We hear a good deal said in these days about the 200 egg hen. Some are disposed to deny her existence, and to class her with such fabulous or semi-fabulous birds as the phoenix and dodo. Others admit that she has appeared in isolated instances, but is by no means common. Others contend that if she should appear in large numbers it would be a…

Raising the chicks has been named as the most difficult "poultry problem" and some poultrymen say that "everything else is easy." If one begins right, with well born chicks, chick rearing ought not to prove so very difficult. What is meant by beginning right?

For success the rearing of chicks should begin with the parent stock. You must have…

CONTENTS

Twenty-four cuts of the most popular breeds.

It tells how to erect the best poultry house in use; gives cuts the number of feet of material, cost, etc., etc.

It tells you how to test your eggs so they will hatch, and gives cuts showing different stages of fertility.

It tells you the effect of altitude on the hen and…

Few subjects have been so much discussed as that of raising chickens. There are grounds for supposing that the first thing Adam and Eve did after their investigation of the forbidden brought up the problem of the high cost of living was to turn to the hen for a solution.

And there are equally good grounds for believing that the hen made good.…

Everybody who has followed the development of the poultry interests in this country during the past few years knows that we have made wonderful progress in our knowledge and methods of caring for these profit producing animals.

This work has been taken up and carried on by both state and private parties and the results of these researches have…

CHAPTER I STOCK — GOOD AND BAD

In making a start with poultry, to select a good breed and, within that breed, the most suitable variety, is important. The statement reads tritely, but the truth involved is often hidden from the beginner. Since poultry-raising may be entered into, on a small scale, with little capital, and since accounts of big…

MY DEAR FRIEND: — Now I am going to write a pretty long introduction; but I want to know all the people who have sent for this book and I want you all to know me WELL. Know me well enough to have confidence in me that I will do just what I say I will and give you a good square deal. So I want you to read this through.

The old saying, "Nothing…

The method of treatment adopted in this book is the simple, scientific method, — that of presenting essential facts in logical order. The following of this method has led to some departures from the conventional way of presenting poultry topics. The unity of the poultry group is here conceived as essential and arising from the nature of the birds,…

To close one's eyes and dream of a home in the country with its lawns, its gardens, its flowers, its songs of birds and drone of bees, proves the sentimental in man, but he is not practical who cannot call into fancy's realm the cackle of the hen.

Having conceded her a legitimate place in the scheme of the country home, good housing is of the…