study of the relations
between the leading breeds in these
groups and the general average of these
groups is worth while. It bears out the
writer's statement that the best fowls of
a group or breed are to be found in the
popular variety of that breed. The
Australian poultryman, wanting utility
only, would do wise to choose out of
the three great Australian breeds here
mentioned. The S.C.W. Leghorn is the
only one of the three breeds to which
the advice would apply in America.
Barred Rocks and perhaps White
Wyandottes, would here represent the
other types.
There is one more point in the
Australian records worthy of especial
mention. The winning pen in 1906 were
Black Langshans and, what seems still
more remarkable, were daughters of
birds purchased from the original home
of Langshans in North China. Other
pens of Langshans in the test failed to
make remarkable records, but this pen
of Chinese stock, with a record of 246
5-6* eggs per hen for the first year and
414 1-2* eggs per hen for two years, is
the world's record layers beyond all
quibble. This record is held by a breed
and a region in which we would not
expect to find great layers.
This holding of the record by a breed
hitherto not considered a laying type,
would be comparable to a tenderfoot
bagging the pots in an Arizona
gambling den. If the latter incident
should occur and be heralded in the
papers it would be no proof that it
would pay another Eastern youth to
rush out to Arizona. It is probable that
the man who, on the strength of this
single record, stocks an egg farm with
imported Chinese Langshans, will fare
as the second tenderfoot.
The year following the Langshan
winning, the first eleven winning pens
were all S.C.W. Leghorns. This is also
remarkable—much more remarkable in
fact than the Langshans record. It is
like a royal flush in a poker game.
Standing alone, this would be very
suggestive evidence of the eminence of
the breed. Standing as it does, with the
combined evidence of years and
numbers, it gives the S.C.W. Leghorn
hen the same reputation in Australia as
she has in America and Denmark—that
of being the greatest egg machine ever
created.
Isolated evidence is misleading.
Accumulated evidence is convincing.
The difference between the scientist
and the enthusiast is that the former
knows the difference between these
two classes of evidence.

The Hen's Ancestors.

To one who is unfamiliar with the
different types of chickens found in a
poultry showroom, it seems incredible
that these varieties should have
descended from one parent source. It
was, however, held by Darwin that all
domestic chickens were sprung from a
single species of Indian jungle fowl.
Other scientists have since disputed
Darwin's conclusion, but it does not
seem to the writer that the origin of
domestic fowls from more than one
wild variety makes the changes that
have taken place under domestication
any less remarkable.
The buff, white and dominique
colors, unheard of in wild species,
frizzles with their feathers all awry, the
Polish with their deformed skulls and
the sooty fowls whose skin and bones
are black, are some of the remarkable
characters that have sprung up and
been preserved under domestication.
The varieties of domestic fowl form
one of the most profound exhibits of
man's control over the laws of
inheritance. What makes these wonders
all the more inexplicable is that these
profound changes were accomplished
in an age when a scientific study of
breeding was a thing unheard of.
The wild chicken whom Darwin
credits as the parent of the modern
gallinaceous menagerie, is smaller than
modern fowls and is colored in a
manner similar to the Black-breasted
Game. The habits of this bird are like
those of the quail and prairie-chicken,
both of which belong to the same
zoological family.
From its natural home in India the
chicken spread east and west. Chinese
poultry culture is ancient. In China, as
well as in India, the chief care seems to
have been to breed very large fowls,
and from these countries all the large,
heavily feathered and feather legged
chickens of the modern world have
come.
Poultry is also known to have been
bred in the early Babylonian and
Egyptian periods. Here, however, the
progress was in a different line from
that of China. Artificial incubation was
early developed, and the selection was
for birds that produced eggs
continually, rather than for those that
laid fewer eggs and brooded in the
natural manner.
 The Egyptian type of chicken spread
to the countries bordering on the
Mediterranean, and from Southern
Europe our non-sitting breeds of fowls
have been imported. Throughout the
countries of Northern Europe minor
differences were developed. The
French chickens were selected for the
quality of the meat, while in Poland the
peculiar top-knotted breed is supposed
to have been formed.
The English Dorking is one of the
oldest of European breeds and is
possessed of five toes. Five-toed fowls
were reported in Rome and exist to-day
in Turkey and Japan. The Dorkings
may be descended directly from the
Roman fowls, or various strains of
five-toed fowls may have arisen
independently from the preservation of
sports.
The chief point to be noted in all
European poultry is that it differs from
Asiatic poultry in being smaller, lighter
feathered, quicker maturing, of greater
egg-producing capacity, less disposed
to become broody, and more active
than the Asiatic fowl.
The early American hens were of
European origin, but of no fixed
breeds. About 1840 Italian chickens
began to be imported. These, with
stock from Spain, have been bred for
fixed types of form and color, and
constitute our Mediterranean or non-
sitting breeds of the present day. Soon
after the importation of Italian
chickens a chance importation was
made from Southeastern Asia. These
Asiatic chickens were quite different
from anything yet seen, and further
importations followed.
Poultry-breeding soon became the
fashion. The first poultry show was
held in Boston in the early '50's. The
Asiatic fowls imported were gray or
yellowish-red in color, and were
variously known as the Brahmapootras,
Cochin-Chinas and Shanghais. With
the rapid development of poultry-
breeding there came a desire to
produce new varieties. Every
conceivable form of cross-breeding
was resorted to. The great majority of
breeds and varieties as they exist to-
day are the results of crosses followed
by a few years of selection for the
desired form and color. Many of our
common breeds still give us occasional
individuals that resemble some of the
types from which the breed was
formed. The exact history of the
formation of the American or mixed
breeds is in dispute, but it is certain
that they have been formed from a
complex mixing of blood from both
European and Asiatic sources.
The English have recently furnished
the world with a very popular breed
which was originated by the same
methods. I refer to the Orpingtons.
The ever growing multiplicity of
varieties of chicken is in reality only
casually related to the business of the
poultryman whose object is the
production of human food.
Breeding as an art or vocation, is a
source of endless pleasure to man, and
as such, is as worthy of encouragement
as is painting, music, or the collection
of the bones of prehistoric animals.
Breeding as an art has produced many
forms of chickens that are entirely
worthless as food producers, but this
same group of poultry breeders,
tempered to be sure by the demands of
commercialism, have produced other
breeds that are certainly superior for
the various commercial purposes to the
unselected fowls of the old-fashioned
farm-yard.
The mongrel chicken is a production
of chance. Its ancestry represents
everything available in the barn-yard of
the neighborhood, and its offspring will
be equally varied. In the pure breeds
there has been a rigid selection
practiced that gives uniform
appearance. The size and shape
requirements of the standard, although
not based on the market demands,
come much nearer producing an ideal
carcass than does chance breeding.
Ability to mature for the fall shows is a
decidedly practical quality that the
fancier breeds into his chickens.
Moreover, poultry-breeders, while still
keeping standard points in mind, have
also made improvements in the lay and
meat-producing qualities of their
chickens. Considering these facts it is
an erroneous idea to think that mongrel
chickens offer any advantage over pure
bred stock.
In the broader sense we may regard
as pure-bred those animals that
reproduce their shape, color, habits, or
other distinctive qualities with
uniformity. In order that we may get
offspring like the parent and like each
other we must have animals whose
ancestors for many generations back
have been of one type. The more
generations of such uniformity, the
more certain it will be that the young
will possess similar quality.
 One strain of chickens may be
selected for uniform color of feathers,
another for a certain size and shape,
another for laying large eggs of a
certain color, and yet another strain for
being producers of many eggs. Each of
these strains might be well-bred in
these particular traits, but would be
mongrels when the other
considerations were taken into account.
This explains to us why the family or
strains is frequently more important
than the breed. In fact, the whole series
of breed classification is arbitrary. This
is especially true of the American or
mixed breeds. Humorously turned
fanciers at the poultry show frequently
have much sport trying to get other
fanciers to tell White or Buff Rocks
from Wyandottes, when the heads are
hidden. From the dressed carcasses
with feet and head removed, the finest
set of poultry judges in the world
would be hopelessly lost in a collection
of Rocks, Wyandottes, Reds and
Orpingtons and, I dare say, one could
run in a few Langshans and Minorcas if
it were not for their black pin feathers.

What Breed.
The writer has great admiration for
breeding as an art. He would rather be
the originator of a breed of green
chickens with six toes, than to have
been the author of "Afraid to Go Home
in the Dark." But I do want the novice
who reads this book to be spared some
of the mental throes usually indulged
in over the selection of a breed.
So-called meat breeds, that is, the
big feather legged Asiatics save on a
few capon and roaster plants in New
England, are really useless. They have
given size to American chickens as a
class, and in that have served a useful
purpose, but standing alone they cannot
compete with lighter, quick growing
breeds.
For commercial consideration there
are really but two types: The egg
breeds of Mediterranean origin and the
general purpose breeds or growers,
including the Rocks, Wyandottes and
Rhode Island Reds. The difference
between the layers on the one hand and
the growers on the other, is quite
important. Which should be used
depends on the location and plan of
operations, as has already been
discussed.
The choice of variety within the
group is a matter of taste and chance of
sales of fancy stock. This one principle
can, however, be laid down: The more
popular the breed, the more choice
there will be in selecting strains and
individuals. Pea Comb Plymouth Rocks
and Duckwing Leghorns should not be
considered because of their rarity. Of
the growers, their popularity and
claims are close enough to make the
particular choice unimportant. For
commercial consideration, the writer
would as soon invest his money in a
flock of Barred Rock, White
Wyandottes or Rhode Island Reds.
Among layers the S. C. White has
achieved such a lead that the majority
of good laying strains are in this breed
and to choose any other would be to
place a handicap on oneself. For a
description of breeds, the reader should
secure an Illustrated American
Standard of Perfection, or some of the
books published by poultry fanciers
and judges. To take up the matter here
would merely be using my space for
imparting knowledge which can be
better secured elsewhere.
The relative popularity of breeds at
the poultry shows is nicely shown by
the following list. This data was
compiled by adding the numbers of
each breed exhibited at 124 different
poultry shows in the season of 1907. A
detailed report of the total entries of
each breed is as follows: Plymouth
Rocks, 14,514; Wyandottes, 12,320;
Leghorns, 8,740; Rhode Island Reds,
5,812; Orpingtons, 2,857; Langshans,
2,153; Minorcas, 1,709; Cochin
Bantams, 1,590; Games, 1,277;
Brahmas, 1,181; Cochins, 1,010;
Hamburgs, 758; Game Bantams, 637;
Polish, 618; Houdans, 538; Indians,
538; Anconas, 464; Sebright Bantams,
423; Andalusians, 117; Japanese
Bantams, 115; Dorkings, 105; Brahma
Bantams, 104; Buckeyes, 95; Silkies,
85; Spanish, 83; Redcaps, 71;
Sumatras, 41; Polish Bantams, 37;
Sultans, 18; Malays, 12; Frizzles, 7; Le
Fleche, 7; Dominiques, 5; Booted
Bantams, 4; Malay Bantams, 3;
Crevecoeure, 3.
 CHAPTER XIV
PRACTICAL AND
SCIENTIFIC BREEDING
Science has been defined as the
"know how" and art as the "do how."
The man who works by art depends
upon an unconscious judgment which
is inborn or is acquired by long
practice. The man who works by
science may also have this artistic
taste, but he tests its dicta by
comparison with known facts and
principles. The scientist not only looks
before he leaps, but measures the
distance and knows exactly where he is
going to land.
Breeding has for centuries been an
art, but the science of breeding is so
new as to seem a mass of
contradictions to all except those
familiar with the maze of mathematics
and biology by which the barn-yard
facts must find their ultimate
explanation. The science of breeding
may in the future bring about that
which would now seem miraculous, but
it is the ancient art of breeding that is
and will for years continue to be the
means by which the poultry fancier
will achieve his results.
In a volume the chief aim of which
is to place the poultry industry, which
is now conducted as an art, in the realm
of technical science, it might seem
proper to devote considerable space to
the subject of breeding, That I shall not
do so, is for the reason that while
theoretically I recognize the important
part that breeding plays in all animal
production, for the practical
proposition of producing poultry
products at the lowest possible cost, a
knowledge of the technical science of
breeding is unessential and may, by
diverting the poultryman's time to
unprofitable efforts, prove an actual
handicap.
For the show room breeder the new
science of breeding is too undeveloped
to be of immediate service, or I had
better say, the show room requisites are
too complicated for theoretical
breeding to promise results. For the
commercial poultryman, I shall review
what has been accomplished and state
briefly the theories upon which
contemplated work is based.
The objects striven after in poultry
breeding are: 1st: To create new
varieties which shall have improved
practical points or shall attract
attention as curiosities. 2d: To
approach the ideals accepted by
fanciers for established breeds, and
hence win in competition. 3d: To
change some particular feature or habit
as, to increase egg production or reduce
the size of bantams. 4th: To improve
several points at once as, eggs and size
in general purpose fowls. This
classification is really unnecessary, as
the most specialized breeding involves
consideration of many points.

Breeding as an Art.
The method by which breeds and
varieties of the show room specimens
have been developed is essentially as
follows: The wonderfully different
varieties of fowl from every quarter of
the earth are brought together. Crossing
is then resorted to, with the result that
birds of all forms and colors are
produced. The breeder then selects
specimens that most nearly conform to
the type or ideal in his mind.
Suppose a man wished to produce
Barred Leghorns, with a fifth toe. He
would secure Barred Rocks, White
Leghorns and White or Gray Dorkings.
Then he would cross in every
conceivable fashion.
Perhaps he might have trouble
getting the white color to disappear. In
that case Buff Leghorns which are a
newer breed might be tried and found
more pliable material. By such
methods the breeder would in three or
four generations of crossing get a crude
type of what he desired. Henceforth it
would be a matter of patience and
selection. Five to twenty years is the
time usually taken to produce new
breeds of fancy poultry that will breed
true to type. In this style of breeding
the principles at stake are simple. The
first is to secure the variations wanted;
second, to breed from the most
desirable of these specimens.
The same methods of selection that
establish a breed are used to maintain
it, or to establish strains. In ordinary
breeding there are two other principles
that are sometimes called into play.
One is prepotency, the other is
inbreeding. By prepotent we mean
having unusual power to transmit
characters to offspring. Suppose a
breeder has five yards headed by five
cock birds. The male in yard two he
does not consider quite as fine as the
bird in yard one, but in the fall he finds
the offspring of bird from two much
better than the offspring from yard one.
The breeder should keep the prepotent
sire and his offspring rather than the
more perfect male, who fails to stamp
his traits upon his get.
Normally a child has two parents,
four grandparents, and eight great-
grandparents. Now, when cousins
marry, the great-grandparents of the
offspring are reduced to six. The
mating of brother and sister cuts the
grandparents to two, and the great-
grandparents to four. Mating of parent
and offspring makes a parent and
grandparent identical and likewise
eliminates ancestry. Inbreeding means
the reduction of the number of
branches in the ancestral tree, and this
means the reduction of the number of
chances to get variation, be they good
or bad.
Inbreeding simply intensifies
whatever is there. It does not
necessarily destroy the vitality, but if
close inbreeding is practiced long
enough, sooner or later some little
existing weakness or peculiarity would
become intensified and may prove fatal
to the strain. For illustration, suppose
we began inbreeding brother and sister
with a view of keeping it up
indefinitely. Now, in the original
blood, a tendency for the predominance
of one sex over the other undoubtedly
exists and would be intensified until
there would come a generation all of
one sex, which, of course, terminates
our experiment.
Inbreeding has always been tabooed
by the people generally. Meanwhile the
clever stock breeders have combined
inbreeding with selection and have won
the show prizes and sold the people
"new blood" at fancy prices.
Unintelligent inbreeding as practiced
on many a farm, results in run down
stock, not so much from inbreeding as
from lack of selection. Out-crossing or
mixing in of new blood is better than
hit-or-miss inbreeding. Intelligent
inbreeding is better still.
 Scientific Theories of Breeding.
The main tenet of Darwin's theory of
racial inheritance or evolution, was that
changes in animal life, wild or
domestic, were brought about by the
addition of very slight, perhaps
imperceptible, variations. He argued
that the giraffe with the longest neck
could browse on higher leaves in time
of drought and hence left offspring
with slightly longer necks than the
previous generation.
Upon this theory the ordinary
breeding by selection is based. In case
of breeding for show room, the
breeder's eye, or the judge's score card,
is the tape with which to measure the
length of the giraffe's neck. This
principle can be applied equally well,
even better, to characteristics where
accurate measurement may be used.
The last forty years of scientific
progress has established firmly the
general theories of Darwin, but they
have also resulted in our questioning
his idea that all great changes are due
to the sum of small variations. Many
instances have been suggested in which
the theory of gradual changes could not
explain the facts.
The theory of mutation, of which
Hugo de Vries, of Holland, is the chief
expounder, does not antagonize
Darwin, but simply gives more weight
in the process of evolution to the factor
of sudden changes commonly called
sports. Let us illustrate: In the giraffe
of our former forest, one might appear
whose neck was not longer because of
slightly longer vertebrae, but who
possessed an extra vertebrae. This
would be a mutation. In other words, a
mutation is a marked variation that
may be inherited. We now believe that
polled cattle, five-toed Dorkings, top-
knotted Houdans, frizzles and black
skinned chickens arose through
mutations.
Burbank's Methods—The wonderful
Burbank with his thornless cactus, his
stoneless plum, and his white
blackberry, is simply a searcher after
mutations. His success is not because
he uses any secret methods, but
because of the size of his operations.
He produces his specimens by the
millions, and in these millions looks,
and often looks in vain for the lonely
sport that is to father a new race.
Burbank has, with plants, many
advantages of which the animal breeder
is deprived. He can produce his
specimens in greater number, he can
more easily find out the desirable
character, and in many plants he has
not the uncertain element of double
parentage to contend with, while with
others he is still more fortunate, as he
can produce them by seed, stimulate
variation until the desired mutation is
found and can then reproduce the
desired variation with certainty by the
use of cuttings. This latter is not true
inheritance with its inevitable
variation, but the indefinite
prolongation of the life of one
individual. In this sense there is only
one seedless orange tree in the world.
The Centgenitor System—Prof. Hays
in breeding wheat at Minnesota, first
used in this country a system of
breeding which is essentially as
follows: A large variety of individual
seeds are selected. These are planted
separately and the amount and
character of the yield observed. The
offspring of one seed is kept separate
for several generations, or until the
character of the tribe is thoroughly
established. The advantage of this plan
of breeding is in that the selection is
not made by comparing individuals,
but by comparing the offspring of
individuals. Thus, we necessarily select
the only trait really worth while; that is
prepotency or the ability to beget
desirable qualities.
The application of this centgenitor
system necessitates inbreeding; it also
necessitates large operations. Of the
former, breeders have generally been
afraid; of the latter they have lacked
opportunity. But the centgenitor
system, combined with Burbank's
principle of large opportunity of
selection, is, in the writer's belief, the
method by which the 200-egg hen will
be ultimately established in America.
 Much of the recent stimulus to the
study of the Science of Breeding was
occasioned by the discovery of
Mendel's Law. Briefly, the law states
that when two pure traits or characters
are crossed, one dominates in the first
generation of offspring—the other
remaining hidden or recessive. Of the
second generation, one-half the
individuals are still mixed, bearing the
dominant characteristic externally and
the other hidden; one-fourth are pure
dominants and one-fourth are pure
recessives. In future generations the
mixed or hybrid individuals again give
birth to mixed and pure types
apportioned as before, thus continuing
until all offspring become ultimately
pure. For illustration: If rose and single
comb chickens are crossed, rose combs
are dominant. The first generation will
all have rose combs. The second
generation will have one-fourth single
combs that will breed true, one-fourth
rose combs that will breed rose combs
only, and one-half that again will give
all three types.
Mendel's Law works all right in
cases where pure unit characteristics
are to be found. For the great practical
problems in inheritance, Mendel's law
is utterly hopeless. The trouble is that
the chief things with which we are
concerned are not unit characteristics
but are combinations of countless
characteristics which cannot be seen or
known, hence cannot be picked out.
Thus the tendency to revert to pure
types is foiled by the constant
recrossing of these types.
Mendel's law is a scientific curiosity
like the aeroplane. It may some day be
more than a curiosity, but both have
tremendous odds to overcome before
they supplant our present methods.
Prof. C.B. Davenport, of the
Carnegie Institute, is working on
experimental poultry breeding in its
purely scientific sense. His conclusions
have been much criticised by poultry
fanciers. The truth of the matter is that
the fancier fails to appreciate the spirit
of pure science. The scientist, enthused
to find his white fowl re-occur after a
generation of black ones, is wholly
undisturbed by the fact that the white
ones, if exhibited, might be taken for a
Silver Spangled Hamburg.
Mendel's law as yet offers little to
the fancier and less to the commercial
poultryman. Its study is all right in its
place, but its place is not on the poultry
plant whose profits are to buy the baby
a new dress.

Breeding for Egg Production.

Attempts to improve the egg-
producing qualities of the hen date
from the domestication of the hen, but
it has only been within the last few
years that rapid progress has been
possible in this work. The inability to
determine the good layers has been the
difficulty.
The great majority of people make
no selection of hens from which to
hatch their stock. The eggs of the
whole flock are kept together and when
eggs are desired for hatching they are
selected from a general basket. It has
been assumed, and is shown by trap-
nest records, that eggs thus selected in
the spring of the year are from the
poorer, rather than from the better
layers. This is because hens that have
not been laying during the winter will
lay very heavily during the spring
season. Many breeders have attempted
to pick out the good layers by the
appearance of the hens. Before the
advent of the trap-nest the "egg type"
of hen was believed to be a positive
indication of a good layer. The "egg
type" hen had slender neck, small head,
long, deep body of a wedge shape.
Various "systems" founded on these or
other "signs" have been sold for fancy
prices to people who were easily
separated from their money. Trap-nest
records show such systems to be on a
par with the lunar guidance in
agricultural operations.
I might remark here that the
determination of sex by the shape of
the egg or similar methods, is in a like
category. Science finds no proof of
such theories.
A few methods of selecting the
layers have been suggested which,
while far from absolute, are of some
significance and are well worth noting.
The hen that sits upon the roost while
other hens are out foraging, is probably
a drone. The excessively fat or the
excessively lean hens are not likely to
be layers. It would naturally be
supposed that the active laying hen
would be the last one to go to roost at
night. At the Kansas Experiment
Station, the writer made observations
upon the order in which the hens went
to roost, and the above assumption was
found in the majority of cases to be
correct.
A still better scheme of selecting
layers is the practice of picking out the
thrifty, quickly maturing pullets when
they first begin to lay in the fall season.
At the Maine Experiment Station, such
a selection gave a flock of layers which
averaged about one hundred and eighty
eggs, when the remainder of the flock
yielded only one hundred and forty.
Trap-nests devised to catch the hen
that lays the egg are numerous in the
market. A trap-nest to be successful,
must not only catch the hen that lays,
but must prevent the entrance of the
other hens.
The more trap-nests that are
provided, the less often they will
require attention, but the more often
the nests are attended the better for the
comfort of the hens.
 The use of trap-nests is expensive
and cannot be recommended for the
poultryman who must make every hour
of time put on his chickens yield him
an immediate income. Fanciers and
Experiment Stations can well afford to
use trap-nests and must, indeed, use
them both for breeding for egg
production, and also for determining
the hen that laid the egg when full
pedigrees are desired in other breeding
work.
A scheme that has sometimes been
used in the place of trap-nests, is a
system of small compartments, in each
of which one hen is kept. Such a
scheme does not seem feasible on a
large scale, but for breeders wishing to
keep the records of a small number of
hens, it is all right. Because of its cost,
this system is wholly out of the
question, except for a man following
breeding as a hobby and who cannot
devote himself during the day to the
care of trap-nests.
Having determined the best layers, it
remains to breed from these and from
their descendants. The tests of pullets
hatched from hens are better signs of
the hen's value as a breeder than is her
own record. It has been surmised that a
hen which lays heavily will not lay
eggs containing vigorous germs. So far
as the writer's experience has gone, the
laying of infertile eggs is a family or
individual trait not particularly related
to the number of eggs laid.
When we have bred from the best
layers and have raised our average egg
yielder to a higher level, the question
arises as to whether the strain will
permanently maintain the high yield or
drop back to the former rate of
production. Theory says that it will not
drop back. As a matter of fact it will
not do so, for the heavier production
will be more trying on the hen's
constitution, and naturally selection
will gradually cause the egg record to
dwindle. Hence the necessity of
continued selection or the infusion of
new blood from other selected strains.
Whatever may be the change desired
in a strain of chickens, specimens
showing the trait to be selected should
be used as breeders. Those
characteristics readily visible to the
eye have long been the subjects of the
breeder's efforts. But traits not directly
visible can likewise be changed by
breeding. The number of eggs, size and
color of eggs, rapid growth, ready
fattening powers, quality of meat and
general characteristics, are all matters
of inheritance, and if proper means are
taken to select the desirable individuals
all such characteristics can be changed
at the will of the breeder.
It is a fact, however, often
overlooked, that the more traits for
which one selects, the slower will be
progress. For illustration: If in
breeding for egg production, one-half
the good layers are discarded for lack
of fancy points, the progress will be
just half as rapid.
A discussion of the work in breeding
for egg production at the Maine
Experiment Station is taken up in the
next chapter.
 CHAPTER XV
EXPERIMENT STATION
WORK
Our entire scheme of agricultural
education and experimentation is new.
The poultry work at experiment
stations is very new. Ten years will
about cover everything worthy of a
permanent record in the poultry
experiment station files.

Stations Leading in Poultry Work.

Among the earliest stations to begin
poultry work in this country were
Rhode Island, Massachusetts,
Connecticut and Maine. Rhode Island
conducted the first school of poultry
culture. The two stations of New York
State were also early in the work, and
Cornell now has the leading school of
poultry culture in this country.
West Virginia has always
maintained a considerable poultry
plant. Outside of the states east of the
Appalachians, the first poultry work to
be heard of was that of Prof. Dryden at
the Experiment Station of Utah. Prof.
Dryden's work was of a demonstrative
nature. His early bulletins were
forceful and well illustrated, and did
much to call attention to poultry work.
 In all this early work the great
Mississippi Valley, where four-fifths
of the nation's poultry is produced,
entirely ignored the hen. The writer
began his work with poultry at the
Kansas Station in 1902, but his
chickens were housed in a discarded
hog house, and no funds being
available, little was accomplished. In
the last three or four years these
experiment stations are rapidly falling
into line and a number of poultry
bulletins have recently been issued
from these younger schools.
A few of the early landmarks in
experiment station work was as
follows:
The Utah Station clearly found that
hens laid about 65 per cent. as many
eggs in the second as in the first year,
and that to keep hens for egg
production beyond the second year,
was unprofitable.
Massachusetts proved that corn was
a better food for layers than wheat, and
that the prejudice against it was
founded on a misapplied theory.
The New York Station at Geneva
demonstrated that poultry generally,
and ducks in particular, are not
vegetarians, and must have meat to
thrive and that vegetable protein will
not make good the deficiency.
The Maine Station was chiefly
instrumental in introducing trap-nests,
curtain front houses and dry feeding.
The breeding work at Maine will be
discussed at length in the last section
of this chapter.
The United States Department of
Agriculture did not take up poultry
work until 1906. The publications
issued by the department before that
time were written by outsiders and
printed by the Government.
The following is the list of the
addresses of the experiment stations
who have taken a leading interest in
poultry work. It is not worth while
giving a list of poultry bulletins, as
many of them are out of print and can
only be consulted in a library.
 Maine—Orono.
Mass.—Amherst.
Conn.—Storrs.
Rhode Is.—Kingston.
New York—Ithaca.
New York—Geneva.
Maryland—College Park.
West. Va.—Morgantown.
Iowa—Ames.
Kansas—Manhattan.
Utah—Logan.
Calif.—Berkeley.
Oregon—Corvalis.
U.S. Gov.—Washington, D.C.
Ontario—Guelph (Canada).
Many foreign governments have us
out-distanced in the encouragement of
the poultry industry. Our Canadian
neighbors have done much more
practical work in getting out among the
farmers and improving the stock and
methods along commercial lines. As a
result the Canadians have built up a
nice British trade with which we have
thus far not been able to compete. The
work by the Ontario Station on the
subject of incubation is discussed in
the Chapter on Incubation.
Australia, like Canada, has given
much practical assistance in marketing
the poultry products, the government
maintaining packing stations, where
the poultry is packed for export. The
Australian laying contests are quoted in
the present volume. They outclass
anything else in the world along that
line.
In England, Ireland and especially in
Denmark, the government, or societies
encouraged by the Government, have
done a great deal to develop the poultry
industry. Depots for marketing and
grading are maintained and the stock of
the farmers is improved by fowls from
the government breeding farms.

The Story of the "Big Coon."

With apologies to Joel Chandler
Harris, I will tell a little story.
Uncle Remus was telling the little
boy about the "big coon." It seems that
the "big coon" had been seen on
numerous occasions, but all efforts at
his capture had failed. One night they
saw the "big coon" up in the 'simmon
tree, in the middle of the ten-acre lot.
All hands and the dogs were
summoned. To be sure of bagging the
game, the tree was cut down. The dogs
rushed in but there was no coon.
"But, Uncle Remus," said the little
boy, "I thought you said you saw the
big coon in the tree."
"Laws, chile," replied Uncle Remus,
"doesn't youse know dat it am mighty
easy for folks to see something dat ain't
dar, when dey are lookin' fer it?"
When scientific experimenters
entered the poultry field about fifteen
years ago, they found it swarming with
old ladies' notions. For everything a
reason was given, but these reasons
were derived from the kind of dreams
where that which pleases the human
mind is seized upon and search is made
to find ideas to back it, not because it is
true, but because it "listens good" to
the dreamer. The first duty of the
scientist was to banish these will-o'-
the-wisp ideas that lead to no practical
results.
For illustration Round eggs were
supposed to hatch pullets and long ones
cockerels. Eggs will not hatch if it
thunders. Shipped eggs must be
allowed to rest before hatching, the
drug store was the universal source of
relief when the chickens became sick,
and red pepper and patent foods were
the egg foods par excellence. These
things, thanks to the scientist, are no
longer believed or regarded by well
read poultrymen, and instead his
attention has been turned to matters
having a more happy relation to his
bank account.
In clearing away the useless popular
notions, the scientists themselves have
not been free from their influence,
especially when they seemed to agree
with accepted scientific theory. Many,
indeed, are the 'coons in poultry
science that have been seen because
they were being looked for.
As a partial explanation it should be
said that men available for scientific
poultry work are very scarce. Poultry
keepers schooled in the University of
the Poultry Yard have no conception of
scientific methods, and would explain
experimental results by a theory that
would fail to fit elsewhere. The
available scientists on the other hand
are seldom poultrymen.
Among the first men to take up
animal husbandry work of all kinds,
were the veterinarians. For years the
only poultry publications put out by the
U.S. Government were by
veterinarians. These dust covered
volumes with their five color plates of
the fifty-seven varieties of tapeworms,
still rest on the shelves of public
libraries, a monument to the time when
the practical poultryman knew only
things that weren't so, and the scientific
poultryman knew only things that were
useless.
The first general law that all
experimenters should know and the
ignorance of which has caused and still
causes the waste of the major portion
of experimental brains and money, we
will call the "Law of Chance." Let the
reader who is not familiar with such
things take two pennies and toss them
upon the table. They are both heads up.
He tosses them again, one comes
heads, the other tails. The third time
repeats the second. The fourth both
come tails. The law of chance says this
is correct. Heads should appear 25 per
cent., tails 25 per cent., and mixed 50
per cent. of the time. Now let the
reader try this in a lot of twelve tosses.
Does it prove the law? Try it again. Are
all lots alike? Now pitch a hundred
times, then pitch pennies all day. By
night the law will be so near proven
that the experimenter will be willing to
concede its validity.
Now suppose the lots of twelve
tosses, each were lots of twelve hens,
one Plymouth Rocks, the other
Wyandottes, or one fed corn and the
other wheat. The law of chance clearly
proves that the larger number of unites,
the nearer the theoretical truths will be
the experimental results. Note,
however, that small lots may by chance
be as near the truth as large lots.
In practice two grave errors are
made: First, conclusions are drawn
from small lots compared with each
other; second, conclusions are drawn
from large lots compared with small
lots. In the first case both may be off;
in the latter case the small one may be
off. Examples of the first error are to
be found in the scores of contradicting
breed and feed tests, that were
published in the early days of poultry
research. The second error is
exemplified in the Ontario experiments
in incubation, to which reference has
already been made.
Here is a further example of this
error. From the fifth egg laying
competition at the Hawkesbury
Agricultural College in Australia, I
copy the following:
Ave.
No. of
Variety. Egg
Hens.
Yield.
Cuckoo
6 190.16
Leghorn
S.C.
30 Brown 177.00
Leghorn
S.C. White
138 174.93
Leghorn
R.C.
12 Brown 173.50
Leghorn
R.C.
 12 White 172.66
Leghorn
Buff
18 160.55
Leghorn
Black
6 138.33
Leghorn
The ranking of Cuckoo Leghorns as
first is a chance happening due to the
small number; likewise the Black
Leghorns had a streak of bad luck and
received lowest place. To one not
familiar with such work, the real
significance of the table is that the
S.C.W. Leghorns did the best work. A
totaling of all other varieties gives 84
fowls with an average egg production
of 170.5, which bears out the
conclusion. As these birds were all kept
in pens of six, we would expect to find
the highest single pen to be White
Leghorns, because, when compared
with all other Leghorns, they have both
the highest average and the greatest
number. This accords with the fact that
as the highest single pen is found to be
White Leghorns with an egg yield of
239 eggs.
The above illustrates another
important phase of the laws of chance,
which says that not only is the average
likely to be nearer the theoretical
average sought when the number is
increased, but that the individual
extremes will be more removed.
 Important Experimental Results at
the Illinois Station.
From an Illinois Experiment Station
report, the following is quoted:
"The stock used was Barred
Plymouth Rock pullets. These pullets
were a very uniform Barred Rock stock
that had been bred as an individual
strain for many years. They were
practically the same age, and except for
the factors mentioned were treated as
uniformly as possible.
First Year's Results.
Ave.
No.
Diet. Egg
Hens.
Yield.
10 Nitrogenous 132.9
 Diet
Carbonaceous
10 128.4
Diet
10 Wet Wash 155.8
10 Dry Wash 111.4
"The results of the first test are
somewhat surprising for it is generally
believed that the nitrogenous diet is
best for laying hens. The difference
indicated in the first year's results was
so light that it was decided to repeat
the experiment the second year.
"As the wet wash is clearly proven to
be superior, these hens were used the
second year to compare meat meal with
fresh cut bone.
Second Year's Result.
 Ave.
No.
Diet. Egg
Hens.
Yield.
10 Nitrogenous 142.2
10 Carbonaceous 134.5
10 Meat Meal 102.2
Green Cut
10 128.9
Bone
"The results of the second year
clearly indicate the great superiority of
green cut bone as compared with the
dry unpalatable meat meal. The
comparison of a highly nitrogenous
ration with that of a ration consisting
largely of corn, while showing the
advantages of the nitrogenous rations,
does not show the contrast expected.
 "Some visiting poultrymen
expressed the opinion that corn is a
better poultry food than commonly
supposed. Considering this fact and the
great fundamental importance of the
question at issue, it was decided to
repeat the experiment a third year, and
feed a large number of birds on each
ration.
Ave.
No.
Diet. Egg
Hens.
Yield.
100 Nitrogenous 126.9
100 Carbonaceous 127.2
I will leave the last without
comment, for the whole thing is a hoax.
The Illinois Experiment Station has
never owned a chicken. These "Illinois"
experiments were planned and
executed in a few minutes of the
writer's spare time. The basis of the
experiments was a pack of cards
containing the individual records of the
Maine Experiment Station hens,
shuffling the cards and averaging the
desired number of records as they
come in the pack, made the distinction
between the various diets.

Experimental Bias
Pet ideas consciously or
unconsciously mold practice. A bias
toward an idea may show itself in the
planning and conducting of an
experiment, or it may come out in the
later interpretation.
An illustration of the first kind is
found in the early work of the West
Virginia Station (Bulletin 60). With the
preconceived notion that hens should
have a nitrogenous diet an experiment
was planned and conducted as follows:
One lot of hens was fed corn,
potatoes, oats and corn meal. A
contrasted lot reveled in corn, potatoes,
hominy feed, oat meal, corn meal and
fresh cut bone. The results were in
favor of the latter ration by a doubled
egg yield.
To any experienced poultryman the
reason is evident. The variety of the
diet and the meat food are what made
the showing.
About the same time the
Massachusetts Station planned a
similar experiment. The bias was the
same, but it took a fairer form. The
hens were both given a decent variety
of food and some form of meat. The
bulk of the grain was corn in the
carbonaceous, and wheat in the
nitrogenous ration. The results were in
favor of the corn. This astonished the
experimenter. He tried it again and
again tests came out in favor of corn.
At last the old theory was revoked, and
the fallacy of wheat being essential to
egg production was exploded. If by an
irony of fate in the shuffling of the
hens, the wheat pen had the first time
showed an advantage, the experimenter
might have been satisfied and the waste
of feeding high priced feed when a
better and a cheaper is at hand, might
have gone on indefinitely.
Of bias in the interpretation of
results all publications are more or less
saturated. A reading of the Chapter on
Incubation will illustrate this. A
common error of this kind is the
omission of facts necessary to fully
explain results. Items of costs are
invariably omitted or minimized. Food
cost alone is usually mentioned in
figuring experimenting station poultry
profits, which statement will
undoubtedly cause a sad smile to creep
over the face of many a "has-been"
poultryman.
The writer remembers an incident
from his college days which illustrates
the point in hand. Let it first be
remarked that this was on the new
lands of the trans-Missouri Country,
where manure had no more commercial
value than soil, and is freely given to
those who will haul it away.
The professor at the blackboard had
been figuring up handsome profits on a
type of dairying towards which he wits
very partial. The figures showed a
goodly profit, but the biggest expense
item—that of labor—was omitted. One
of the students held up his hand and
inquired after the labor bill.
 "Oh," said the smiling professor,
"The manure will pay for the labor."
When the class adjourned, the
student remarked: "They say figures
won't lie, but a liar will figure."
The third way in which experiments
are made worthless is by the
introduction of factors other than the
one being tested. This may be done by
chance, and the conductor not realize
the presence of the other factor, or the
varying factors may be introduced
intentionally under the belief that they
are negligible. Of the first case an
instance may be cited of the placing of
two flocks in a house, one end of which
is damper than the other, the accidental
introduction into one flock of a
contagious disease, or one flock being
thrown off feed by an excessive feed of
greens, etc., etc. These factors that
influence pens of birds greatly add to
the error of the law of chance. In fact it
amounts to the same thing on a larger
scale. For this reason not only are
many individuals, but many flocks,
many locations, and many years needed
to prove the superiority of the
contrasted methods.
The criticisms in the following
section will amply illustrate the case of
foreign factors being unwisely
introduced into an experiment.

The Egg Breeding Work at the

Maine Station.
 As is well known the Maine Station
was for years considered by all
poultrymen to be doing a great and
beneficial work in breeding for
increased egg production. Up until the
fall of 1907, the poultrymen of the
country were of the opinion that this
work was in every way successful, and
a large number of private breeders had
taken up the use of trap-nests in an
effort to build up the egg production of
their fowls.
When early in 1908 Bulletin 157 of
the Maine Experiment Station was
published, it showed by averages as
given in the table on page 202 that the
egg yield at the station was for the
entire period on the decline. In Bulletin
157, the statement was made that
"arithmetical mistakes" and "faulty
statistical methods" accounted for the
discrepancies between the former
publications and the criticised data.
The further explanation that "the
experiment was a success as an
experiment," etc., only appeared to the
public mind as a graceful way of
explaining what was, to the practical
man, an utter failure of the entire work.
The unfortunate death of Professor
Gowell, together with the fact that he
had equipped a private poultry farm
with station stock, added to the
confusion, and the result of the bulletin
was the precipitation of a general
"pow-wow" in which the poultry
editors were about equally divided
between those who were casting
insinuations upon the personnel of the
station, and those who decried the
whole effort toward improving the egg
yield.
After going over the publications of
Professor Gowell, visiting the station
and meeting the present force, I came
to the following conclusions regarding
the matter:
Professor Gowell's work is open to
severe criticism. Errors have been
made in conducting the work at Maine
which have made it possible for a
mathematical biologist to take the data
and seemingly prove that selection, as
practiced by Professor Gowell, actually
resulted in lowering inherent egg
capacity of the strain of Plymouth
Rock hens under experimentation. Had
Professor Gowell's successor been a
practical poultryman, it is my candid
opinion that the public would have
been given a radically different
explanation of the results.
Professor Gowell is the author of the
following statement: "The small
chicken grower is earnestly urged to
use an incubator for hatching." This
opinion is not in accord with that of the
majority of breeders and the more
progressive experiment station
workers. The opinion has been
expressed by Professor Graham and
others, that the particular results at the
Maine Station may have been due to
the decrease of vitality caused by
continued artificial hatching. This view
may be wholly without foundation.
Nevertheless, as the common type of
incubator is under heavy criticism, and
it is pretty well proven that chicks so
hatched have not the vitality of
naturally hatched chicks, surely a
series of breeding experiments would
carry more weight if the replenishing
of the flock had been accomplished by
natural means.
For the first few years of the
breeding work the house used was the
old-fashioned double walled and
warmed pattern. The last few years of
this work were conducted in curtain
front houses. That the cool house is an
improvement over the warm house is
generally conceded, but there are many
poultrymen who are still of the opinion
that the warm house will give a larger
egg yield, though at a greater expense
and less profit.
In the early years of the work the
method of feeding was also a time-
honored one, and included a warm
mash. About the middle of the
experimental period Professor Gowell
brought out the system of feeding dry
mash from hoppers. This custom
became a great fad and Professor
Gowell and Director Woods have
preached it far and wide. Perhaps it is
an improvement, but it is to-day much
more popular with novices than with
established egg farms. Many old line
poultrymen have tried dry mash only to
go back to wet mash, by which method
the hens can be induced to eat more
which is conducive to high egg yields.
Whether these changes in housing and
feeding have been improvements as
claimed by those who introduced them,
or whether their popularity may be
explained in part at least by the
psychology of fads, is a point in
question, but certainly the marring of a
breeding experiment by introducing
radical changes in the factors of
production is at best unfortunate.
A much more serious criticism than
any of the foregoing is to be found in a
change of the size of flocks and amount
of floor space per fowl. I have gone
over carefully the published records of
Professor Gowell, and the review of Dr.
Pearl, and the following table
represents, as near as I can determine,
these factors for the series of years. In
the year 1903 I find no clear statement
as to the manner in which the birds
were housed, and I may be in error in
this case. Otherwise the table gives the
facts.
Hens in Per Egg
Year
Flock Hen Yield
8. sq.
1900 20 136.36
ft.
8. sq.
1901 20 143.44
 ft.
8. sq.
1902 20 155.58
ft.
8. sq.
1903 20 135.42
ft.
4.4
1904 50 117.90
sq. ft.
4.4
1905 50 134.07
sq. ft.
4.4
1906 50 140.14
sq. ft.
4.4
1907 50 sq. ft. 113.24

Certainly this oversight is a serious

one, and one especially remarkable
considering the fact that the
comparison of different size flocks
formed a prominent part of the Maine
Station work during the last three years
of the breeding test. The results of the
work at the Maine Station on testing
flock size, conducted without relation
to the breeding work, gave the
following results:
Sq.
No.
ft. Egg
of
per Yield
Hens
Hen
150 3.2 111.68
100 4.8 123.21
50 4.8 129.69
No comparisons of 50 and 20 bird
flocks in the same year are available,
but by extending the comparisons of
the 50, 100 and 150 flocks into the 20
flock size, we can get some idea of the
error that has been here introduced.
The result of the Australian egg laying
contest in which the flocks were
composed of six hens, shows a yield of
about one and one-half times as heavy
as the Maine records, which certainly
seems to substantiate the ideas here
brought out.
It is a well established fact in poultry
circles that many men who succeed
with a few hundred hens, fail when the
number is increased to as many
thousands. When the breeding
experiments under discussion were
started, Professor Gowell had under his
supervision about three hundred hens.
When the work was closed the
experiment station plant had been
increased to four or five times its
capacity, and Professor Gowell had a
large private poultry plant of his own
in addition.
It is interesting to note in this
connection that the last four years of
the records are explained by Professor
Gowell as being low, due to various
"accidents" (?) It is unreasonable to
suppose the true explanation of these
"accidents" would be found in
connection with the increased
responsibility and size of the plant.
The breeding stock sent out by
Professor Gowell has given general
satisfaction, and was found by
Professor Graham of the Ontario
Station, as well as by a number of
private individuals, to be of superior
laying quality to that of the average
Barred Rock.
Clearly there is only one way to
prove whether Professor Gowell's work
has been a wasted effort, and that is for
flocks of his strain to be tested at other
experiment stations against birds of
miscellaneous origin.
That much has been lost to the
poultrymen of the country by the recent
upheaval at the Maine Station, I
believe to be the case, but that does not
mean that the men now in charge will
not in the future be of great value to the
poultry interests. They are, however, in
the class of pure scientists rather than
applied scientists, but if let alone they
will dig out something sooner or later
which they or others can apply to the
benefit of the industry.
Upon the whole, I think that the
present case of the trap-nest method of
increasing egg production stands very
much as it is has always stood, being a
commendable thing for small breeders
who could afford the time, but not
practical in a large way, except at
experiment stations. On a large
commercial scale the system of
selecting sires by the collective work
of his first year's offspring would
probably get the quickest results.
 The best use of the funds of the
people in the promotion of agricultural
industries is in the permanent
endorsement on the one hand of a few
high grade research stations where the
deeper theories may be worked out, and
on the other the teaching of such good
principles and practices as are already
known.
The greatest opportunity for
Government effort lies in the
development demonstration farm work
in poultry Just as it is doing with the
corn and cotton in the South.
 CHAPTER XVI
POULTRY ON THE
GENERAL FARM
This chapter will be devoted to
specific directions for the profitable
keeping of chickens on the typical
American farm. By typical American
farm I mean the farm west of Ohio,
north of Tennessee and east of
Colorado. Farms outside this section
present different problems. In the
region mentioned about three-quarters
of the American poultry and egg crop
is produced, and in this section poultry
keeping is more profitable when
conducted as a part of general farm
operations than as an exclusive
business.
There is no reason why a farmer
should not be a poultry fancier if he
desires, but in that case his special
interest in his chickens would throw
him out of the class we are at present
considering. Likewise, I do not doubt
that in many instances where the
farmer or members of his family took
special interest in poultry work, it
would be profitable to increase the size
of operations beyond those herein
advised, using incubators and keeping
Leghorns. Of these exceptions the
farmer himself must judge. The rules I
lay down are for those farmers who
wish to keep chickens for profit, but do
not care to devote any larger share of
their time and study to them than they
do to the cows, hogs, orchard or
garden.
The advice herein given in this
chapter will differ from much of the
advice given to farmers by poultry
writers. The average poultry editor is
afraid to give specific advice
concerning breeds, incubators, etc.,
because he fears to offend his
advertisers. The reader, left to judge
for himself, is liable to pick out some
fancy impractical variety or method.
 Best Breeds for the Farm.
Keep only one variety of chickens.
Do not bother with other varieties of
poultry unless it is turkeys. Whether it
will pay to raise turkeys will depend
upon your success with the little turks,
and on the freedom of the community
from the disease called Black-head.
The kind of chicken you should keep
should be picked from the three
following breeds: Barred Plymouth
Rock, White Wyandotte, Rhode Island
Reds. If you go outside of these three
breeds be sure you have a very good
reason for doing so.
Then get a start with a new breed,
buy at least four sittings of eggs in a
single season, paying not over $2.00
per sitting. Keep all the pullets and a
half dozen of the best cockerels. The
next spring pen these pullets up with
the best cockerels, and use none but
eggs from this pen for hatching. That
fall sell all of the young cockerels and
all the old scrub hens. The second
spring the two old roosters from the
original purchased eggs are used with
the general flock. From this time on the
entire flock is pure bred and should
remain so.
Each year when the chicks are about
six or eight weeks old pick out the
largest, most vigorous male chick from
each brood. Mark these by clipping the
web of the foot or putting on leg bands.
From those so marked the breeding
cockerels for the next season are later
selected. When you pick the good
cockerels pick out all runty looking
pullets and cut off the last joint of the
hind toe. These runts are later to be
eaten or sold. The more surplus chicks
raised, the more strictly can the
selection be made.
This system of picking the best
cockerel from each brood and
discarding the poorest pullets is the
most practical method known of
building up a vigorous, quick growing
and early laying strain.
When we allow the entire flock of
many different ages to grow up before
the selection is made it is impossible to
select intelligently.
Every third or fourth year an extra
cock bird may be purchased provided
you are sure you are getting a specimen
from a better flock than your own.
Swapping roosters or eggs every year is
poor policy. If your neighbor has better
stock than you, get his blood pure and
sell off your own, but do not keep a
barnyard full of scrubs who can trace
their ancestry to every flock in the
neighborhood.

Keep Only Workers.

On many farms few eggs are
gathered from October to January. This
is a season when eggs bring the best
prices. To secure eggs at this season,
the first requisite is that the pullets be
hatched between the first of March and
the middle of May, or, in the case of
Leghorns, between the first of April
and the first of June. Pullets hatched
later than these dates are a source of
expense during the fall and early
winter. On the other hand, it is an
unnecessary waste of effort to hatch
pullets before the dates mentioned,
because, if hatched too early, they will
molt in the fall and stop laying the
same as old hens.
Pullets must be well fed and cared
for if expected to develop in the time
allowed. As they begin to show signs of
maturity they should be gotten into
permanent quarters. If allowed to begin
laying while roosting in coops or in
trees they will be liable to quit when
changed to new quarters. If possible the
coops should be gradually moved
toward the hen-house and the pullets
gotten into quarters without excitement
or confinement. The poultry-house
should have an ample circulation of
fresh air. Young stock that have been
roosting in open coops are liable to
catch cold if confined in tight houses.
A common mistake is to allow a
large troop of young roosters to
overrun the premises in the early fall.
Not only is money lost in the decrease
in price that can be obtained for these
cockerels, but the pullets are greatly
annoyed, to the detriment of the egg
yield.
Any chicken that is not paying for its
food in growth or in egg production is a
source of loss. As soon as the hatching
season is over old roosters should be
sent to market. Through June and
August egg production is not very
profitable, and a thorough culling of
the hens should be made. Market all
hens two years or more of age. Send
with these all the yearling hens that
appear fat and lazy. By the time the
young pullets are ready to be moved
into quarters—the latter part of August
—these hens should be reduced to
about one-half the original number.
Some time during September a final
culling of the old stock should be
made. Those that have not yet begun to
molt should be sold, as they will not be
laying again before the warm days of
the following February. This system of
culling will leave the best portion of
the yearling hens, which, together with
the early-hatched pullets, will make a
profitable flock of layers.

Hatching Chicks With Hens

The eggs for hatching should be
stored in a cool, dry location at a
temperature between forty and seventy
degrees Fahrenheit. A good rule is not
to set eggs over two weeks old.
The two chief losses with sitting-
hens are due to lice and interference of
other hens. The practice of setting hens
in the chicken-house makes both these
difficulties more troublesome. Almost
all farms will have some outbuilding
situated apart from the regular chicken-
house that can be used for sitting-hens.
The most convenient arrangement will
be to use boxes, and have these open at
the top. They may be placed in rows
and a plank somewhat narrower than
the boxes used as a cover. The nests
should be made by throwing a shovel
of earth into the box and then shaping a
nest of clean straw. Make the nest
roomy enough so that as the hen steps
into the nest the eggs will spread apart
readily and not be broken. When a hen
shows signs of broodiness remove her
to the sitting-room. This should be
done in the evening, so that the hen
becomes accustomed to her position by
daylight. Place the hen upon the nest-
eggs and confine her to the nest. If all
is well the next evening give her a full
setting of eggs.
A practical method to arrange for
sitting-hens is to build the nests out of
doors, allowing each hen a little yard,
so that she may have liberty to leave
her nest as she chooses. These nests
may be built by using twelve-inch
boards set on edge, so as to form a
series of small runways about one by
six feet. In one end are built the nests,
which are covered by a broad board,
while the remainder of the arrangement
is covered with lath or netting. The
food, grit and water should be placed at
the opposite end of the runway. Care
should be taken to locate these nests on
well-drained ground. Arrangements
should be made to close the front of the
nest during hatching so that the chicks
will not drop out. A contrivance of this
kind furnishes a very convenient
method of handling sitting-hens, and if
no separate building is available would
be the best method to use.

Incubators on the Farm.

My candid advice to the farmer who
is in doubt as whether to buy an
incubator or not, is to let it alone. If the
farmer reads the chapter on artificial
incubation, he will see that he is
dealing with a very complex problem,
and one in which his chances of
success are not very great.
In order to learn the facts concerning
incubators on the farms the writer
made a special investigation on the
subject while poultryman at the Kansas
Experiment Station. Replies received
from 111 Kansas farmers, report 21 as
having tried incubators. Of these, 6
reported the incubators as being an
improvement over hatching with hens;
10 reported the incubator as being
successful, but not better than hens,
while the remaining 5 declared the
incubator to be a failure. The results of
this inquiry, and of personal visits to
farms, led the writer to believe that
about one-tenth of the farmers of
Kansas had tried incubators, and that
about as many failed as succeeded with
artificial hatching.
The argument for the incubator on
the farm is certainly not one of better
hatching, but there is an argument, and
a good one for the farm incubator. The
argument is this: Hens will not set
early enough and in sufficient
quantities to get out as large a number
of chicks as the farmer may desire.
Now, each hen will not hatch over 10
chicks, but is capable of caring for at
least 30. Here the incubator comes into
good use, for the farmer can set a half
dozen hens along with the incubator,
and give all the chicks to the hens. This
is the method I recommend where an
incubator is to be used. The
development of the public hatchery
would supply these other 20 chicks
more economically and more certainly
than the farm incubator, but until that
institution becomes established the
more ambitious farm poultry raisers
are justified in trying an incubator.
The best known incubators in the
market are the Cyphers, the Model and
the Prairie State. Cheaper machines are
liable to do poor work. The following
points may help the farmer in deciding
whether or not to buy an incubator and
in picking out a good machine.
The person to run the incubator is
the first condition of its success. A
good incubator requires attention twice
a day. One person should give this
attention, and must give it regularly
and carefully. The farmer's wife or
some younger member of the family
can often give more time and interest
to this work than can the farmer. The
likelihood of a person's success with
artificial hatchers can best be
determined by himself.
The best location for an incubator is
a moderately damp cellar. The next
choice would be a room in the house
away from the fire or from windows.
Drafts of air blowing on the machine
are especially to be avoided. Not only
do they affect the temperature directly,
but cause the lamp to burn irregularly,
and this may result in fire.
The objects in view in building an
incubator are: (1) To keep the eggs at a
proper temperature (103 degrees on a
level with the top of the eggs). (2) To
cause the evaporation of moisture from
the eggs at a normal rate. (3) To
prevent the eggs from resting too long
in one position.
The case of the incubator should be
built double, or triple-walled, to
withstand variation in the outside
temperature. The doors should fit
neatly and be made of double glass.
The lamp should be made of the best
material, and the wick of sufficient
width that the temperature may be
maintained with a low blaze. The most
satisfactory place for the lamp is at the
end of the machine, outside the case.
Regulators composed of two metals,
such as aluminum and steel, are best.
Wafers filled with ether or similar
liquid are more sensitive but weaker in
action. Hard-rubber bars are frequently
used.
The most practical system of
controlling evaporation is a system of
forced ventilation, in which the air is
heated around the lamp-flue and passes
through the egg-chamber at a rate
determined by ventilators in the bottom
of the machine. With the outside air
cold and dry only slight current is
required, but as the outer air becomes
warmer or damper more circulation is
needed.
Turning the egg is not the work that
many imagine it to be. It is not
necessary that the egg be turned with
absolute precision and regularity. An
elaborate device for this work is
useless. The trays will need frequently
to be removed and turned around or
shifted, and the eggs can be turned at
this time by lifting out a few on one
side of the tray and rolling the others
over.
Two other points to be considered in
the incubator are: A suitable nursery or
place for the newly hatched chick, and
a good thermometer.

Rearing Chicks.
 If it is very early in the spring, and
the ground is damp, it is best to put the
hen and her brood in some building.
During the most of the season the best
thing is an outdoor coop. The first
consideration in making a chicken-
coop is to see that it is rain-proof and
rat-tight. The next thing to look for is
that the coop is not air-tight. Let the
front be of rat-tight netting or heavy
screen. The same general plan may be
used for small coops for hens, or for
larger coops to be used as colony-
houses for growing chickens. The
essentials are: A movable floor raided
on cleats, a sliding front covered with
rat-tight netting, and a hood over the
front to keep the rain from beating in.
If used late in the fall or early in the
spring a piece of cloth should be tacked
on the sliding front.
The chicken-coops should not be
bunched up, but scattered out over as
much ground as is convenient. Neither
should they remain long in one spot,
but should be shifted a few feet each
day. At first water should be provided
at each coop, but as the chickens grow
older they may be required to come to
a few central water pans.
As before suggested, rearing chicks
with hens is the only suitable method
for general farm practice. The brooder
on the farm is an expensive nuisance.
For brooder raised chicks it is
necessary to provide means for the
little chick to exercise. But in the
season when the great majority of farm
chicks are raised they may be placed
out of doors from the start and the
trouble will now be to keep them from
getting too much exercise, i.e.: to keep
the hens from chasing around with
them especially in the wet grass. This
is properly prevented by keeping the
brood coops in plowed ground, and
keeping the hens confined by a slatted
door, until the chicks are strong enough
to follow her readily.
The chick should not be fed until 48
to 72 hours old. It may then be started
on the same kind of food as is to form
its diet in after life. The hard boiled
egg and bread and milk diets are
wholly unnecessary and are only a
waste of time.
I recommend the same system of
chick feeding for the general farm as is
used on commercial plants, and I
especially insist that it will pay the
farmer to provide meat food of some
sort for his growing chicks. The
amount eaten will not be large, nor
need the farmer fear that supplying the
chicks with meat food will prevent
their consuming all the bugs and
worms that come their way.
Besides comfortable quarters, the
chick to thrive, must have: Exercise,
water, grit, a variety of grain food,
green or succulent food, and meat food.
 Water should be provided in shallow
dishes. This can best be arranged by
having a dish with an inverted can or
bottle which allows only a little water
to stand in the drinking basin.
Chicks running at large on gravelly
ground need no provision for grit.
Chicks on board floors or clay soils
must be provided with either coarse
sand or chick grit, such as is sold for
the purpose.
Grain is the principal, and, too often,
the only food of the chick. The
common farm way of feeding grain to
young chickens is to mix corn-meal
and water and feed in a trough or on the
ground. There is no particular
advantage in this way of feeding, and
there are several disadvantages. The
feed is all in a bunch, and the weaker
chicks are crowded out, while if wet
feed is thrown on the ground or in a
dirty trough the chicks must swallow
the adhering filth, and if any food is
left over it quickly sours and becomes
a menace to health. Some people mix
dough with sour milk and soda and
bake this into a bread. The better way
is to feed all of the grain in a natural
dry condition.
There are foods in the market known
as chick foods. The commercial foods
contain various grains and seeds,
together with meat and grit. Their use
renders chick feeding quite a simple
matter, it being necessary to supply in
addition only water and green foods.
For those who wish to prepare their
own chick foods the following
suggestions are given:
Oatmeal is probably the best grain
food for chicks. Oats cannot be suitably
prepared, however, in a common feed-
mill. The hulled oats are what is
wanted. They can be purchased as the
common rolled oats, or sometimes as
cut or pin-head oatmeal. The latter
form would be preferred, but either of
these is an excellent chick feed. Oats in
these forms are expensive and should
be purchased in bulk, not in packages.
If too expensive, oats should be used
only for a few days, when they may be
replaced by cheaper grains. Cracked
corn is the best and cheapest chick
food. Flaxseed could be used in small
quantities. Kaffir-corn, wheat, cow-
peas—in fact any wholesome grain—
may be used, the more variety the
better. Farmers possessing feed-mills
have no excuse for feeding chicks
exclusively on one kind of grain. If
there is no way of grinding corn on the
farm, oatmeal, millet seed and corn
chop can be purchased. At about one
week of age whole Kaffir-corn, and, a
little later whole wheat, can be used to
replace the more expensive feeds.
Green or bulky food of some kind is
necessary to the healthy growth of
young chickens. Chickens fed in litter
from clover or alfalfa will pick up
many bits of leaves. This answers the
purpose fairly well, but it is advisable
to feed some leafy vegetable, as kale or
lettuce. The chicks should be gotten on
some growing green crop as soon as
possible.
Chickens are not by nature
vegetarians. They require some meat to
thrive. It has been proven in several
experiments that young chickens with
an allowance of meat foods make much
better growth than chickens with a
vegetable diet, even when the chemical
constituents and the variety of the two
rations are practically the same.
Very few farmers feed any meat
whatever. They rely on insects to
supply the deficiency. This would be
all right if the insects were plentiful
and lasted throughout the year, but as
conditions are it will pay the farmer to
supplement this source of food with the
commercial meat foods.
Fresh bone, cut by bone-cutters, is an
excellent source of the meat and
mineral matter needed by growing
chicks. If one is handy to a butcher
shop that will agree to furnish fresh
bones at little or no cost, it will pay to
get a bone-mill, but the cost of the mill
and labor of grinding are considerable
items, and unless the supply of bones is
reliable and convenient this source of
meat foods is not to be depended upon.
The best way to feed beef-scrap is to
keep a supply in the hopper so the
chickens may help themselves. In case
meat food is given, bone-meal, fed in
small quantities, will form a valuable
addition to their ration. Infertile eggs
from incubators, as well as by-products
of the dairy, can be used to help out in
the animal-food portion of the ration.
Chickens may be given all the milk
they will drink. It is generally
recommended that this be given
clabbered.

Feeding Laying Hens.

The food requirements of a laying
hen are very like those of a growing
chicken. One addition to the list is,
however, required for egg production,
which is lime, of which the shell of the
egg is formed. In the summer-time
hens on the range will find sufficient
lime to supply their needs. In the
winter-time they should be supplied
with more lime than the food contains.
Crushed oyster shell answers the
purpose admirably.
A supply of green food is one of the
requisites of successful winter feeding.
Every farmer should see that a patch of
rye, crimson clover, or some other
winter green crop is grown near his
chicken-house. Vegetables and refuse
from the kitchen help out in this
matter, but seldom furnish a sufficient
supply. Vegetables may be grown for
this purpose. Mangels and sugar-beets
are excellent. Cabbage, potatoes and
turnips answer the purpose fairly well.
Mangels are fed by splitting in halves
and sticking to nails driven in the wall.
Clover and alfalfa are excellent
chicken feeds and should be used in
regions where winter crops will not
keep green. The leaves that shatter off
in the mow are the choicest portion for
chicken feeding, and may be fed by
scalding with hot water and mixing in a
mash. Hens will eat good green alfalfa
if fed dry in a box.
The feeding of sprouted oats should
be practiced when no other green food
is available. Oats may be prepared for
this purpose by thoroughly soaking in
warm water and being kept in a warm,
damp place for a few days. Feed when
the sprouts are a couple of inches long.
Almost all grains are suitable foods
for hens. Corn, on account of its
cheapness and general distribution, is
the best. The general prejudice against
corn feeding should be directed rather
against feeding one grain alone without
the other forms of food. If hens are
supplied with green foods, with
mineral matter, some form of meat
food, and are forced to take sufficient
amount of exercise, the danger from
overfatness, due to the feeding of a
reasonable amount of corn, need not be
feared.
As has already been emphasized, the
variety of food given is more essential
than the kind. Do not feed one grain all
the time. The more variety fed the
better. Corn and Kaffir-corn, being
cheap grains, will form the major
portion of the ration, but, even if much
higher in price, it will pay to add a
portion of such grain as wheat, barley,
oats or buckwheat.

Cleanliness.
The advice commonly given in
poultry papers would require one to
exercise nearly as much pains in the
cleaning of a chicken house as in the
cleaning of a kitchen. Such advice may
be suitable for the city poultry fanciers,
but it is out of place when given to the
farmer. Poultry raising, the same as
other farm work, must pay for the labor
put into it, and this will not be the case
if attempt is made to follow all the
suggestions of the theoretical poultry
writer.
The ease with which the premises
may be kept reasonably free from litter
and filth is largely a matter of
convenient arrangement. The handiest
plan from this view-point is the colony
system. In this the houses are moved to
new locations when the ground
becomes soiled. If the chicken-house is
a stationary structure it should be built
away from other buildings, scrap-piles,
fence corners, etc., so that the ground
can be frequently freshened by plowing
and sowing in oats, rye or rape. The
ground should be well sloped, so that
the water draining from the surface
may wash away much of the filth that
on level ground would accumulate.
Cleanliness indoors can be
simplified by proper arrangement.
First, the house must be dry. Poultry
droppings, when dry, are not a source
of danger if kept out of the feed. They
should be removed often enough to
prevent foul odors. Drinking vessels
should be rinsed out when refilled and
not allowed to accumulate a coat of
slime. If a mash is fed, feed-boards
should be scraped off and dried in the
sun. Sunshine is a cheap and efficient
disinfectant.
The advice on the control of lice and
the method of handling sick chickens
that has been given in the main section
of the book, will apply as well on the
farm as on the commercial poultry
plant. Certainly the farmer's time is too
valuable to fool with the details of
poultry therapeutics.

Farm Chicken Houses.

The following notes on poultry
houses apply to Iowa and Nebraska,
where the winters are severe, and
similar climates. Farther south and east
the farmer should use the same style of
houses as recommended for egg farms.
A chicken house just high enough for a
man to walk erectly and a floor space
of about 3 square feet per hen is
advisable. This requires a house 12 by
24 for 100 hens, or 10 by 16 for 50.
Lands sloping to south or southeast,
and that which dries quickly after a
rain, will prove the most suitable for
chickens. A gumbo patch should not be
selected as a location for poultry. Hogs
and hens should not occupy the same
quarters, in fact, should be some
distance apart, especially if heavy
breeds of chickens are kept. Hens
should be removed from the garden,
but may be near an orchard. Chicken-
houses should be separated from tool-
houses, stables, and other outbuildings.
Grading for chicken-houses is not
commonly practiced, but this is the
easiest means of preventing dampness
in the house and is necessary in heavy
soils. The ground-level may be raised
with a plow and scraper, or the
foundation of the house may be built
and filled with dirt.
A stone foundation is best, but where
stone is expensive may be replaced by
cedar, hemlock or Osage orange posts,
deeply set in the ground. Small houses
can be built on runners as described for
colony houses for an egg farm.
Floors are commonly constructed of
earth, boards or cement. Cement floors
are perfectly sanitary and easy to keep
clean. The objections to their common
use is the first cost of good cement
floors. Cheaply constructed floors will
not last. Board floors are very common
and are preferred by many poultrymen,
but if close to the ground they harbor
rats, while if open underneath they
make the house cold. Covering wet
ground by a board floor does not
remedy the fault of dampness nearly so
effectually as would a similar
expenditure spent in raising the floor
and surrounding ground by grading. All
things considered, the dirt floor is the
most suitable. This should be made by
filling in above the outside ground-
level. The drainage will be facilitated if
the first layer of this floor be of
cinders, small rocks or other coarse
material. Above this layer should be
placed a layer of clay, wet and packed
hard, so the hens cannot scratch it up,
or a different plan may be used and the
floor constructed of a sandy or loamy
soil of which the top layer can be
renewed each year.
The walls of a chicken-house must
first of all be wind-tight. This may be
attained in several ways. Upright
boards with cracks battened is the
cheapest method. Various kinds of lap-
siding give similar results. The single-
board wall may be greatly improved by
lining with building-paper. This should
be put on between the studding and
siding. Lath should also be used to
prevent the paper bagging out from the
wall. The double-board wall is the best
where a warm house is desired.
It should be made by siding up
outside the studding with cheap
lumber. On this is placed a layer of
roofing paper and over it the ordinary
siding. The windows of a chicken-
house should furnish sufficient light
that the hens may find grain in the
litter on cloudy days. Too much glass
in a poultry house makes the house
cold at night, and it is a needless
expenditure.
The subject of roofing farm
buildings may be summarized in this
advice: Use patent roofing if you know
of a variety that will last; if not, use
shingles. Shingle roofs require a
steeper pitch than do roofs of prepared
roofing. A shingle roof can be made
much warmer by using tightly laid
sheathing covered with building-paper.
Especial care should be taken that the
joints at the eaves of the house are
tightly fitted.
The object of ventilating a chicken-
house is to supply a reasonable amount
of fresh air, and, equally important, to
keep the house dry. Ventilation should
not be by cracks or open cupolas.
Direct drafts of air are injurious, and
ventilation by such means is always the
greatest when the least needed.
Schemes of ventilation by a system
of pipes are expensive and
unnecessary. The latest, best and
cheapest plan for providing ventilation
is the curtain front house for the north,
and the open front house for the more
southerly sections. The curtain front
house is giving way to the open front
with a somewhat smaller opening in
sections, as far north as Connecticut.
Make all roosts on the same level.
The ladder arrangement is a nuisance
and offers no advantage. Arrange the
roosts so that they may be readily
removed for cleaning. Do not fill the
chicken-house full of roosts. Put in
only enough to accommodate the hens,
and let these be on one side of the
house. The floor under the roosts
should be separated from the feeding
floor by a board set on edge.
For laying flocks the nests must be
clean, secluded and plentiful. Boxes
under the roost-platform will answer,
but a better plan is to have the nest
upon a shelf along a side wall so
arranged as to allow the hen to enter
from the rear side. Nests should be
constructed so that all parts are
accessible to a white-wash brush. The
less contrivances in a chicken-house,
the better.
The farmer can get along very well
without any chicken-yard at all. It will,
however, prove a very convenient
arrangement if a small yard is attached
to the chicken-house. The house should
be arranged to open either into the yard
or out into the range. This yard may be
used for fattening chickens or
confining cockerels, or perhaps to
enclose the flock during the ripening of
a favorite tomato or berry crop.
 THE END.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of

The Dollar Hen, by Milo M. Hastings

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