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OR, HOW TO MAKE

Poultry Culture Profitable.

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CHICAGO, “i SHINGS eens
AMERICAN POULTRY JOURNAL ———
1885.

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Hntered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, by
C.J. WARD,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congtess, at Washington.

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PREFACE.

In view of the universal and increasing interest in Poultry Culture
and its great and growing magnitude, and the general earnest in-
quiry coming from everywhere concerning this pursuit, its princi-
ples and its profits and remarking the generalinacquaintance among
the masses with the fundamental facts and plainest principles that
underlie and control this industry, as related to, and assisted by
modern science, we have thought it essential to success to place be-
fore the general public, the new beginner and all who are interested
in anyway in poultry, its underlieing principles, without a full
knowledge of which no one can foresee or shape the issues of his
enterprise, and cannot, therefore, wisely decide to engage in it with
capital, healthful confidence and assurance of safety. The mission
of this book is to formulate such facts and to afford the philosophy
upon which they are founded. In other words we aim to offer in
clear and simple style the essential principles of Poultry Culture
which control and place this important industry upon a reliable busi-
ness basis. We offer it to all with our fraternal regards and hope
that each will be pleased and profited by it and anxious to assist in
sending everywhere its fruitful truths by consciously commending
its merit, T. B. SPALDING.

INDEX.

OHAPTER I. PAGE.

Standard and Commercial Poultry Culture, - - - 5
OHAPTER Il.

Poultry Culture Conducive to Happiness, &c., - - Eps 5
OHAPTER III. ‘

The New Industry Assumes Two Forms, &c., - - - 21
CHAPTER IV.

The Inherited Need of this Industry, &c., - - - -

CHAPTER Y.

Incubators, Use of Electricity, &c., - - - -
CHAPTER VI.

Author’s Experience with Incubators, - - - 50
OHAPTER VII.

The Influence of Heat upon the Eggs, - - - - 63
CHAPTER VIII.

Food. Food in its Relation to Life, &c., - - - -
OHAPTER Ix. ,

Chicker Cholera, when it may be expected, &c., = - 7
CHAPTER X.

Roup. Whatitis. Its relative and real Importance. - -

CHAPTER XI.
Gapes. Whatit Resembles compared to Croup. = - =

CHAPTER XII.

A Poultry Farm, Divisions into three parts. - - oI
CHAPTER XIII.

The Principals of Standard Poultry Culture, - - ~ 100
CHAPTER XIV.

The difficulties this Industry has to Overcome. = a 111
OHAPTER XV.

The Cost of Raising Broilers, &c., - - - - 118

CHAPTER XVI.
Poultry Farm for Eggs. - - - = - => 5

Standard and Commercial
Poultry Culture.

a
CHAPTER I.

OULTRY Culture, though carelessly conducted and
f scarcely ever studied or sustained by confidence and cap-
ital, is yet, the largest, the most important and profitable
of any business product of the United States to-day.
Though frequent failures attend the reckless attempts to build vast
fortunes from this pursuit at once without capital, without exper-
ience and without a just conception of what i3 required to insure
success, yet, we fearlessly affirm that no other avocation on earth
will average a larger net return for the time and study, the talent,
care and capital involved than poultry culture. We reluctautly af-
firm that there is no other known industry so little studied and with
whose plainest principles the people at large are so generally unac-
quainted

Wherever an Incubator is operated in public, itis marvelous to note
the vast numbers who inquire, ‘‘Show long it takes the machine to
hatch, and how is it possible for the chick to escape from the egg
without the assistance of the hen?”’

Poultry Culture as a scientific industry is really in its infancy and
the idea that study and science and principles are involved surpasses
the modest comprehension of many.

Indecd the almost universal idea is that poultry culture, like Di-

6 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

vine Grace and Christian Virtues, are all good, and wise, and well as
ornamental indulgences, if only one is not asked to study it, to be
governed by its principles, and above all, it must not cost anything.
Then at once it generates difficulties and doubts and if its claims be
honestly advocated and a little pressed, suspicion is started, that

though the advocate is doubtless sincere, he is certainly overly san-
guine.

Zeal is certainly an essential element in the prosecution of any en-
terprise and he who succeeds in any avocation must, like the intelli-
gent, progressive poultryman, ‘‘drink deeply at the well of enthusi-
asm.’? The deeper his devotion the more efficient his service and
the more he magnifies the merits of his cause.

Poultry Culture, like every other occupation, should be prosecuted
as a profession by those who especially love it; for, such an impet-
us, or inspiration, through all past history, has been the surest guar-
antee to great success. Thus, from the love-labor, the ardent zeal,
or inspiration of Luther, Melancthon, Bacon, Washington, Noah
Webster, Franklin, and Fulton, were Religion and Liberty and Liter-
ature, and their offsprings, Phylosophy, Invention, the Arts and
Sciences all rescued and resurrected from the fog and fable of slum-
bering ages and given a firm foundation on the high and luminous
plain of history. The benedictions that have descended upon the
whole human family from the intelligent zeal and service of these
sages have covered the world likea manile of light, have enshrined’
their names in remembrance that will continue co-eval with all com-
ing ages and perish only with time and the solemn temples and the
great Globe, itself.

But, these services, however great, do not discourage nor close the
avenues to other altitudes resplendent with rare and equal distinec-
tion. Bacon, first of all philosophers that, ever lived, broke boldly
away from the forms and fashions about and before him, and, tear-
ing the falsehood and flowers from the face of philosophy, he taught
and popularized the sublime conception and practical truth, that
rather than wrangle amid the vapors and vagaries of metaphysical
distinctions, the higher and holier and wiser work for the common
sense people of this world is, to learn what is useful first and whatis
ornamental afterwards—how to earn an honest daily living and how
to earn and make good shoes and clothes.

And so, Dear Friends, of all the great questions that crowd and

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 4
comfort and confound the age, how little, indeed, of all, or any that
is universally useful do we really know? In the so-called learned
professions; the law, the ministry, and medicine, and in agriculture,
or the application of science to the furtherance of any of the great
business industries—the frequent failures and the universal disaster
and distress result from want of practical acquaintance with the es-
sential principles and the details demanded in each respective avo-
cation. There is nosaying more trite and true, more sensible and
suggestive than that, ‘‘ The man may wisely be feared who has deeply
drank in and digested one worthy work.’’ Rather let me say that
thoroughness is advised in every thing.

The purpose, therefore, of these plain and unpretentious.pages is
to discuss impartially the principles of poultry culture—to place
fairly before those who do me the compliment of their careful con-
sideration of a few facts drawn from study and experience in the in-
terest of poultry culture as a profession, because the pertinent ques-
tions ccme up from everywhere, ‘‘ Will poultry cultnre on a large
scale pay ?”? In other words, are there any clear and certain princi-
ples of universal application upon which the enterprise of poultry
culture may be safely and profitably prosecuted and enlarged to com-
mercial magnitude? Arethe inherent qualities of the hen, her diet
for different duties, and her diseases, and the exciting and predispos-
ing causes that contribute to all her ills yet known? There are sure and
sensible preventives, and, are there high and hopeful hygienic laws
that relate as reliably to fowls as to the human family ? Can the

principles and proper mating for market and for ideal standard
' specimens be confidently prescribed, and can ovulation in hens be
urged, increased, or restrained, or safely stopped at will ; and are the
priciples of incubation fully understood, and can natures whole
operations in the dcjicate processes of incubation be plainly pointed
out, and all of nature’s requirements as completely met by the ap-
plication of science and educated common sense as by the ancient
slow and uncertain system of setting hens ? In short, is there any-
where an authoritative publication asserting the principles of poul-
try culture covering these and other kindred questions?

The absence of such a book and continued inquiry suggest the
necessity for some such authoritative declaration of principles ; and
will, we trust, be an acceptable apology for offering this book.

In all we shall offer, or assert in this work we shall aim to be hon-

8 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY JOURNAL.

est, and our highest hope in being able to satisfy all of our sincerity
is, in every thing we offer togive the reasonwhy. Thus are the writer
and reader on equal footing and all enabled to see the force, or folly
of every idea. Thus shall we hope to bar that brainless charge of
“‘ offering only theory.”’

To those who dogmatically deal only in the delicious diet of their
own expericnee there seems to be, somehow, an insufferable sensi-
tiveness when scientific truth corrects some antiquated error. EHs-
pecially to those who are innocent of all ideas, there is an in-
herent odium inseparably associated with the epithet of ‘‘ Theory.”
Whenever an old physcian relaxes his grip on professional principles
and for twenty, or thirty years ruminates back and about over pro-
fessional pastures that have been closely picked and beaten down and.
dry, he always infiates with self-sufficiency and wraps about in rai-
ment of perfect experimental self-righteourness and from the throne |
of such immaculate wisdom he hurls the terrible taunt of ‘‘theory”’
at the clearer heads of all who love the light and seek the truth and
offer to all some sensible reasons : so every body may clearly under-
stand just what they intend to do.

What is theory ? Why theory is the principle by which any opera-
tion is done. We build housesand cultivate commerce and calculate
time and tides and do all the wonderous workings of the world
through theory. Those, who, therefore, deride its dictates afflrm, in
effect, that they are blind and unguided. Theory sent Columbus in
search of the New World. Theory cpened the golden gates and re-
vealed the mathematical grandeur in the deep and delicate prob-
lems of astromical science. Theory unfolded to Fulton and Frank-
lin the practical utility of steam and lightning and Theory has been
the motive power in all the brains behind all the discoveries and in-
ventions, all the arts and sciences and agencies that have advanced
the world on and up to the full blaze of glory that illumines the nine-
teenth century. Theory is the strand of classified pearls of the im-
mortal mind. Theory is the essence of intellect, the royal child of
cultured thought. While we love intelligent experience as our
mother we embrace intelligent theory as our wife. And so in our
onward march through the theme before us, we shall aim to so asso-
ciate the two and make our thought, our principles, our theory so
plain, so practical, so self-evident that even ‘‘ the wayfaring man, ”’
the overly captious may comprehend and be content, and so, without

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 9

further exordium, we enter, upon our subject.

CHAPTER II.

POULTRY CULTURE CONDUSIVE TO HAPPINESS AND HOME CONTENTMENT.

SF HE love of animals and pets is inherent in the human
race ; and especially such as may be subservient both to
pleasure and to profit ; and thus it is, in a degree, that

domestic poultry has become almost as universal as vege-
tation and indigenous in every door yard. The private importance
of poultry culture can only be estimated in the absence of fresh eggs
and spring chickens which must certainly ensue unless ones-self, or
others prosecute this pleasent pursuit in excess of self supply. In-
deed, were these denied the epicure, the rarest luxuries of modern
life were lost and cook and kitchen soon would lose their potent
power ‘‘ tosooth the savage breast.’’ Coffee and cake, confection-
ary, pastry and pies and pudding all cheerfully confess the delight-

full, and all-important, the omnipotent influence of fresh and finely

flavored eggs. Nor is this infiuence exclusively confined to taste,
but enters as brain food, as we shall note ere long upward into the
divine domain of human intellect.

It is, therefore, impossible to over estimate the private importance
of this delicious and most healthful diet ; and, following the neces-
sity of their supply we come to consider the almost incredulous pub-
lic demand for poultry and poultry products; and so, we may in
some measure determine the very high commercial status of this im-
portant industry in other countries and in our own.

In a series of thoroughly elegant, full and accurate articles in the
Fanciers Gazette of 1883-4, Capt. Jas. E. White of Englewood, Ills.,
has contributed to poultry literature the statistics that cover this
question so completely that, by his courtesy, I quote at length from
a source so faultless and full:

“ Belgium, with an area of 11,373 square miles and a population of

10 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

5,253,821 is one of the smallest and most densely populated powers
' onearth. About 60 per cent. of its areais under the most exhaustive
cultivation and that being all of it that is capable of producing good
crops. In order better to understand its extent it may be stated that
Belgium is no larger than the state of Georgia while its population
is three times larger, and this little country, as shown by its statis-
tics, produces annually 274,967,824 eggs or 48 eggs for each man,
woman and child in Belgium.

This, remember, is accomplished ina country where the most per-
sistent effiort is made to cause the land to produce the food necessary —
for home consumption and where a vast amount of money is ex-
pended on the cultivation of the soil. From such a necessitous sys-
tem of farming they derive no profit from their crops and are driven
to strictest economy and subsist only by aid of poultry culture.

If such results obtain under the adverse circumstances just cited
what grand possibilities suggest themselves with infinitely better
facilities in every sense in such an avocation in a land like America.
Our soil yields the richest returns for the slightest labor and here
grain enough is annually wasted to feed the entire population of
Belgium and yet in the United States the products of poultry culture
do not meet the home demand.

‘Again France, with an area of 204,147 square miles of which
only 98,460 are capable of cultivation, realizes more than $200,000,-
000 annually from her poultry interests. The present population of
France is 38,905,788 which, if an equal distribution of land were
made, which is capable of cultivation, there would be two acres to
each, and yet, with all the disadvantages of climate and the contrac-
ed acreage and high cost of food for fowls which here abounds almost
spontaneous, France, notwithstanding, furnishes England annually
over 800,000,000 eggs. In addition to this enormous exportation to
England, the French people annually consume over 2,000,000,000
eggs, thus making a grand total of 2,800,000,000 eggs annually pro-
duced in our little sister republic. The value in cash of her impor-
tation to England annually is $13,000,000, and those consumed at
home is placed at $35,000,000, and adding to these the poultry export-
ed and consumed at home at $75,000,000,000 and $45,000,000, for stock
carried over each year and it will be seen thatthe poultry industry of
Trance represents an annual business of $168,000,000.

The egg producing districts of France being Normandy, Picardy,

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 11

Artois, Soilsonuais, Vexin and Britany, are cold and damp as cOm-
pared with this country, vastly inferior in natural and climatic con-
ditions. ‘There space being contracted, their fowls are confined and
highly fed and so subjected from crowding to sickness and contagion,
and, yet despite all these and other disadvantages the French poul-
try farmer realizes a net profit of from 15 to 85 per cent., or an aver-
age of over 20 per cent. from the poultry industry.

It will thus be seen that poultry culture in France, under a
thorough system, with climatic disadvantages, limited range and
wantof forage, the difficulties are conquered and commercial poul-
try culture made highly remunerative. But, passing from the diffl-
culties, the drawbacks, the drudgery of poultry culture and its com-
merce in foreign countries where eggs, rather than by wholesale
hatching by machinery, appears to be the main purpose of the poul-
try man, we come to consider from the same statistical source the
extent of the poultry industry in America under its present develop-
ment and its capabilities under more energetic and scientific man-
agement. Careful inquiry reveals the astounding fact that the
United States instead of producing more eggs than is required for
home consumption, imports annually over $3,000,000 worth of
eggs. We find that in 1872 we imported 6,000,000 dozens, which at
24 cents per dozen amounted to $1,440,000. The announcement that
the demand so much exceeded the supply for this article of food
- should have fertilized the growth of this industry until home pro-
duction attained such magnitude as to make importation unprofita-
ble. But it failed to attract the attention of the producing classes
and so we find that, our population constantly increasing ten years
later, or in 1882, the United States imported 13,000,000 dozen eggs
which at 24cents per dozen equaled $3,120,000.

In 1868 a convention of butter, cheese and egg producers was held
in Chicago and such reliable statistics as could be, were gathered
without a systematic effort being made in that direction and were
placed before the convention and limited though they were, they dis-
closed the fact that, the egg trade alone, amounted to $180,000,000,
and with the poultry marketed to $250,000,000 per annum. The sta-
tistics presented were very incomplete being taken from a state here
and there and in part made up from the knowledge of each in his
own locality and so the sum fixed upon did not fully represent the
value of the industry throughout the whole United States. Careful

12 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

research reveals the fact that New York State consumes and supplies
to her merchants and those of other eastern cities and states and to
vessels sailing from her ports about $90,000,000 worth of this kind
of food annually. Consider these figures a moment and you will be-
gin to realize the magnitude of this industry. But New York does
not produce what she sells or consumes. Enormous consignments
come coutinually to her markets from foreign countries and from all
over our land. Onlya small portion of what she handles is produced
within her borders. Not one-half received is consumed within the
states, the larger portion being reshipped to surrounding cities and
states, supplying vessels, places of pleasure resort, and the great ho-
tels and eating houses of the cities within a radius of thirty of forty
miles from New York City comprising a population of over fifteen
million consumers of these supplies. New York state and city con-
sumes about $45,000,000 worth of eggs and poultry annually and her
regular population of both state and city being about 5,082,871 the
average consumed by each individual in the state of New York is
about $9.00 of poultry food anually and when we consider the
interminable train of strangers that pour perpetually through her
cities the wonder is that these figures are not magnified many fold
in as much as eggs enter into nearly all our food and spring chickens
may be found on every bill of fare. The fact is that this food cannot
be furnished in sufficient quantities to meet the demand in all great
cities and it is reasonable, therefore, to assume that the consumption
of poultry food by each individual throughout the nation is as great
as in densely populated cities, anda moment’s reflection and common
sense will justify the conclusion. In wholesections of country where
agriculture forms the main pursuit, remote from cities and markets, .
where every body earns their living by manual labor which requires
much more animal food than supplies the same numbers addicted to
sedentary life and raising such food upon their farms the amount
consumed is vastly greater than in cities. In summer, when such
food is mostly needed and unable long to keep the carcass of cow,
cr calf, or hog until consumed or unable to sell, they draw their meat
supplies very largely from the feathered flocks as needed and thus
enormous numbers of eggs and fowls find their way to the table of
the farmers and feed “‘the countless millions of the sons of toil.”
Again, we may further strengthen the assumption that these supplies
are in greater demand out side of the gre -t cities by the fact that, in

‘
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“—_

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STANDARD AND COMMEROIAL ‘POULTRY OULTURE. 13

every Village and inland town in America poultry and eggs are the
universal medium of exchange between the farmer and family gro-
ceryman ;s0 that really, the inhabitants of these smaller incorpora-
tions subsist much more extensively upon poultry and eggs than the
larger and more populous cities where they are less plenty.’ The
foregoing being self-evident facts, it is therefore, modest and more
than safe to draw our data from the commerce existing in New York
as a basis for calculation with respect to the country at large.
Therefore, if New York state and city with her 5,082,871 steady
population, independent of her transient population consumes $45,-
000,000 worth of poultry and eggs annually, the United States, with
her 55,000,000 population must consume $495,000,000 worth, and in
order to determine the value of the entire poultry industry of the
country we must add to this $64,000,000 at to the value of fowls re-
tained for breeding and laying stock and $600,000 the value of blood-
ed fowls and eggs and thus it reveals the sum total for this industry
in America of $559,600,000 annually, or as the full statistics would
more than show, $600,000,000. ”’
_ Thus, we have liberally drawn from the articles and arguments
-the facts and figures of Capt. White, because the statistics are as-
tounding and yet unquestionably true, and because the research is
most thorough and the whole subject handled with that earnestness
and elegance, power and precision that merits a prominent place in
' poultry literature. The same able writer has also affirmed that, ‘““The
poultry industry in the United States surpasses by several million
dollars the annual value of wheat. ”’ P
Consulting statistics from other sources to verify the accuracy of
these statements we find his figures invariably correct. From the
circular of Mr. J. L. Campbell, of West Elizabeth, Penn., author and
manufacturer of the Eureka Incubator advertised in this work, and
commended as one of the best of machines, the author draws from
the United States statistical bureau the following which is official.
For the year 1882 the following figures reveal the cash value of the
products of the United States. Cotton, $410,000,000; hay $436,000,-
000 ; dairy products $254,000,000 ; wheat $488,000,000; poultry and
egg products, $560,000,000. Notwithstanding this, the later is the
only product we do not export. Our entire yield, which is vastly in-
_sufficient, to meet the demands, is all consumed at home and be-
sides, in 1862, statistics show we imported from foreign countries

14 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

13,000,000 dozen eggs as against 6,000,000 dozen in 1872.”’ Still the
clamor increases, the prices advance and the importation of these
supplies from foreign countries more than double with each decade,
such is the present business status of poultry culture in this country.
Statistics are the dryest of intellectual diet, and yet beyond all things
else on earth figures are fullest of truth. Mathematics reveal theac-
tual reality of things.

They have shown us that the net profits of commercial poultry
culture in foreign countries under the greatest disadvantages, are ~
from 20 to 85 per cent. They have proved that of all the products of
America eggs are mostly in demand, greater by far, beyond anything
else than the supply. And they have shown, in consequence, our an-
nual importation of eggs to reach a cash cost to this country over
$3,000,000. This vast sum goes out of this country to foreign coun-
tries annually for eggs. Why don’t we further cultivate this pleasant
and profitable industry at home ? We have seen that the state of
New York consumes $45,000,000 worth of these products annually and
this divided by her 5,000,000 population, equals $9.00 of poultry and
eggs consumed each year in the state of New York by each inhabi-
tant, and so it may be seen by multiplying our national population
of 55,000,000 inhabitants by $9.00, the amount consumed by each,
that we have $495,000,000 as the sum total for poultry and eggs con-
sumed each year in this country.

Then add $64,600.00 for stock and blooded fowls, and we reach the
enormous sum of 559,000,000., or, if full statistics could be given to
date the sum total would doubtless surpass $600,000,000.

Efforts are now being taken to make the statistics of American
products reliably complete.

Statistics have shown that in comparison wheat, the greatest agri-
cultural product in this country, is surpassed by poultry and eggs
over $72,000,000., which amount of money is over four and a half
times as much as President Jefferson paid France for the Western
half of this continent. And this $72,000,000., remember, is in excess
of the total cash value of the whole wheat crop in this, the greatest
wheat growing country on the Globe. Hogs and hay and corn and
cattle and cotton, wheat, oats and other American products are each
and all cultivated extensively in certain sections, but altogether un-
known in others, but poultry, like the blessed sunshine that imparts
its favors and force to castle and cottage, brings its benedictions

STANDARD AND COMMEROIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 15

every where, wherever humanity hath found a home, and this univer-
sality of poultry culture, explains its strength and importance and
proves that its private importance and commercial magnitude is al-
most fabulous and opens to capital and business competency the
grandest and most fruitful possibilities. And yet, this giant young
industry is but in its infancy. The worldis just awakening to this
traffic from the long dream of ages.

Until within the past few decades the idea of poultry culture as an
industry, poultry culture, as a commerce was unthought of, unknown
and ignored and, yet, a prejudice prevailed that bars the greatest re-
sults, that weakens the confidence of capital toitsclaims. The poul-
try culture of the past as compared with the present contains a gen-
eral complexion of degradation that is almost comical. Indeed an
honest cartoon or charicature of the poultry of a few years past
~ would be equally Indicrous and difficult to draw. Until within the
past 35 years the raising of poultry was never attempted by men.
The wives of a few farmers, more intelligent and enterprising than
the rest, were allowed to tolerate a few fowls that were a mongrel
mixture of all the endless varities that had cohabited together,
crossed up incestuously, ran riot and reveled in romance since the
exit from Noah’s Ark. These fowls, as I well remember them, com-
bined every conceivable shape and color and all were covered by the
truly suggestive name of “‘ Dunghill Fowl.”’ The name is not of
classic origin, but rather relates to the source whence they scratched
out a scanty sustenance. They were taught by the terrors that were
thick about, and by-the suggestions of stern necessity to enter the
realms of morpheus or retire to roost in the language of the time,
on the fence, or in the trees and to forage in the fields and gardens
and on grain stacks and in corn cribs and otherwise steal what they
could from all other well fed stock. They anually hatched their
chicks from the eggs they succeeded in hiding in the weeds and
hedges, among briars and underbrush, behind old logs and stumps,
in fence corners filled with smartweeds and fennel. Their eggs were
hunted by crows by day, and by coons and other enemies by night,
and thus these wild and wayward hens had a rough, romantic and
cheerless chance. Often against all odds, however, two or threo
came creeping and clucking out of copse and chaos with one little
sorrowful, sickly chick, and they were allowed to care for and com
_ fort it, since their time was computed of little consequence. Again,

16 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

some old blue biddy, with educated cunning above her kind, would
overcome all opposition, and, sheltered thus from the rapacity of all
around her, this long lost and finally forgotten, this ancient, earnest,
dunghill hen would at last come out from her covert with a chick for
every egg she hazarded with her life on the alter of devotion to mat-
ernal duty. The later summer and autumnal months, devoted thus
to ‘‘ nest hiding ’’ and natural hatching, was the only serene, un-
tarnished taste of pure repose and perfect peace that over filled and
satisfied the soul of these guileless, goodly dunghill hens.

Now where on earth, in nature’s vast domain, nor in colleges or
vast cathedrals can there be learned such lessons of care and caution,
of energetic honesty, of patient, persistent fortitude and faith as
there, cloistered and self-concealed alike from friends and foe,
was silently wrought out in the life and labors of this spontaneous,
self-supporting barnyard poultry of the past. Though, like the
christian cultured and truly good young Indian,.or the haughty,
highborn, romantic and realy noblered man of whom we read, they
have been gathered in by life’s relentless reaper and are gone, and
covered up by the polished plowshare of civilized progress, still, for
all the solace my youthful innocence found in their society and ser-
vice, I owe to their memory this recognition, this tender tribute,
this sad but fond farewell. But, to return to their history. These
flocks were mated promiscuosly and by their own impulse and
prowess. Often thirty or forty males meandering up and down and
fighting over half as many females all indulging in a wholesale sys-
tem. of loose incestous revelry and riot. Such of this ancient stock
as survived the wild winds of winter, its piercing cold, and ice and
sleet and were not starved nor frozen on the roost, emerged in the
spring with scaley legs and frozen combe and feet, with feathers full
of vermin, and all so out of order that seldom they succeeded in
dusting out the lice and gathering from grass and garbage nutrition
enough to bring the abused systen back again to vernal action, to —
honest vital business, by the first of April or May. These ancient
farm fowls were much the same in every section and state all over
the continent. They crowed and cackled and looked alike, they wore
the same general complexion and were characterized by the same es-
sential cussedness everywhere between Maine and Mexico and from
Oregon to Atlantic Ocean.

One general slush, of nature’s brush,
Had made them all akin.

Their average weight at ciziteen months old was three to five

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 17

pounds. The hens often hid their nests in the haymow or on top of
stacks, would fight anything and often pursue a hawk high on the
wing for hundreds of yards trying to retrieve astolenchicken. They
seldom carried surplus fat, they sought few favors but took care of
themselves from choice, from habit, from instinct and from neces-
siby. They combined all conceivable colors from the beantiful and
brilliant long sickled cock to the wretched and revolting frizzly fowl
so odious that it offends the Lord and the laws of nature. And then
we hadthe ‘‘ bunty,’’ or rumpless rooster, ‘‘the creepy,’’ or duck
legged fowl, and best of all, the sturdy old Dominique and many
more all merged, and mixed, and married at will, into the great ple-
bean family of mongrel barnyard poultry. These birds were thus
bred for ages, forward and backward, incestuously and so long, that
each specimen stood for self and the whole vast society whence it
sprung ; it represented everything in general and no distinct type, or
strain, especially, except when scrutinized or even at the first inquir-
ing glance the specimen could always be recognized as an undisput-
ed dunghlll bird. Thus, everywhere as we have suggested chickens
were tolerated or allowed to live, but never carefully cultivated; and,
if they yielded little, as compared with latter years their cost and
care were nothing, and so altogether, the net profit of the old barn-
yard system could never be less than one hundred per cent. But
birds thus bred were seldom fit food. for, only when fed from na-
ture’s lap were they either fatorfertile. Intimately associated, with
such a system of poultry culture as I have sketched, my youthful ar-
dor knew no bounds; my thoughts were always with the chickens.
This partiality for poultry culture has completely possessed me from
earliest recollection, and grew and systematized with later develop-
ments, and yet remains a pleasure that is past understanding.

The personal cares of poultry culture, supreme over everything
else is the one kind of labor I really enjoy. ;

Thus matters moved on until about 1855 when an enterprising man
from Massabhusetts emigrated to the far distant west and settled in
Illinois within three miles of me. He brought among us the most
marvelous creatures that the wild and tragic freak of poetic dreams
could picture, They were the most splendid specimens of the great
invincible and voracious shanghaie.

I walked three miles to see those “‘ giant celestials.’? At once they
inflamed a furor all over the West that was only equalled in the

18 STANDARD AND COMMEROIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

Eastern States whence they came, and where the so-called ‘ hen
fever’’ had been raging for several years with all the force and dig-
nity of an epidemic, until finally, asI have indicated, it spread west

ward until the unsophisticated citizens of Illinois felt the infectious

fever for the great fancy fowls.’’ I scarcely need to say we all fell

down and worshiped this ancient bird of paradise, all offered any

price for eggs and soon high grade birds abounded everywhere; were

sent to distant relatives and friends and so the impetus and improve-
ment in poultry culture began and spread in Illinois and somewhat

similarly all over the states. The color of this early imported stal-_
wart stock was buff and differed from the stately strong and sturdy

buff cochin of today only in legs and breast and body. In other

words, the modern buff cochin is a lineal descendant from the far
famed shanghaie ; cut down from his original altitude, spread out |
and yet condensed in every direction, grandly guilded and perfected
in plumage and, in short, bred up by astandard uniform rule to more
consistant, symetrical and useful shape. Later the Brahma breeds
were introduced. and soon these Asiatic, thorough-bred birds diffus-
ed their blood all over the American Continent. Their influence for
good was soon felt in almost every flock of fowls ; and so there was
awakened everywhere an extravagant excitement over the newborn
business of poultry culture. The attempt by many, at first, to breed
these fowls as they came to us and so perpetuate them pure met with
the most universal and discouraging failure ; solely from inacquaint-
ance everywhere with the first essential conditions of success in
poultry culture. Naturally enough, the glowing high heat of the so-
called ‘‘ hen fever ’’ cooled quickly down, to be replaced by a preju-
dice that ruined at once the splendid commerce so recently started
in ‘‘ fancy fowls.’’ The fever seemed fatal until the cause collapsed.
Thus, for a time the first attempt at what we now call ‘“‘ standard
poultry culture’’ met with unmerited and ruthless rebuke ; and yet,
to this day the true inwardness of this interesting episode in the his-
tory of American Poultry culture is wrongly referred.

I dissent from the diagnosis that the public high appreciation, of
these fine imported fowls was in any just and proper sense a fever,
or a diseased condition, or fanaticism. The very high prices paid
for the finest specimens then and ever after quoted in evidence of
the wholesale public craze to sustain the charge that, some design-
ing Yankee sage had secured “‘ a corner” on this new commerce and

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY JOURNAL. 13

then prepertrated a heartless humbug upon the credulous public and
that such had killed the commerce, is absurd ; the prices then paid,
I say, were nothing to be compared to what hundreds of fancy fowl
breeders would freely pay today for the very finest specimens after
- the revival of this splendid industry. Nor is the disposition at frand
and speculation and courting the royal favor and so aspiring to se-
cure the coveted corner in this commerce less today than then. But
this, and only this distinguishes the early Geciine and the auspicious
opening of that industry from itsstrong and sturdy status of today.

The people are educated now and know the needs and actual neces-
sities of such stock. Then a Poultry Journal was unknown, or, at
least, poorly appreciated and paid, and from one end of the land to
the other the great slumbering industry of poultry culture was utterly
devoid of information and of literature.

Naturally, then, a people thus conditioned, whose prejudices were
wrong, whose poultry reading had not begun, and whose care for
this class of stock was suchas I have sketched, who knew and cared
nothing for the comforts and diet of domestie poultry, but confi-
dently expected all feathered fowls to breed spontaueously and be
self-sustaining naturally, I suggest, that the sudden introduction of
thorough-bred poultry among such people must end at once in mis-
fortune, in the death of the stock, from abuse and neglect, in general
discouragement and in early collapse of the commerce. Such indeed,
is the universal history of revolutions in everything. The cause that
occasioned the awakening can never be sustained until the people
are educated en masse up tothe required condition. Percipitate ac-
tion, as in that case, before the people knew the needs and necessity
of the situation, endangers defeat and injury to the cause.

The dificulty in the early decline of the ‘‘ Hen fever’? implied no
fault, no fraud, but rather relates to poultry periodicals and their
careful study. There is absolutely no cause or commerce that can
long live inignorance. Special and general education must under-
lie everything that survives, and poultry culture is no exception to |
the operation of that axiom. Such, we believe, explains the quick
collapse of the early commerce in pure bred poultry. So much re-
lates to the past and seems to us essentially necessary in this connec-
tion in order that we may soon consider whether the poultry com-
merce of the future is secure in its claims of greater permanency.
Reverting to those years of general agitation from 1855 to 1860, dur-

20 STANDARD AND COMMEROIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

ing which this earliest commerce ‘‘ rose and reigned and fell’? the
irrepressible conflict of almost a century ripened into the great revolt
of 1860 and civil war for 5 live long years absorbed the nation’s time
and talent, care and capital, and so delayed the reconstruction of this
cause and commerce. Meantime, the thorough-bred was laying the
firm foundation for an industry more substantial. New blood had
been infused and bigger and better fowls had followed and soon the
people every where began to see the priceless worth of what they had
thought a fancy fraud and costly luxury. Encouraged again from
better founded, healthier, and more deliberate public appreciation
the patient, persevering men who knew the public need, with pen
and poultry press, and organized effort cautiously kindled again the
smoldering sparks of pure bred poultry culture. Then the larger,
beautiful and better birds that abounded from these larger breeds
suggested a purpose and source of greater profit to the market poul-
trymen and so demonstrated the right relation between the breeding
of standard and commercial poultry.

The ingrafting, thus, upon the ancient seedling stock, enlarged
and invigorated the issue into a vastly more lavish and delicious
yield. Thus, the market poultryman perceived: the possibilities of ©
his business opening up her avenues of trade to almost incalculable
extent.

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 21

+

CHAPTER III.

THE NEW INDUSTRY ASSUMES TWO FORMS, THAT OF MARKET AND OF
STANDARD POULTRY OULTURE, EACH DEPENDENT ON THE OTHER.
THE INFLUENCE OF THE STANDARD, THE EXHIBITIONS,

THE AMERICAN POULTRY ASSOCIATION. THE INFLU-

ENCES OF THESE ALLIANCES. THE OMNIPO-

TENT POWER OF POULTRY JOURNALS. THE
PRESENT STATUS OF POULTRY CULTURE.

m LOSELY identified with this industry and, indeed, its
author and essential support, the breeding of thorough-
«gf, bred fowls, found solid footing and universal favor. Thus

Be identified in healthful relation the two young industries
gathered separate from and continual force and, moving forward in
their respective and reciprocal spheres, have grown as we have seen
into a commerce that is almost incalculable. Thus we have traced
the origin of the first attempt at improvements and organization
of this industry to the importation of “fancy fowls;’’ and their
influence upon the native mongrel scrub stock scattered all over
the continent. We have indicated the growth and steady develope-
ment of continually better birds, and, finally the renewed awake-
ning after the war, to organized efforts under the impetus and
auspices of the standard and poultry journals. However clear
and conclusive the fact that the real value of domestic poultry
had more than doubled since the first importations, yet, the
public, generally, nor to any considerable extent had felt the
marvelous effect of poultry literature and illustrations until about
the year 1865, when, the poultry journals began to find their
way to the homes of thousands through the mails to all sections of
the country, imparting the most careful instruction in all the prin-
ciples and details of poultry culture that ages of blind experience
could never suggest. Thus, a second enthusiasm pervaded the

22 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

country, but thus renewed, it come to stay, because, strengthened and
sustained by education and literary culture and acquaintance with
the fundamental conditions of success. Conventions were called,
poultry societies organized, a National Organization finally effected
and for the purpose of concert and consistency in pure blood poultry
culture in the upward and right direction towards ideality of form=
and feature. The general judgment of all was evoked and whatwe
now recognize and reverence as “‘ the Standard of Excellence ‘was be-
gotten of the largest experience and best brain of that studious
strong and earnest organization.

The first National Organization met in 1872, and the necessity of
a standard canvassed and finally consummated ° since which time,
though subjected to criticism and correction and official revision, it
went into operation everywhere as the will and ablest idea of the
high consultation of America’s best breeders. Thus, under this con-
stitution, or organic law of the land with respect to poultry culture
may be dated the dawn of Scientific Poultry Culturein America. It
became at once and still continues the one supreme idea wherein all
efforts atimprovement centers as the ideal pattern by which to per-
fect the useful form and fancy finish of the Fowl obedient to wise
and worthy dictum. The American Standard of Excellence thus
formed is a strictly representative instrument and, in the very best
and broadest sense, a purely democratic decree. Its influence for
good at once vindicated the wisdom that announced the necessity of
something that thus should organize and operate the nation’s forces
to one common end, so that all might comprehend and execute a com-
monplan. What to most minds was before chaotic, in correct con-
ception, uncertainin matters of symetrical outline, and altogether
mixed and muddled in all the delicate details of form and finish, of
each and every variety, the standard now made clear and well defin-
ed. It arbitrated all questions, it settled all disputes and afforded
everywhere the same sublime design and definition of a perfect pat-
tern. Hence, what before was clash and conflict, was settled by the
standard’s high decree into a universal unity of thought and effort
andend. Like the constitution of a country, which, by common
consent, becomes the supreme law of the land under which all other
laws that regulate and control the mightiest and minutest private
and public affairs are framed, so the standard in poultry culture
vitalized and legalizes and underlies everything. Andso, when I con-

/
t

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 28

template the wonderous work of the past thirty years of poultry cul-
ture, and ask, and seek to answer the inquiry and satisfy my con-
science as to what hath wrought the great and grand result, the truth
irresistable suggests the standard as the central power of one stupen-
dous whole. Without the standard to interpret and teach, poultry
culture was chaotic and in universal conflict without light or law,
without foundation or faith, without concertof purpose or principle
or plan, all operating adversely at every angle instead of moving
under its operation and governed by this guidance up the avenue of
the future on peaceful parallel plains and so demonstrating that a
standard rule of action can alone secure that unity of plan and
purpose essential to the prosperity and perpetuity of any society,
cause6, or commerce.

Under the old articles of confederation the American government
operated aimless in every direction with state and federal functious,
limits and liabilities, but dimly defined, each alternately acting out-
side its proper orbit and the whole federal fabric that has guaranteed

‘our marvelous growth and greatness was found by experience to be
so defective before the adoption of the Constitution. or great nation-
al standard law, that our whole political system, as it then existed,
has since been aptly characterized as ‘‘ A mass of stubborn societies
held together by a rope of sand.”’

Second only to the standard and as interpreter to it are poultry il-
ustrations. 'Thereis scarcely any other power so potent to force
the public education forward and upward to a high appre-
ciation of poultry culture as chaste and elegant and life-like illus-
trations of our finest standard fowls. There is no eloquence like
silent, earnest eloquence ; objective, life-like, splendid pictures.
The lesson learned, the impression produced by the master painter’s
scene of the Last Supper deepens the credulity of the most dormant
faith in the sacred stories of antiquity. The picture brings them
right before you, bright and fresh, and at once awaken’s the liveli-
est interest in what the picture represents ; and thus, as educators
delineating different parts and special sections and special feathers,
these correct and effective drawings awaken a universal love and
longing for such specimens, and so they attract the attention, they
strongly appeal to our taste and finer feelings and soon persuade us
to begin at oneeto buy and breed until we attain to the end delin-
eated in‘the illustrations. Such is the power of illustrations, of correct

‘

A STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

cuts, for fancy fowls when sustained by the precepts of a good poul-
try Journal. This combined influence gave birth to the Poultry
Exhibitions and here the emulation and rivalry inspires all to ex-
cel and the spirit of infection spreads until everywhere. the growing
influence of all these grand factors of this great industry is felt, and
a new focus of influential force radiates out from every exhibi-
tion.

Such, then, are the educational alliances that have acquainted the
American people from ocean to ocean with all the essentials and de-
tails, the pleasures and profits of standard and commercial poultry
culture.

Incidentally, the foregoing considerations have suggested the pres-
sent status of poultry cultureinthe United States since the revival of
this industry, and especially during the past ten years the constantly
operating influences, to which we have adverted, awakened special
interest in this pursuit, and, not content with the size and symmetry
alone, other aims have been successfully wrought out by which the
poultry of the present are infinitely superior, both in beauty and act-
ual utility, to any ever known before in the history of the world.

Among the especial excellencies to which we have but-recently at-
tained in poultry culture may be mentioned prolificness in eggs.
This special function which lay dormant during cold, inclement sea-
sons, among the poultry of the past, is operative among the better
breeds at present, almost all the year. Prominent among the influ-
ences effecting this result was; first, special selection of the most
prolific layers, these being carefully separated and subjected to super-
ior care, contributed still further to effect this desired purpose, and
so special strains were established that were noted especially for egg
production. Then, to widen these families and so avert the debility
of inbreeding, new varieties were composed combining the elements
of size and egg fertility. Thus, the Asiatic male and the medium
hen produced a progeny which was stamped by a top cross that should
make the new variety medium, large or small, as desired.

The purpose of the Plymouth Rock was to produce a specimen
medium in size between the large and awkward asiatic and the
smaller breeds, and yet preserve the egg fertility of both. To this
end the Light Brahma male and the black Java hen were mated and
their progeny subjected to the American Dominique cock, which
stamped the characteristic color of the Plymouth Rock and, by care-

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY OULTURE. 25

ful selection of the better barred and more beautiful of these and
breeding to that end, the beautiful blue barred bird, large in size and
elegant in everything, has been builded up and immortalized by
american skill and enterprise.

Again, the Silver Spangled Hamburg and the Dark Brahma were
mated and from this cross came the new and prolific and popular
breed of poultry admitted into the standard family of fowls under
the title of Wyandotte.

The success of these combinations encouraged still others in pro-
cess of experiment and so thefuture outlook in this direction is
fruitful and infinite. New methods of productiveness and new in-
ventions for incubation and the application of scientific ingenuity
for the comfort and care of the illimitable life that is constantly
thus evoked and active energy formulating everywhere and embark-
ing in the promising pursuit of poultry culture, and others, well
established and still unable to fill the smallest per cent of their
orders, with population constantly increasing and the demand be-
yond our production of eggs over 16,000,000 dozen in 1884, and still
the demand for poultry and eggs increasing and high prices prevail-
ing everywhere, for these products, exhibits but partially the present
status of poultry culture in the United States* Never, perhaps, in all
the past was an industry so full of merit and yet so neglected and
under estimated. Under the present impetus and universal awaken-
- ing encouraged by literature and scientific invention its future is full
of the richest returns for capital and labor required in its commerce.
But like every other avocation poultry culture is a separate and dis-
tinct and earnest avocation. Its cause and commerce admit no
idlers nor business drones. Jt must have brains and capital to con-
trol it like everything else.

f Poultry culture can be made remunerative by those who love it and
labor and study patiently and persistently.

In short, it demands practical business education, steady, industri-
ous habits, some capital and more common sense. Thus qualified
poultry culture is the most pleasant and profitable of all pursuits.
Poultry literature is the life of this labor. The poultry journals
pour perpetually a flood of light into the deep darkness of our dor-
mant understanding giving us the essence of everybody else’s ex-
perience. : -

The best prescription, then, to induce that love and enthusiasm so

26 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTUR#.

essential to success, is poultry journals well read and duly digested.
Lest this should seem dogmatical, arbitrary, and peculiar alone to
this pursuit, it may be suggested that such is true in every avocation.

All, to succed must study the teachings of others in their special
field of labor.

Thus, the drudgeries and difficulties that would otherwise discourage
are the more easily overcome from tlc love that abound’ in the
business. :

The actual or approximate profits to be derived from the business
is difficult to predetermine. So much depends on proper manage-
ment, on business capacity and capital. The issues are subject to
the same axioms that operate everywhere. Talent, industry and
economy in this as well as elsewhere, with patience and persistence
will lead to wealth. It would therefore be unsafe to suggest anything
further than the possibilities that open up through this giant young
industry. Death and taxation are said to be all that are certainon
earth. Accidents are known to be operative everywhere but not so
liable in poultry culture asin other avocations ; because we are con-
tracted n our operations, are under the auspices of science and can
therefore better control those conditions essential to success than if
left to the mercy of the elements that are irresistable and so often de -
stroy all business calculations.

May we venture to further offer some suggestions in behalf of the
claims of poultry culture as a profession that seem to us especially
pertinent ? There is scarcely a prominent industry ir all this coun-
try that is not suffering from overfullness. Large merchantile es-
tablishments, banks, railroads, corporations and farmers all feel the
irony of fate, or adverse fortune. There is sluggish circula-
tion through business channels, there is, indeed, congestion, distress
and, more or less, complete collapse in many points and places.
Why ? Because these several avyocations are overdone. The Millers’
Organization and the rigorous winters and the long, continued culti-
vation of the one cereal upon the same soil assures the farmer of
several things, namely, that his crops are overcrowded, his land 1s
over operated and the great milling monopolies are organized against
him. Well, what shall we do ? Why, poultry culture is in its infancy :
its fields are rich and capable of making yours still richer. Its re-
sourees are almost incredible. It calls forrecruits. It can’t furnish
the food that millions would purchase of you at any fair price.

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 27

Here then, is your opportunity to rest your land and bring back the
organized monopolies to respect your rights. Poultry culture thus
assists in drawing off the overcrowding ofall other industries. It is,
indeed, to-day not only the most prominent and prosperous of all
the industries, but the greatest of all; because, as we have seen, it
depletes, draws off the overcrowding of all and so becomes an equal-
izer of the nation’s industrial forces.”

The immense and constantly incressing demand can never be sup-
plied. One hundred and fifty million meals cooked and consumed
every twenty-four hours in the United States will always insure the
highest price for fresh eggs and broilers and so successfully bar all
over production. Poultry culture, therefore, as compared with all
other avocations, has certainly these very strong points in its favor.

In furtherance then of what we have suggested we come in order to
consider the practical operation of this new industry.

28 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY OULTURE.

CHAPTER IV.

THE INHERITED NEED OF THIS INDUSTRY AS A SOURCE OF NATIONAL
FOOD SUPPLY. THE ABSOLUTE NECESSITY OF THE INCUBATOR, COM-
PARED WITH OTHER IMPROVEMENTS. THE INSTINCT OF THE HEN
AND HER PROCESS OF INCUBATION. THE DISQUALIFICA-

TION FOR ENLARGED POULTRY CULTURE. THE TWO SYS-

TEMS OF POULTRY CULTURE COMPARED. THE
AUTHORS EXPERIENCE.

fa), have hastily sketched the agencies most actively oper-

/ ative in its development; the influence of the asiatic and
other pure bred birds upon the native stock ; the unify-
z ing force of the standard; the public exhipaieee and the
poultry ‘press have combined to create a public appreciation and
education that has placed the poultry industry ahead of any other
single productive industry.

The literature of scientific poultry culture has taken its place full
well advanced and moving with ail things else abreast and along the
line of modern thought. Science, too, and invention have allied
themselves with literature to do her service and thus sustained, is
poultry culture, in all her forms and phases, at once most eminently
respectable, practical and profitable.

Deeply impressed with its importance I commend to public con-
sideration commercial poultry culture, by which, [mean production
of poultry and eggs for market. The inherent need of this industry
is indicated by the demand for poultry products. A constantly in-
creasing population forces the food problem to the front. Howshall
we supply the fast increasing millions with good marketable poultry
and eggs? The proudest plume in the coronet of any life is an
actual contribution to the public good. He who feeds and clothes
the hungry, the destitute and distressed, or who cheapens their food,
or otherwise assists them to shut out the inclemencies and cold from

STANDABD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 29

the cabin and wreathes the face of the family with the smiles of con-
tentment, and paints upon the cheeks of the children the roses of
ruddy happiness and health, in short, whoever contributes to feed
humanity is the world’s best benefactor. .

Standard, or fancy fowl culture is really the author of this industry
and, full of fascination, of worth and pleasure and profit, but let us
remember that it rests on noreally firm and enduring foundation, ex-
cept we respect the one great practical purpose of actual utility in
the end. Thus only, can we find a separate and proper place for the
two great and growing industries, each separate and supreme in its
sphere, and yet essential to the success of the other. Thus deeply
impressed a number of years ago I decided to experiment with scien-
tific poultry culture, to determine if indeed, there opened up in this
direction an avenue toan honest, independent commercial enter-
prise. I found as my incentive to this investigation that financial
distress was felt in societies all over the country. Everywhere I ob-
served intelligence and education and virtue and moral merit em-
bodied in young gentlemen and ladies, yet commanding a salary
scarcely sufficient to meet life’s necessities. I found, also, in the
professions room for industry and honest capacity only on top and
so I felt inspired with the hope that poultry culture might promise
auspiciously for those who love such labor. I felt that much surplus
talent might be taken from profitless pursuits and usefully diverted
in the direction of absolute demand. In the fullness of time, in the
midst of necessity, out of the soul of science and common sense the
Incubator was born and introduced to supercede the slow and uncer-
tain function of the setting hen. Like the advent of steam enginery
when swift locomotion became a necessity, for carrying commerce
and scattering the millions of humanity all over the earth; like the
introduction of coal, when the supplies of wood for fuel were wasting
away before the plowshare of progress; like reaper and mower, the
thresher and sewing machine; the printing press and mechanical
- contrivances of every kind which came at the call of necessity and
then came to stay, so the Incubator appeared in its proper time bear-
ing the same high credentials. It, too, came to the relief of a system
that has proved utterally insufficient to meet a great and growing
public emergency.

The old system of poultry culture, after ages of effort, was found
_ too slow and uncertain and otherwise too defective to found upon it

30 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY JOURNAL.

a large and lucrative industry. Statistics have shown that the same
ancient system was utterally inadequate to meet the demand. Sup-
plies are called for but the setting hens cannot ‘‘honor the draft”’
and so at once, machinery is suggested, and thus, the Incubator be-
came a necessity.

The same was true of every industry. When the farmer confined
his operations to a few acres, the reap hook and the cradle and the
old fashioned flail were all-sufficient ; but when agriculture enlarged
her area and the farmers were called upon to feed standing armies
and non-producing millions of men, when his operations augmented
to the dignity of a great commerce and he found it necessary to gar-
ner his grain from thousands of acres, then, the farmer couldno
longer rely on the ancient slow and uncertain system of labor. A
crisis had come and the operations of the past must be replaced
by asystem that was operated like martial movements by one supreme
will,

Thus alone can any great industry b2 systematized and operated
to any successful end. Thus, up through the ordeal of practical eax-
perience and from inherent necessity hath labor saving, reliable ma-
chinery been summoned to supercede the clashing, discordant work-
ings of conflicting wills and so enable the farmer, the mechanic, the
contractor and the poultry man, to put aside all that oppose them
and push their respective operations under the auspices of scientific
service, under perfect organization, all working out the quiet coun-
sels of one intelligent will. Thus, thetwo systems of poultry culture
confront me at this point and claim respectful consideration. Here-
, after, I shallcall the machine’s operations the “‘ scientific system, ””
because the operation with hens, in conyregated numbers is equally
artificial, when worked on a scale of sufficient magnitude to entitle
it to the dignity of a commercial enterprise as I shall soon proceed
to prove. The poor hen, like the poor Indian in a state of nature,
was virtuous and faithful and true to her trust until the demand of
civilization the onward march of events and the realities of
scientific research, trespassed upon her territory, invaded the sanc-
tuary of her seclusion and toreloose the tendrils that entwined her
affections to her native haunts.

Scientific poultry culture pleads responsible for the refined deprav-
ity of these once contented little creatures. For thirty years its em-
missaries have been tearing down, burning up the briars and under-

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 31

brush and old stumps and logs, trying to train and redeem the hen
from her haunts in the highways and hedges and stifle her instinct
at nest hiding where alone is incubation natural.

Poultry culture has thus devoted its energies and influence for
years in trying to conciliate these poor creatures and train them to
forget and depart from the impressions they derived from the Deity
and to quietly conform to the civilized notions of scientific setting.
The result is a failure and the invention of the incubator an actual
necessity. I repeat that a good oldsetting hen, in a state of nature
by which I mean when she selects her own seclusion, when she per-
fects all her purposes untrameled by any intrusion, when she lays
and has left in her nest and hovers over and hatches her own eggs,
in every stage, in this wholenatural process, she inspires my highest
respect and confidence in her capacity. Then we cheerfully soncede
her superior sense, her unrivalled reliability, her God given inspira-
tion. Then and then only, are her operations natural, her processes
perfect. Then alone, she evinces that infinite tact, that philosophic
patience, that delicate tenderness and, withal, that high exomplary
sweetness that suggests to the student of her character that she is
swayed by some superior source, some supernatural sense. For the
long and arduous ordeal of incubation she equips herself in finest
physical condition. A hen is never fatter than when she begins her
incubation. The two-fold purpose in this relates to herself and her
‘capacity to impartthe requisite high heat for the first few days to her
incubating eggs. She thus enters upon the process and seldom
leaves her eggs for several days until the vital germ is thoroughly
imbued with throbbing, circulating life. Then her instinct teaches
her the safety of going off for food. The natural temperature of a
hen declines as the growth and circulation of the chicks within the
eggs increase, first, because of her loss of vital force and flesh from
loss of food and, more especially, from the absorption of moisture
from her body by the hot, continuous curreuts of circulating blood
in the brooding mass beneath her.

This process lowers the vital heat of the hen and elevates it in the
ineubating eggs all obedient to those laws of osmosis whereby the
higher and stronger criculation absorbe to itself from what is less and
close contiguouss.

At such a time as this the more active movements of the hen, in lift-
ing herself and often moving alternately each egg to the surface,

32 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTBY OULTURBE,

suggests her consciousness that, now the chicks in the latter stage of
incubation need more air. Hither that instinctive sense, or else the
excessive heat derived from the chicks at this particular period
causes this frequent needed movement of the hen, and so, the
constant cooling, fresh supply ofair. Butsoon the incubating eggs
approach maturity, and the mother feels the electric throbbing im-
pulse of her tender off-spring, and then, again, for several days, she
patiently preserves again her continuous quiet attitude. The little
chicks are wet and need her highest heat to dry them and to assist
the processes of nature to absorb the yolk of the egg which, for the
first twenty-four hours, is the all sufficient food of the chick.

Thus from the beginning, or through incubation to the end, the
maternal instinct of the setting hen, when thus conditioned, is di-
vinely adapted to the chemical and vital necessities of the embryo
within the egg and the tender offspring after incubation. Such is
naturalineubation. But when you attempt to tamper with her do-
mestic duties, when you decide to restrain the wild romance and lib-
erty she loves, when you attempt to systematize her setting and make
her serve some mercenary motive of your own, you spoil her inspir-
ation, you reverse her revalation and so put out the light of her uner-
ring instinct. The result is she rebels. because she sees and feels
that she can no longer obey her instincts and, that, therefore, every-
thing about her is unnatural and artificial. She has lost the sacred,
dear delights of solitude and secrecy so sacred, to every mother dur- —
ing such an ordeal, and the whole society and situation, thus imposed
upon her, that she resolves to resent her outrage and wrong.

Our business is commercial poultry culture. We have arranged to
breed young broilers for market. We find tixat the highest price pre-
vails from November until May. Why ? Because the hens will not set
in winter. Wesecure our eggs and then solicit our hens to set; but
her feelings are outraged, her instincts are dormant, especially at
this universally barren and unfruitful season of approaching frost
and snow, and so, under the setting hen system, we find ourselves
_ barred from the very best prices when broilers would readily bring
from 40 to 60 cents per pound, by the prejudice and perversity of the
willful, wicked hen.

Now, this is no fancy sketch, but actual fact that cannot be over-
come. But we decided to double our operations in the spring and
for lack of room, we cannot, of course, afford each setting hen a sep-

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 33

arate house, and so, compelled by economy, we systematize and set
some 25 or 50 or 100 hens in one large room. We have read about the
“perfect process’’ and so we give to each a dozeneggs and confi-
dently trust the whole enterprise to her integrity. We have confound-
ed all distinctions and quite forgotten that separate hens, in a state
of nature and hens, domesticated and crowded and confined in great
numbers are altogether different. They, therefore, feel the artificial
situation, they become perpetually more and more peevish and all
the poetry and patience and unerring instinct that inheres in the
ancient, honest incubating hen yields to what may be aptly called,
the quintessence of all that isincorrigible, contrary and persistently
cussed.

The commercial poultry man, the honest advocate of the old time
system now feels the liveliest fear for all his eggs and enterprise and
soon, in the forceful and emphatic speech of the greatest of living
fanciers, he will proclaim ‘‘the most infernal luck with setting
hens.”

Friends, I seriously question the possibility of thus congregating
25 or 50 females of anykind in care of their young and yet preserve
the peace. The whole atmosphere is soon full of electric envy and
contagious discontent, and every effort to harmonize the harem im-
poses still another element of disturbance and awakens a worse dis-
cordant wickedness.

I think no saint or sinner can daily feed and water and care for 25
or 50 or 100incubating hens without confronting this damaging dis-
cord ; and, if unobserved an egg be broken, then all the rest, and all
the nest, and the setting hen, must have a thorough cleansing, or,
if perchance, a hen enjoys the luxury of lice, she strongly suspects
her nearest neighbor happier than she, and so she quietly qnits her
habitat, starts out calling. She stays with each only long enough
to scatter what she has to spare, and soon she induces others to imi-
tate her discontent, until the domestic tranquility of the whole colony
is torn up, the eggs broken, and abandoned, and everything endang-
ered. But, aside from all these, we pass on to the period of hatching
and when the first young chicken chirps, then every hen inclines to
quit her eggs; and so from experience, and controlling everything
with consummate care, I found it possible to handle a few incubating
hens confined together : but the difficulty doubles with every acces-
sion to the crowd.

34 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE,

Tf you aim at anything less than hundreds and thousands of incu-
bating hens your time and talent are involved and the corroding
costs consumes your profits.

T am aware that many good people still prefer this ancient method
of poultry culture and complain that I have grown too graphic in
painting the perfidy, in touching up the moral turpitude and ex-
posing the perverse propensities and innate cussedness of the old
setting hen ; but, be it understood, that I am not arguing against a
few setting hens, but the sullen and studied perversity that I have
hastely sketched applies nore especially when working with great
numbers, and vast congregated numbers, of course, is contemplated
in commercial poultry culture, which we are now considering.

The lice that must be looked after, the diseases that assail some,
and the inclination of others to sit somewhere aside from the nest,
the care and cost of; feeding and working and worrying and watching,
would wreck the hopes and health and happiness of any mortal.
With 25 hens and 300 eggs the best result that I have ever had or
known, under the most consumate care and skill, was less than 150
chicks, and then from five to ten per cent of these were crushed or
killed by the hens.

Thus, under these several counts, we claim from the evidence ad-
duced that we have honestly convicted old Biddy of cussedness, and
general incompetency for wholesale incubation. We impeach her on
the ground of cost and care, of deliberate mismanagement and
murder.

We come, in order. to our other and only count wherein we arraign
the setting hen system for conduct even less reliable and cruelty
more complete. Here, again, we shall prove her utterly unequal to
the high demands of wholesale poultry culture.

We have seen that congregated with, or contiguous to others she is
especially nervous, quarrelsome and wickedly careless, and so incap-
able of operating largely together. We submit that it is impractical
to coop and so keep vast clutches of chicks confined. If liberated,
all are impelled by mutua! impulse to fight. The discords never
end until the chicks are killed and scattored. If allowed to roam
at large, the weather must be warm, and then, tuis commerce
poorly pays, besides, even then, the early dew and damp des-
troys one half the flock by conducing to every species of indiges-
tion and disorder. Thus, unless confined, the chicks are drowned

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 35

by storms or die from cold and inclemencies. The quarrelsome
hens require vast space to keep the peace; but, suppose we have
conquered and overcome all and carried this load of cost and
care of four or five or seven weeks. The chicks have grown to
fledging and so have come to the period most critical with the
chick. The hens selected for this vast enterprise must be the best
of layers and hence, at such an age of her chicks, and very often
earlier, every civilized hen inclines again to ovulate and lay, her
chicks are yet half fledged, but are soon forgotten by this gracious
natural mother, this guileless, goodly hen. With rosy comb and
cheerful song she seeks again the charms of ‘‘ the cock that crows at
early morn.’”? No longer does the distressful chriping of her shiver-
ing chicks awaken within her soft, maternal sympathy. Other aims
andends now animate her instinct and charms more chaste command
her kindly care. Her suffering chicks seek everywhere the warmth
and shelter she denies. They huddle in heaps hoping by mutual
warmth to counteract ‘‘ the cruel winds that visit them too roughly,”’
but soon the sky is overcast, the storm pours forth its furies and the
whole flock are drenched and drowned and die in every direction, un-
less caught and sheltered and cared for, independent of the recreant
hen; and, so you summon that assistance in the end, that the scienti-
fic process has proved by far the safest from the beginning. But, still,
another count we ought to press against this ancient natural process.
The trouble and cost and loss and wholesale death described but
poorly pays the penalty of the old hen’s administration. The grow-
ing chickens thus deserted and exposed contract catarrh, and daily
die of roup and irritative indigestion. Still others from these become
affected until contageon kindles into a dreadful epidemic. Now, all
this terrible train of direful difficulties must soon confront the poul-
tryman who embarks extensively in this SEES? under the auspices
of the good old setting hen system.

I have drawn this picture from the actual, unfortunate experience
of myself and others and have honestly aimed to indicate the utter
unreliabillity of a large number of hens, either as incubators or
breeders.

But, friends, what is the merciful avenue out of this dreadful
dilemma? Whatis thesurest relief from this wilderness of woe? Why,
the labor saving machine, of course. The Incubator and the Brooder.
The scientfic process of poultry culture must come to your relief.

36 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE,

The Incubator is thus a blessing, born in the fullness of time. It re-
presents one hundred hens, and is capable of hatching a thousand
eggs at once, and it asks no greater care or cost while perfectly per-
forming the function of incubating all these eggs than ten or fifteen
hens. It never keeps you waiting for vernal spring to stimulate
within its soul an instinct for incubation, It is always ready to
receive all your eggs and leaves you free to consult the market and
procure highest prices. It does the duty of the setting hen as per-
fectly as the reaper gleans your harvest fields, the electric cable car-
ries your message under the ocean and around the earth on the wings
of thought, or, if you please, it accomplishes with greatest precision ~
and without confusion the work of innumerable costly, awkward
operatives. It never breaks an egg nor infests the nest with lice. It
hatces every egg that any hen could hatch. It never quarrels, nor
kills your chicks, nor exposes them to storms or other ills. It keeps
your chicks under you own control and allows you to systematize
their feed. It narrows your chances of accident down to the single
source of adversity and allows it then to assail you only under the
name of neglect of the two systems of poultry culture, compared and
fairly formulated, we have, upon the one side, depraved animal
instinct and on other educated human intelligence.

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 37

CHAPTER V.

INCUBATORS. USE OF ELECTRICITY. HOW IT OPERATES. THE ESSENTIALS
OF A MACHINE. THE BAIN COMMON SENSE INCUBATOR. HOT AIR MA-
CHINES. OBJECTIONS TO BOTH. HOT WATER MAOHINES APPROVED.
REASONS WHY. THE MANURE MACHINES. THE THREE ESSENTIALS
OF ALI, MACHINES ARE HEAT, AIR AND MOISTURE PERFECTLY APPLIED
BY THERMOSTAT, THAT IS ABSOLUTELY SELF REGULATING. THE
INFLUENCES THAT AFFECT THE SUCCESS OF AN INCUBATOR. AUTHOR’S
EXPERIENCE. IMPORTANCE OF GOOD EGGS.

Wife HE scientific system of poultry culture delegates no duties.
It groups its great work, and disposes of all the petty
details peculiar to the old process by placing every
department under the auspices of exact science. For
instance, every egg is operated upon alike, the temperature is uni-
formly maintained at any desired degree. Moisture is supplied
by evaporation and pure, warm air circulates through all the >
machine. There are no broken eggs to befoul the rest and
no crushing the chicks while hatching. Every essential to the
perfect incubation and hatching of eggs are heat and moisture
properly applied. The modern Incubators are many of them perfect-
ed to this end and under the unerring operation of electricty.

Well, how can this subtile servant of science subserve the purposes
of poultry culture? First, and mainly, as a thermostat and messen-
ger, by which Imean an instrument so adjusted within the egg chamber
of an incubator that, obedient to the law of the expaasion of heat,
and contraction from cold, the instrument, thus delicately devised,
under the influence of a certain definite degree of heat expands a
metalic bar until it touches an electrode and thus closing the cur-
rent of an electric battery, carries a current of electric force along
the wire which operates and opens a valve and allows the outside
cooler air to enter and so lower the temperature of the egg chamber.,

38 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

When thus cooled down to the desired degree, the bar contracts and
so separates the bar from its connection with the electrode, the cur-
rent is thus suspended and the open valve closes, the cooling process
then suspends and the work of warmth again resumes. This electric
contrivance operates like clockwork such perfect precision that it is
impossible for the heat to run too high or the temperatue too low, in
other words the temperature is thus reliably and automatically main-
tained at any degree desired. But let us suppose your lamp goes out
or furnishes insufficient heat then electric force is summoned to
serve another end. A second battery similarly supplied, except, that
instead of being adjusted to close the circuit by expansion of heat,
this must be so adjusted that by contraction from cold the electrode
is touched, the circuit is closed and the electric current sent along a
wire which communicates with a bellin your office or residence near
by, it may be, or elsewhere, anywhere, even many miles away. The
ringing of this bell, then, is the distress call of the incubator sug-
gesting higher temperature.

This condition could occur only from defective lamps or insuffi-
cient flame and sudden change to severe cold.

Again, another source of danger with many machines is where the
outside temperature is not cool enough to lower the heat in the egg
chamber with the valve wide open. The lamp, of course, should
then be lowered, but this implies care and so much assistance that
the incubator can scarcely claim its action automatic, or completely
self-regulating. All this, however, has been remedied ; first, by the
electric bell which sounds the alarm alike for excessive heat or cold.
Yet science was still unsatisfied and sought a more truly automatic
plan and so recently perfected and pattented a process termed the
electric trip, by which the lamp flame is regulated, raised, or lowered
as high or lower temperature is required. The machines thus oper-
ated are herein advertized and especially commended by reason of
this additional and most highly practical and important considera-
tion. An incubator thus equiped is equal to the eccentricities of all
possible kinds and complexions of weather. If the weather turns
severely cold the lamp flame is increased and when the temperature
ascends to that degree at which the machine is adjusted then the
flame is lowered: and so sensitive is the electric contrivance that
operates the flame that the slightest change of temperature will move
the lamp flame up or down, and, so the temperature over all

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 39

the eggs is perfectly preserved throughout the ordeal of incuba-
tion. Still, this is not wholly essential to success and many ex-
cellent machines are successfully operated and the temperature con-
trolled entirely by the valve.

The principle difference between the leading incubators relates al-
most entirely to the best mode of regulating the temperature, apply-
ing the moisture, and supplying the air. These are, indeed, the es-
sentials of incubation—the manner of turning the eggs and the me-
chanical finish of the machine being of less actual importance.

All manner of incubators have for several years been claiming
snperior excellence and inviting public patronage. The so-called
“Common Sense Incubator”’ originated and advertised and im-
posed upon the credoulus by Mr. Bain is, perhaps the worst of all,

‘This machine consists of an air chamber over the eggs into which
hot air enters from lamps and reflects the heat from the zine above
the eggs. The eggs rest upon some porous substance such as fine
wire netting and the air tubes enter from below and approach the
bottom of the egg tray. The purpose was ventilation, but as cold
air does not ascend, nor hot air decend there is scarcely any ventila-
tion ; andas the pan of water is placed beneath the eggs where scarce-
ly any heat ever reaches it, there is scarcely any evaporation and, as
there is no valve or thermostatic arrangement connected with this
mechanieal fraud, the temperature cannot be reliably regulated and
so it is, possibly, the most unsafe and injurious article of the kind on
the market. I think thatall hot air machines are objectionable on
the point of unequal distribution of temperature and, again, the
great rapidity with which they cool off. The air chamber must have
an escape tube or chimney to the lamp. The lamp transmits its heat
into the air chamber above the eggs by means of tin pipes and so
this chimney, or tube allows the heat to all escape so soon as the
lamps are out or lowered; and again, where the pipes enter the air
chamber conveying the heat from the lamp, the chamber is unduly
heated at that point. With a hot water machine, the whole body of
water is heated ; retains the heat long after all the fire is put out, dis-
tributes its heat over the whole surface just the same and so requires
only the smallest amount of oil after the water is once warm and
searcely anything more in summer than a mere suggestion of heat.
Heat has been more or less steadily maintained by filling a tank with
hot water and, at stated intervals, drawing off and adding hot water

40 STANDARD AND COMMEROIAL POULTRY OULTURE.

and so maintaining the temperature throughout incubation. But
this process is only practical in connection with an establishment
where hot water is always convenient. We tested this plan thorough-
ly after we had found cut by experience the utter unreliability of the
‘*common sense machine ’’ and found the work of heating the water
called for too much cost and care. In connection with a constant
hot water supply it could be made a safe and sure method of incuba-
tion ; but it could not be trusted to operate itself, the danger being in
the direction of low temperature, as a thermostat could guard it
from going too high. Theheat must come from constant filling up
with hot water and drawing off a certain amount of what has become
lowered in temperature.

Again, stable manure has been utilized to afford heat for incuba-
tion, and as itis the slowest of all conductors it maintains its tem-
perature longer than anything else, it will certainly supply the heat,
if only rightly regulated. But here, too, the danger is in the direc-
tion of unreliable temperature and its want of self-regulating action.
Other objections suggest themselves and, yet, I have no doubt, that
an ingenious farmer could so construct an apparatus that with the
vast amount of material always at hand, and with more or
less watching and care, could hatch by this process successfully.
The heat supply could be depended upon if reliably regulated.

But independent of any particular make of machine the question
most pertinent to our purpose is, what must an incubator necessarily
contain to meet completely the requirements of nature? First: It
must furnish and distribute heat reliably and to this end it must
possess a thermostat of some kind that will easily and automatically
and absolutely control the heat supply. This is imperative. The -
machine, in order to supersede the setting hen, must furnish the
requisite temperature more reliable than she and without the assis-
tance of somebody else. Thetime for “ settingup’’ with a machine
is past and, besides, watchers are mortals and sometimes go to sleep.
The machine, then, must be absolutely self-regulating in this regard,
controlling its temperature with absolute and never-failing certain-
ty. In order to do this, in my judgment, the regulator in order. to
control the heat must necessarily control the heat supply, otherwise,
with more or less watching and care, we can only approximate the
proper temperature all the time.

Automatic, even, and reliable temperature, then, is the first es-
sential, :

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 41

The 2nd essential, and, without which, artificial incubation cannot
succeed, is the perfect automatic application of moisture. The in-
herent necessity of this 2nd essential will be considered and explain-
ed under the caption of incubation further on in this work.

And, 3rd, the incubator must afford the most thorough ventilation.

These three essentials constitute the ‘‘ sine qua non”’ of every in-
cubator, for without these there is nothing to be expected from any
machine.

Of course, all the first class incubators are more or less perfect in
these essential particulars; but, to guard the beginner against the
impositions that are practiced upon thousands, the purpose of this
work has been to piace before the reader some reliable data by which
he may determine intelligently, the merit of any machine.

After these considerations come those of less vital but often suf-
ficient force to determine ones choice amongst which, are ease of
action, durability, style of finish, capacity of air chamber, the man-
ner of turning the eggs and the length of time the batteries last
without attention.

Machines are operated successfully without electric batteries,
among these the New Axford Incubator, of Chicago, Ill., enjoys a
wide reputation. They were the first to publicly exhibit their Incu-
bator in successful operation at the great fairs and poultry shows all
over the continent and have madeand merit a national reputation
on their excellent machines.

Mr. James Rankin’s machine, the Monarch, is also remarkable
for its successful record, being regulated both in its temperature and
its lamp flame by a thermostat, which is operated by the expansion
of its heated water. The full description and mode of managing
each machine is always furnished on application and so need not
encumber these pages. It seems only necessary here to say : do not
expect any machine to hatch every egg, or even all that are fertile.

Some time since we purchased a pen of five fowls that had been
badly wintered and were suffering from scaly legs,, but soon began
tolay. Iset their eggs and, though fertile, they failed to hatch—al-
most every chick died in the shell, or soon after. All seemed to suf-
fer from utter debility and those that hatched soon after died and
this, too under the ancient hen system. I applied mercurial oint-
ment to their legs and soon destroyed the parassite which underlie
and are causative of that disease. I applied sulphur and carbolic

42 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

acid through their feathers and killed the lice and combining oil cake
meal in their soft feed with meat and wheat and scalded, crushed
corn ; in short, after keeping, like a christian should, for awhile, I
got the birds back to constitutional good health and they began
tolay. Every tertile egg then hatched and the chicks did well.

Now, reader, suppose the eggs from these hens had been at first
put into a ‘‘ Perfect”’ or ‘‘ Success Hatcher” a “‘Climax,”’ *‘ Monarch,”
“ Pacific”? or Eureka” Incubator ; how easily it would be thus to
prejudice the prospects of the finest of machines. Therefore it seems
pertinent in this place to consider, briefly, some of the influences
that affect the success of scientific incubation. These relate, princi-
pally, to the place and surroundings of your machine and to the qual-
ity of the eggs.

ist., Then, after securing a good incubator, set it up and operate it
in a room that islarge, well ventilated and light. Why ? Because
the gas and emanation from the incubating and hatching eggs must
not be confinedin theroom. A cellar is, therefore, utterly unfit for
such work because itis usually dark and full ofdamp and heavy air
and difficult to ventilate. Iurge this from the dictates of science
and common sense and experience. I think the reason above assign-
ed are sufficient. It is better to build or rent a special house for
hatching. After this the thing of first importance is the eggs. With-
out the very finest, healthy, fertile eggs no system of incubation can
ever hatch out healthy chickens. Pure, fresh and fertile eggs are in-
deed the beginning and the end of everything that pertains to suc-
cessful poultry culture.

Remember, then, the requisites for your incubator.

The influences that surround your machine as regards pure air and
light and comfortable quarters and, above all, consider the character
of your eggs.

The egg is, strictly speaking, a seed, and when fertile, like other
seeds contains a germ or latent vital essence. The Incubator is sim-
ply a well devised machine constructed especially to furnish the es-
sential conditions which nature requires to awaken within the eggs,
and so set in motion, those chemico-vital changes which eventuate
in the development of the chick and the reproduction of its species.
At this point itseems so pertinent that we emphasize the importance
of the egg and again affirm that eyery consideration in poultry cul-
ture must relate to the actual condition of the egg and constitutional

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 43

condition of the parent birds. Are these breeding birds too nearly
related or long inbred ? Are they ill kept, affected with scaley legs
andyermin? Are they enfeebled from insufficient food, or other-
wise unwell from over, or improper diet, and so suffering from in-
digestion? Are there too many females for the male from which
the eggs are weakly fertilized, or are the males too old, or young?
All these and other influences affect the eggs and so often, if fertilized
at all, are worse than worthless as science assures us. that, ‘the prog-
eny must represent the actual condition of the parent when begotten.
Therefore, if eggs be furnished under the adverse influence above
suggested, the chicks, if able to survive the ordeal of incubation,
will shortly after die from utter innervation. Eggs from ill-condi-
tioned fowls scarcely ever completely hatch. The chicks have in-
sufficient vital force to absorb the animal matter in the eggs and so
break the dead and brittle shell, such, you pan is the ultimate act
of incubation.

But it requires strength of circulation which comes from healthy
vital force. Go back, then, of the egg and learn the stock that sup-
plies them.

Again, as Incubators require at once hundreds of eggs and while
this requisite quantity is accumulating, the first are kept so long as
to utterly unfit them for incubation.

Experience provesthat eggs will hatch after being kept for weeks
and after crossing the Atlantic Ocean, but the chicks are usually
feeble and unprofitable. My importation of eggs from England has
always proved a failure.

Eggs subjected to incubation within a week are much to be pre-
fered as furnishing a better hatch and stronger, healthier chicks.

Tam aiming to impress the great importance: of using only the
freshest and most reliable eggs—bear with me in the further sugges-
tion of still another class of adverse influences, all relating to imper-
fect eggs.

An egg is never nearly spoiled. It is absolutely good or bad and
spoiled and introduced for incubation will generate in this the foul-
est putrefactive changes and so taint the entire atmosphere of the
Incubator with the influence of debility and death.

It is easy to immagine the influence of such dreadful odor on all
the rest of the healthy eggs and yet, under the operation of any or
all of these adverse influences that have often wrecked the result:

44 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

the machine was a perfect one and operated right, yet, received all the
blame from persons who were unacquainted with the real cause of
failure.

In many of my first experiments I used two thousand eggs each time
unmindful of all the dangers to which I have adverted. I gathered
my eggs at first from any and every source, from stores, from farm-
ers, from peddlers and from every possible place, whence they were
bred promiscuously incestuously, uncared for and ill-conditioned,
scantily fed and never sheltered, and, withal, a prey to vermin
and every plague that infest the mongrel flock of the shiftless
farmer. These eggs were further subjected to the cold inclemencies
of spring and to careless handling and hauling and yet, under all
the unfavorable circumstances just cited I hatched out a little over
700 chicks and half as many died in the shell at various stages of de-
velopment.

The machine then used was a modified Common Sense, in which
the heat was irregular, the air and moisture both poorly applied—all
these unfavorable conditions considered, the hatch was not at all
discouraging. Isaw at once the defect in eggs and the Incubator,
and infered what I have since proved, that, if thirty per cent. could
be hatched with such imperfect arrangements over ninety per cent.
could be secured by an Incubator that more perfectly applied the
three essential conditions of incubation, and with perfect eggs.

My vast horde of little chicks was thus unadvisably ushered upon
my hands with insufficient accomodations for them in cold weather
and so, of course, a greater portion died. Some 250 survived under
every disadvantage. Other hatches continued to improve, as holes
were bored through the machine, tin tubes inserted, and air allowed
to enter, and, by direct application of moisture and observing stu-
diously the necssities of the process, it soon become evident that a
machine that could be relied upon to properly apply heat, air and
moisture to its eggs would revolutionize the poultry industry. And
these machines now do this duty perfectly.

The Brooder then used was worse than the machine. A top heat
tank, warmed by lamps reflecting heat from a zine roof down on the
heads of the harmless little chicks, soon sufficated over 500, and im-
pressed the follcwing facts: The brain of anything is the depot, or
supreme source Of vital force, its blood is unlike that of all the rest
of the organs being pure and perfect and finished before being sent

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 45

to the brain. It therefore, tulerates the fiercest cold and never is
congested. But heat affects the brain adversely ; it relaxes its large
blood vessels and partially, or completely deadens their elastic re-
sistance to over fullness and so is induced congestion, over-fullness,
pressure upon the brain, dizziness and death.

The body, on the contrary, is one vast chemical labratory for car_
rying forward the processes of digestion, for converting meat and
bread into blood. These digestive processes being chemical in char-
acter must be subjected to higher temperature than the brain. From
these data we proceed to study the proper application of heat to the

' Chick.

What is afforded for our guidance from the mother hen? Her
chicks envolope their bodies 1n her feathers and all around peep out
for air. They press their bodies close against the hen and so the di-
gestive system, and not the head, is especially affected by the vital
heat ofthe hen. The top heat process allows of limited aeration ; the
rarified air and gas ascend to be again returned and born and breath-
ed again until the twofold, unhealthy influences derange and destroy
the chick. Such was my experience and, such are my views to the
philosophy of the fatality.

Instructed by this experience, I next tried bottom heat after the
following plan. Take a box, say six feet wide, and twenty feet long,
by eight inches deep. Dig out the floor same size and let down the
box on a level with the rest of the floor. Cover box and floor, all
four inches deep, with dry sand and then convey the heat from
lamps into the ends of the buried box by tin pipes. Put a tin tube
in centre for a chimney to your lamps, and soon, the entire floor is
warm. The chicks set downin the warm sand and the heat ascends,
and so warms the whole room so that, if you have bottom heat, you
soon have heat everywhere. If you sit down upon a warm rock and
clothe the feet warm, the coldest weather on earth will not freeze you,
but, apply this heat to the head and fail to extra clothe the feet and
trunk and the effect, of course, will be fatal.

Make a plank house, cover and line it with tared felt and with the
underground brooder or heater, the only remaining necessity will be
a ventilator, which should be operated by a thermostat and valve
such as register and regulate the temperature in the Incubators, and
thus you can go to bed and rest assured that the chicks are comforta-

ble under the right and regulated supply of warmth and fresh air.

46 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY JOURNAL.

The principle, of course, being the same as utilized in the Incubator,
Well, my chicks did vastly better under the operation of this crude
bottom heat contrivance, which suggested at once this better method,
and ushered in a flood of facts and philosophy in its support. An_
elaborate article might be made most interesting and instructive,
which considered in detail, the effect of heat by those two processes
of application upon the brain and the delicate digestive apparatus
of the chick. Suffice, for the present, with a single suggestion. The
pertinent thought then impressed me that the digestive system of
early infancy is always properly protected with flannel covering, with
especial care, while the head remains uncovered. The birds, in a
state of nature, line their nest with wool and feathers for the es-
pecial protection of the lower body of the delicate little birds, while
the heads remain uncovered. The Indians of the wild west under-
stand the essential conditions of health and to this end they dig a pit
and build their fire, and, wrapped in their robes, lie around in a cir-
cle with feet to the fire. In all cases the head is uncovered. We,
therefore, conclude that when lines of philosophy coverge from the
realms of science and nature from every direction and all lead
up to a fact that the fact is founded in nature’s laws and must be
essential:

We conclude from a!l the foregoing, and, from experience thatthe
application of heat from above upon the head of abird is unnatural
and often fatal and not sustained by science, nor, as we have seen,
by analogy in the heat supplied by the hovering hen.

We are not inclined to be captious on this question, but simply
submit our experience, our conclusions and, as usual, our reasons.
If others can contrive some method to modify the evil influence of
heat reflected on the head we shall be glad to greet you. But the bot-
tom heat brooder, we fully believe, will be the great hovering hen of
the future. After thus much of digression in the direction of sug-
gesting the utter folly in hatching out chicks until fully fixed to care
for their comfort, we resume the recital of our experience with scien-
tific incubation.

After the improved Common Sense contrivance we had built an-
other 500 egg hot air Incubator ventillated by tin pipes passing per-
pendicular up and down along the sides of the machine and turning
at right angles and entering the egg chamber below the eggs above
the moisture pans. The whole space was partioned into four de-

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 47

partments, each holding 125 eggs all heated from the one zinc roof,
the purpose of division thus into separate drawers being to put in
125 eggs every week. The machine had a lamp at each corner and a
central tube entering at the top as a chimney for all the lamps. But
the machine was defective ; first, it did not evaporate sufficient mois-
ture and ; second, it heated and cooled too suddenly, it had no regu-
lator and sorequired watching Still it hatched sixty per cent. of al]
fertile eggs.

I concluded now to use setting hens in connection with the Incu-
bator and sol gathered them in great numbers and set them on china
eggs and when the chicks were hatched, put them under the hens at
night. This seemed plausible, but, I soon found it impcssible to put
many hens in one house on account of constant quarreling and kill-
ing the chicks. A hen will gladly accept and care for the chicks
after setting ten or twelve days as soon as the maternal! instinct is
awakened by a short period of setting, but, she is jealous of the pres-
ence of others and so itis only possible to keep the peace by putting
the broods apart which of course requires so much house room that
the hen system becomes too expensive and too full of care. I put
them apart and in spring let them out, but in from 4 to 6 weeks the
hens began to sing and seek their nests and the little chicks were
soon left to die of cold and inclement weather. My experience is
that hens that are worth their feed as egg producers are unfit for
mothers, because they wean their chickens and resume the office of
egg production before the chicks are fledged, the chicks become
chilled and die of the many forms of indigestion. I have sought to
remedy this by fixing a place into which the chicks alone could enter
and eat and so starve the hens with a view to retard their laying, but
while this will succeed it is full of care and cruelty. It will befound
therefore impossible to prosecute a system of poultry culture sifi-
ciently large to justify our time where hens are relied upon to per-
form any other part than the production of the eggs. Thispart of her
work is susceptible of assistance because physiological science has
afforded us that physical condition of habit and health in which the
hen furnishes the best and largest number of eggs. She is simply
a vital machine whose great office work is to lay eggs and this she
cannot help doing, if, by careful feed and care her organism is kept
in the correct condition. We have elsewhere noted that half fed and
ill-conditioned stock cannot furnish healthy eggs and so we see that

48 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

science enters more extensively into poultry culture than many have
supposed. Like any other great and growing industry its work must
be brought at once under the auspices of classified knowledge.
Everything. to succeed, must be well organized. The hen cannot
perform two parts, much less three. She cannot lay eggs, set three
weeks and carry her brood ten weeks and be of much service. During
those sixteen weeks, under the old system, the most she could possi-
bly yield would be an average of six to ten chicks during the four
weeks.

Under the scientific system, where the labor is alloted, and the
two parts that tax her powers the most are assigned to the machine,
she may be made to furnish eighty eggs and so contribute over fifty
chicks.

Thus the hen is kept continually active in the work for which science
has improved and better shaped her, whereas science has only des-
troyed her capacity for the other duties that the new system devolves
upon the machines.

In short, the hen thus improved for egg production is thereby ut-
terly unfitted for anything else. She is educated to that end just as
jersey cows are bred for butter andshorthorns for beef. Each, in its
sphere, is excellent, but worthless elsewhere, and so, poultry culture
must take its place in the great family of business industries with all
its operations organized and each department of its labor specially
alloted. Thus only can any great business be carried on and poultry
is no exception. If the enterprise be left unorganized, if no account
be kept of loss and cost and profit, if each hen be allowed to lay and
set and carry her brood and thus, from 5 to 10 be fed and cared for

and kept to do the work of one, when, controled by sense and science ~

as we have seen, then surely poultry culture is entitled to no confi-
_ dence in the great fraternity of organized business industries, and,
so, will continue to double her distance in the rear, or more than
double her importation of eggs with each succeeding decade.

Such, indeed, is its record under the ancient system of unallotted
labor of letting the hen lay eggs and then stop to hatch three weeks
and then to hover six or eight or ten. Under sucha systen, and so
long people are incredulous as to the actual net profit of a hen.

Well, our experience demonstrated the fact that tlte old hen was
infinitely inferior as a brooder than as an incubator of eggs.

Remember all the time we are dealing with large numbers, our

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 49

subject is poultry culture and we are considering the question from
the stand point of a business, and from experience. We found her
jealous, offended by the society about her, and so, unsafe to set. We
found she abandoned her nest, broke her eggs, tore up the tran-
quility of the whole setting colony, and killed the chicks.

Such, her history as a setter in society.

As a brooder she was all this and, in addition, eat more food than
her chicks and of a kind more especially prescribed for the chicks,
which, with great numbers became doubly expensive.

The further expense must be met in one of two shapes: Either the
hen must have large room, or else the chicks were killed in quarrels.
But those that survived all these and ever attained their liberty were
enticed to trail through dew and, must be caught up at every shower
of rain. But the worst of all, these hens abandoned their brood
too soon and let them die of catarrh, or roup, or some other form of
indigestion and so, again, we were driven back to the brooder
thoroughly convinced that successful poultry culture, on an eaten-
sive scale, can only succeed by the scientific system. To this, then,
we shall now confine our consideration.

50 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

CHAPTER VI.

AUTHOR’S EXPERIENCE WITH INCUBATORS CONTINUED. SUCOESS HATCHER,
MONARCH, CLIMAX, EUREKA, PERFECT HATCHER. LAMP TRIP
MACHINES. HOW TO FEED. HOW TO SELECT A LAYING HEN. LAY-
ING STRAINS. THE USE OF THE STANDARD PRESCRIPTION FOR LICE.
FEATHER EATING. WATER. SHADE. HOW TO CURE SETTING HENS.
SCIENTIFIC INCUBATION. HOW TO DETERMINE THE RIGHT TEMPER-
ATURE FOR AN INCUBATOR. HOW TO MAINTAINIT. THE HEN’S AND
THE HUMAN VITAL HEAT COMPARED. HOW TO BUILD A CHEAP AND
GOOD POULTRY HOUSE.

UR next incubator was a 400 ‘‘Success Hatcher,” using,
also, that companies brooder for very young chicks and
the heater house brooder later on, with the most gratify-
Sse ing success. My faith in this and all the self-regulating
Incubators is absolute.

I determined to confine my work exclusively to standard poultry
culture on a large scale and so selected the several varieties I still
breed, and, filling my machine with these fresh and fine fertile eggs I
was delighted with a hatch of 94 chicks from 100 fertile eggs of which
82 lived and did well. I have since succeeded equally well and others
have done better by giving the work more time and attention.

The Success Haicher is a thermostatic, hot-water, self-regulated
incubator of all sizes, and maintains its temperature and furnishes
heat, air and moisture automatically and admirably. It is now being
further improved by adding a circuit electric battery which operates
the valve and at the same time depresses the lamp flame, and when
the temperature is reduced, to the desired degree, the valve closes
and the flame is again increased.

This same device done in another wayis peculiar to the “‘ Eureka,”’
the ‘‘ Perfect Hatcher,” the ‘‘ Climax,” and “‘ Monarch,’”’ and prob-

STANDARD AND COMMELCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 51

and makes the machine not only more reliable, but ‘‘a thing of
beauty and a joy forever.”’

The hot water circulates entirely around the egg chamber and be-
neath the evaporating pans of water, thus, warming and evaporating
the water beneath the eggs. We think no patient, intelligent person
can possibly fail to successfully operate either of the Incubators
herein advertised, because we have admitted only those we can cheer-
fully recommend. But, remember a brooder is just as essential a
thing in this method of poultry culture as an incubator and without
which the incubator, you must see, on a moment’s reflection, can be
of no earthly use to you because the chicks that you hatch must be
cared for promptly and, so the warm bottom heat brooder should await
the work of the incubator. Further on in this work we shall offer our
idea of several plans for poultry houses and brooders which, we
think, most admirably answer every end.

We come now to insist on the only proper function of the hen.

Do not call on them for anything but eggs, but study and develope
her highest possibilities in this direction.

Experience has shown that egg production is a natural, physi-
ological function and may be modified, increased or retarded by
such influences as increase » the condition, or unfavorably affect the
health of the hen.

Scientific research has approximately placed the ultimatum. of a
hen’s life work, in egg production, at from six to eight hundred eggs.

In a state of nature, or under the old system of poultry culture,
the hen would consumate this life labor in about twelve years;
whereas, under the modern improved method of comfortable hous-
_ ing, feed and care her general, physiological habit is so exalted that

she lays the larger half, or about 450 eggs, in less than three years.
The hen in the hands of the modern scientific poultryman, is simply

-an animate machine. Her physical condition is diagnosed and her
egg production is stimulated or retarded at will, precisly as the milk
flow is increased, or diminished in a cow. In a state of health, a
hen can no more help laying than feeling well under proper feed.
This fact came to me through unfortunate experience. I then raised
my fancy Buffs by the setting hensystem. I fed all liberally and I
always found that within forty days my delightful old biddy resumed
ovulation and left the chicks to combat the cold charities of spring-
time.

52 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

I then selected the oldest hens as less Jiable to resume their laying
and finaly, I found tiat good or bad diet was at the bottom of the
whole business and determined the activity of egg production.

I demonstrated the accuracy of this conclusion from the negative
side by building an inclosure into which only the chicks could enter
and eat and, so by starving the hen, or putting her on lighter diet, |
delayed her ovulation and she stayed with her chicks.

Again, there is such a thing as strains in all kinds of stock where-
in the greatest difference of merit exist. The famous Stoke Pogis
and Coomasse strains of Jersy cattle command increditable prices
because of a characteristic certainty to transmit the very highest
milk and butter merit to all their offspring.

The Felch, and Autocrat and Duke of York strains of Light Brahma,
the “Orange”? and ‘‘Connor’”’ and ‘Old Gold” strains of Buff
Cochins, the Essex and other strains of Plymouth Rocks have
national reputation as egg producers.

A strain, then, of anything is only properly so-called, when by
careful selection and culture there has been firmly fixed upon it some
clearly defined characteristic, and so by selection and carefully feed-
ing only the very best laying hens, a strain of superior excellence as
egg producers, can certainly be built up which, of course, is of the
very first importance, either in fancy, or commercial poultry culture.

Now, while experience with any animal affords the surest test of
intrinsic merit, yet certain external features are often suggestive of
superior high qualities even in a hen.

First, excellence in anything is strongly suggested in faultless
symmetry. Give me a hen that balances well in all the standard
sections and so approximates symmetrical perfection, and I will
select her with confidence as a valuable layer. —

Again, medium sized hens are almost always to be preferred as
layers and thus we come practically upon the inestimable worth of
the American Standard of Excellence affecting for good the most
vital part of commercial poultryculture. Thus, too, is proved the wis-
dom in modifying its provision in respect to excessive weight.

Like that book of books, that higher standard rule that rises above
all earthly wisdom and entrenches its worth and truth in the univer-
sal experience of every day life, so the good sense and real necessity
of such a standard system for raising fowls, for any and every use,
is practically attested in the experience of every intelligent student

BTANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 53

of poultry culture.

The standard size and symmetry then, afford the most reliable
guide in the selecting of a genuine, good laying hen. If you have
not got a standard, purchase one from any poultry editor or breeder
and thus build up astrain of laying hens for abundance of fine fertile
eggs from such stock as we have suggested, affords the best possible
foundation for successful incubation and vigorous chicks. -

We can not too strongly insist upon the necessity of all this pre-
paration if we decide to embark in this business as a profession. Of
course, we can begin at once and work up to the position herein pre-
scribed, but the sooner we secure our own stock and thus control our
own egg supply the better by far will be our success; for, remember
that the issue must largely relate to the quantity and quality of the
eggs. To this end we have carefully considered and assented to the
practical necessity of what has been said.

We comprehend the vast advantage of the scientific system, we per-
ceive the impossibility of proceeding and pushing business as we
intend with the cumbrous, quarelsome hens as hatchers, and so we
have selected from the best our self-regulating Incubators and the
best brooders.

We have purchased a standard, have carefully selected and mated
our stock, and now before we enter on the work of incubation, let us
stop and carefully consider what we have on hands and how we shall
shelter and feed and care for our stock.

We know no substantial house that could be built cheaper than the
gable-roofed, or double roofed box house; that is, pine plank nailed
upright to sill and plate, the cracks striped and the entire inside sur-
face and roof covered with tarred felt. Such a house can be built
any size and will be thoroughly dry and sufficiently warm. Let the
house be wide enough, say 24 feet, to admit a 4 feet hallway through
the center and leaving the pens 10 feet'square on either side. Let
these pens open into runs 10 feet wide and as long as convenient on
either side of the building, fenced and partitioned with lath. Such
quarters are only suggested, the cost must differ with location and
price of material and labor at different places.

The more essential consideration now confronts us, what shall we
feed? Weanswer everything. But, in winter, our poultry provender
is necessarily so limited thata certain general dietary must form our
staple food. For the morning meal, therefore, give equal parts of

_ 54 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

corn meal, ground oats and wheat bran thoroughly scalded, adding
pepper and salt, and fed warm at six o’clock, a. m. At ten o’clock
hang a head of cabbage in each pen. At one o’clock feed scalded
wheat and at six p.m. feed dry crushed corn. Vary the morning
meal with corn bread in which there is plenty of lard and black
pepper, and feed meat cooked in some shape once or twice per week.
Beef heads-chopped up into chunks and boiled with potatoes make
the very best and cheapest food. Bone meal or ground oyster
shell should be kept before the fowls and often put into the soft food.

Lice should be looked after every two or three weeks and when
found apply through the fluff of each fowl a small handful of the
following mixture:

Flour of sulpher 10 pounds; fluid carbolic acid 3 drachms ; —
mix thoroughly with a stick in a box, say 12 by 18 inches long, witha ~
strap across the top fora handle. Take each fowl that is suspected,
orinfested with vermin by the legs, rest the breast or crop upon the
floor and gently sift the carbonized sulpher all through the fluff. The
fowl when liberated will flutter and so send into every crack and
erevice this perfect specific against all manner of poultry vermin and
this, we assure you, is no small triumph ; for, otherwise, your whole
premises would be permeated with this plague which, creeping and
crawling through all the feathers and over the delicate skin, would
allow no sleep, would so disturb the nervous system as to induce an
irritative indigestion and so wreck the whole enterprise.

Again, we say, look after the lice and as they are closely connected
with filth, keep everything clean.

Filth and vermin, let me further insist, are fruitful sources of other
ills. They debilitate and break down the powers of vital resistence and
so expose the fowls to all other infirmities.

Feed your stock liberally and yet with judgment, not to fatten them
but full to satisfy them.

Feather eating and egg eating never will occurr when fowls are al-
lowed liberal diet. The cure for that habit came to me from watch-
ing a neighbor’s hens pluck all the feathers from the male. They ate
the entire feather to get at the soft end, yet fresh in animal matter.

Supply oyster shell and bone meal and animal diet and hens will
never begin these habits and will quit them if commenced.

These seemingly small matters are mentioned only because the au-
thor’s purpose is to be practical and of actual service to all who seek

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 55

advice on such subjects from the experience of others. The influence
of small things cannot be better illustrated than in thescourges of
p lice among laying hens. Like the coral insect operating silently and
unseen away down under the ocean, they are unnoticed and unknown
until, at length, they rear high up to the crested wave their dreadful
reef that wrecks the commerce of the seas. And so, the ruin wrought
by lice and all such seemingly small things, if unobserved and left
to prey upon the fiock of the poultryman.

The medicated dust box containing carbolized sulpher, is here sug-
gested as the easiest and safest specific.

Water, fowls like everything else demand fresk pure cold water;
not freezingly cold, but pure, fresh, and often.

In summer and in hottest weather every four hours and only
enough, the rest turned out so that they may not drink the water
when warm, which induces diarrhcea. Wash out the vessels every
time you water. All this seems small but must be somebody’sregu-
lar business, unless your yard be built in a circle around a fountain,
or along a running stream. But the fresh water supply is an abso-
lute necessity.

Shade, also, and green grass are essential to the healthand comfort
of fowls in confinement, shade especially.

When hens lay out their litter of from 10 to 18 eggs they usually de-
cide toset, and then comes a crisis between science and the setting
hen. Of course, the hen must succumb.

To effectually blot out her ideas of incubation in the shortest pos-
sible time the hen should be suspended. Takealath frame one foot
or eighteen inches square, tie a rope to the four corners and swing it
up in the house with the hen inside. Supply her with feed and waiter
and the air coming under her and her suspended movable habitation
soon dissuades her from entering seriously on such a maternal en-
terprise, Meantime. feed her freely, the purpose being to puther
physical system in the finest possible condition to augment her
health to highest habit and so force her down from her artificialalti
tude again to honest, steady business.

We now enter upon the important process of scientific incubation,
feeling that herein will soon be demonstrated the wisdom of all our
carefull preparatory work. We now desire to know precisely the
proper heat at which to gauge our Incubator and so we take our reg-
istered fever thermometer and passing it up the bowel of the hen

56 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

we find that at the beginning the vital temperature of a setting hen
is one hundred and six degress. The vital temperature of a human
being in health is 981g degrees and so we here derive much funda-
mental and practical information.

Let us stop to learn the meaning of this fact and ask why the fowl’s
temperature is eight degrees above our own? The purpose appears
to point out in this higher temperature of the fowl an especial fitness
for the work of incubation and, so, when left to herself, in a state of
nature, the ordeal is wrought out in such perfection as only can we
safely imitate in ourscientific operations; for, thus situated only can
the hen accomplish natural incubation.

A further providential purpose, doubtless, in this higher normal
heat regarded the comfort and protection of the fowl from inclem-
encies and cold.

Again we seek to measure as before the actual heat beneath the hen
at the beginning of her incubation, for then, her vital heatis highest ;
first, thatshe may longer starve and stay upon her eggs, and ; second,
because the eggs demand this higher heat toawaken within them the
vital force, or principle. We find by actual test that, placed beneath
the recent setting hen, her temperature will not be far from 103 de-
grees, and, to this we adjust our thermostat as follows: We will fill
our Incubator with eggs and place a reliable theromomter on top and
carefully watch the influence of the heat until the mercury rises thus,
under the influence of heat to measure 103 degrees, we then advance
the thermal screw to-wards the metalic bar until it touches, and so,
at 103 degrees the electric current is closed, the valve is opened and
the lamp flame is lowered and so held by the magnet until the heat
inthe egg chamber declines, then the bar contracts away from con-
tact with the screw, the current is broken, the valve closes and the
lamp flame again turned up, and so the temperature demanded by
nature is thus derived, and thus guarded and governed, with perfect
precision under the unerring operation of electric control. Thus
can the first great essential to scientific incubation, the proper tem-
perature, be found at first and reliably maintained throughout the or-
deal of incubation.

There is no triumph of modern scientific truth better sustained by
the test of practical experience than the application of electricity to
governing the temperature of the incubator. Itrequires no special
training, no education in the operation of electrical apparatus to un-

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 57

derstand and operate any of these self-regulating Incubators, be-
cause they do everything BR SHUPe IVES but fill the lamps and turn the
eggs, and some do turn the eggs

But what practical lesson may we deduce from passing the ther-
mometer into the interior and finding there the actual, vital temper-
ature of the hen to be 106 degrees ? Since wefind her external heat
to be much less and so allow the latter to guide our operations ? We
learn from this the highest vital temperature of the hen, that 106 de-
grees is the very highest heat that can be applied to eggs ; since, be-
yond the highest vital temperature appliable to anything their off-
spring will suffer. Hence from this internal test we find that 106 de-
grees to be the highest heat to which we may subject the incubating
eggs, and even this vital heat of the hen is full two degrees too high
for the hen’s offspring, or eggs, precisely as the weather in August,
measuring 98 1-2 degrees of heat, the normal vital temperature of
adult human life is much too high for human health. Thus the les-
son that, though the temperature may run up to 106, or 108, or even
110 degrees for avery short time, yet, if even 106 degrees be long
sustained in the Incubator the chicks will nearly all die in the egg, or
soon after hatching. The proper temperature, therefore, for incu-
bation is 103 degrees, as demonstrated and drawn by actual test from
the operations of nature going on within the hen.

But let us dwell here for a moment for a few observations. After
the hen has kept her nest for about ten days her comb turns pale, her
weight and general robust health declines and she gradually loses her
vital heat on through all the rest of incubation until we find, on
actual test, at the end of three weeks from her first entering upon
this duty with a vital temperature of 106 degrees that she now meas-
ures by the same thermal test a vital temperature of 102 de-
grees. But, the incubating eggs do not suffer from this constant
loss of vital heat in the starving setting hen; but, rather this
is a merciful source of safety to the embryo chicks because
no sooner is the vital germ imbued with active life within
the egg than the circulation of blood sets up within the shell
and so the vital changes thus engendered within the incubat-
ing eggs develope a heat within the egg which more than balances
the vital warmth that, as we saw, hasleft the hen. Thusit is that the
hen may leave her nest and the incubating birds may wander wide
in'search of food. The circulating blood and inherent heat within

58 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

the egg is almost self-sustaining after. the first two weeks. .

But, let us carry this observation with us and note the operation of
this physiological process upon the temperature of hundreds of eggs
within the Incubator. This source of inherent heat within many
incubating eggs would seem, at first, to fataily affect their tempera-
ture, or bring the pertinancy of the question within the scope of our
inquiry into this subject. But, here the incubating eggs are just as
safe from over heat as if beneath the falling temperature of the hen ;
because, it will be observed, that the thermostat is within the egg
chamber and adjusted to reliably hold the temperature from going
higher than 103 degrees; it affects this thermal ventilator just the
same, whether the heat be generated from the lamp, or emanate from
the eggs, or both. Still, whenever the temperature ascends to 103
degrees, the electric current is called into action, the lamp flame is
lowered and the valve flies open, the outside air enters and the heat
escapes and this operation holds down the lamp heat entirely if nec-
essary, and uses only so much of lamp heat, which, added to whatis
given off by the eggs, amount in the whole to 103 degrees ; and so
the scientific process is purely self-regulating and absolutely reliable
with this style of Incubators.

We have now set and tested and find our Incubator holds its
heat for several days safely at 103 degrees. We introduce the
eggs and let them entirely alone for two days, during which time we
neither turn nor air nor in any way disturb the eggs ; because, up to
this point and even later, the hen never leaves her nest nor turns nor
uncovers her eggs. Why ? Because it will be found, by breaking
the eggs, that it requires 48 hours of constant heat at from 102 to 103
degrees to imbue with active life the vital principle within the egg.
Then, with unaided eye we can plainly see the heart beat and round
about this little beating atom we observe the mesh-work of mesen-
teric arteries and veins—the brain and spinal cord and the crude out-
line of the little living creature coming out from the domain of the
chemical into the vital world.

The subtile changes are so exceedingly delicate up to this point
where the circulation can be seen and is actually established, that the
instinct of the hen adapts her conduct to the eggs necessities, and so
she hovers and heats them perfectly still. The question is here sug-
gested, how long may eggs be subjecied to 103 degrees of heat before
those chemico-vital changes start, and hence would destroy the egg

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 59

from hatching, if withdrawn from the heat before the function of
circulation and visible vital force is affected in the eggs ?

We think it unsafe to ship or disturb eggs that have been subjected
to incubating heat over six or eight hours, for we may clearly see the
enlarged and yellow areolar ring around the vital spot, the vitelis,
after the first 12 hours of incubation. Hence, the necessity of the
precept enjoined to keep the eggs perfectly quiet for two or three
days from the beginning of subjecting them to incubating heat.

It is difficult to definitely determine the precise period when the
chemical changes will first besetin operation in the egg under heat, but

_by bringing up the point may assist, somewhat, in saving many eggs
from rotting that have been subjected to heat and cooled too soon.

It may be suggested, too, that eggs that are not hatched daily may
be thus started by a hen setting on theeggs overnight. Allsucheggs
are certain to rot, if set or kept.

Well we have stopped to note this important practical observation;
but we have had our eggs three days and nights in the Incubator sub-
jected to 103 degrees of heat. We break an egg—we find upon one
side a small congested speck and bending around, a little quivering
point we trace the outline of the embryo bird. The little per gae

speck is the birds heart.

We now conclude it safe to turn the eggs gently once a day and put
in our pans of luke warm water. Why? Because at this period the
hen leaves her nest for food. Why ? Because the vital changes go-
ing on in the egg keep up for a time the internal heat to which we
have elsewhere refered and now we observe the hen to lift her body
and with her beak to move her eggs about. Why ? Because to
equalize her heat to all her eggs and to afford equal air to all; and,
further, by changing the egg’s position prevents adhereing to the
side of the shell. Of this latter I am uncertain, since eggs have
hatched that have never been turned. The experiment is quite easily
made with separate drawers of an Incubator.

After the first three days the moisture pans becomes an essential.
Why? Because the high heat and consequent dry air of the Incuba-
tor demands moisture and will extract it from any source.

There becomes, therefore, a strong affinity for the moisture with-
in the eggs.

To remedy this robbing the egg of its moisture the evaporation
of water within the egg chamber keeps the air sufficiently hnmid and

60 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

the egg is not thus injuriously affected.

Experience, alone, has demonstrated the right relation between a
given amount of heat, a given amount of water for evaporation, and
the successful hatching of the egg. Usually, from a quart to three
pints of water in 24 hours at 103 degrees temperature will satisfy na-
ture’s demand for atmospheric humidity in a drawer of one hundred
eggs.

It is of prime necessity, indeed, our second great essential to success-
ful incubation, that sufficient moisture be supplied. Why? Because
nutritional changes of embryonic life are actively operative in the
egg and these changes there, and elsewhere in all possible forms of
life, whether in animal or vegetable life, all changes, must be effect-
ed through fluid media. They must be carried on in a fluid state.
Water actually constitutes over 90 per cent. of everything that lives"
There can be no change and therefore, no vital heat, and therefore,
no life when the water of the object is reduced below 90 per cent. of
the whole physical organism. Whether in the sap of the trees and
plants, or the circulating blood of animal life, water affects all the
atomie changes that underlie the life force; hence its necessity
here where the jife forces are operating in hundreds-of eggs and where
a rapid circulation in each egg is absorbing from the atmosphere the
greatest amount of moisture it can contain.

But, we have seen the incubating heat of the hen is 103 degrees.
The inquiry is pertinent, whence is supplied the requisite amount of
moisture for this temperature when the hen hatches the eggs? We
answer the high heat and active circulation going on in the egg be-
neath her, both being greater than her own, absorbs the moisture
from the hen; hence her rapid reduction in weight beyond what is
due to loss of food.

But certainly, we do not insist that the same amount of moisture
for the same degree of heat, is demanded alike from the hen and from
the Incubator ; the reasen being that the oily substance derived from
the body of the hen, which, may be observed, renders her eggs sleek
and shining, and very much unlike those subjected to Incubator heat
for the same length of time.

This oily principle imparted by the hen closes, in part, the pores ;
but not enough to injure the egg, and so prevents the evaporation
and loss of the water within the egg.

So the hen insures sufficient moisture to the egg while incubating,

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 61

by partly supplying moisture from her own body, and partly, by
preventing the evaporation of the egg’s moisture by the oily perspir-
ation she imparts to it.

The Incubator insures the necessary moisture by free evaporation
of water from the moisture pans, thus rendering the air humid and
so enabling the egg to absorb its requisite supply, and, also prevent-
ing the air from drawing any further moisture from the egg.

Both methods succeed in doing the same thing by somewhat dif-
ferent means ; both fully supply the egg with the second great essen-
tial, which is moisture.

Thus, we insert the moisture pans the third day, or as soon as the
vital changes begin to influence the internal upward heat and organ-
ization of the egg into higher form and structure.

We now continue to turn the eggs once daily until ten days and,
thereafter, on throughout the period, two or three times a day.
After the first week, or on the 6th or 7th day the whole of the eggs
should be tested ; the purpose being to rid the Incubator of allinfer-
tile eggs—first because they can be cooked as food for chicks, and
second, subjected to high heat and moisture they often decay and
emit an odor that injures all the other eggs. For such purpose se-
cure or make a tester, which is a conical tube six inches long, made
of stiff rubber cloth, large enough at the base to admit an egg ; place
the egg in this end, hold it between the finger and thumb of the left
hand, the palm of the hand upward, so that the hand will not be in
front of the egg, then apply the small end of the test tube to the eye,
before a strong light, or the sun, and if the egg be fresh, or infertile,
it will be clear and pink in appearance. If examined thus on the
third day an expert can detect a small floculus and red tint rapidly
rise to the top of the egg on being turned over, this indicates the
early changes in the egg when the vital functions first manifest
themselves to the unaided eye ; but then it is too soon and unsafe to
make the test.

But tested on the 6th or 8th ne we find a dark and well defined
spot somewhat like a spider ; then, if the egg be broken we find the
little embryo snugly invested in a membraneous sack that incloses
the embryo and the substance of the egg, the enlarged vessels every-
where forming a perfect network through which are carried on, con-
tinually, the most active nutritional changes ; this circulating foetal
blood propelled in rapid and rich supply to every part by the throb-

62 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY JOURNAL.

bing, beating little heart.

All this may be seen on breaking a fertile incubating egg at 8 days,
or even earlier.

Then the head and eyes and all the parts of the chick are plainly
perceptible.

If now the egg be mottled with numerous specks and intervening
clear pink color, then the egg is usually old, or otherwise unfit ; but
always infertile and can be safely broken.

If there is a large, dark body with light allowed to surround it
every where and fluid be seen that seems to shake on motion some-
thing like thick fluid then the chick is dead. Then, too, the egg is
usually motled. But, if the dark body after 12 or 15 days shall fill
the egg, except one small clear spot at the larger end, which we rec-
ognize as the air chamber—the whole egg, besides be dark and full
then the chick is usually alive.

Thus, the tester enables us at an early date to separate the dead from
the living with almost unerring certainty and much more certainly
when such fresh and perfect eggs are used as these preceeding pages
have prescribed.

Pardon me, if we again insist that the quality of the eggs decides
the excellency of the incubation, all things else being right.

The test should be made on the 6th and again on the 12th days ;
first, for the infertile eggs, and, next, for those which were then
doubtful and for dead chicks.

If at any stage there exudes a finid, thick and sticky, through the
shell, then the smell will indicate, also, that the chick is dead, or the
egg decomposed and it must at once be removed.

Thus the test tube, the exudation from the egg, and the oder wall
enable you to detect and separate the good from the bad.

Thus we have advanced upon the progress of the setting hen, her
rotten eggs often fill with gas and burst befouling all, and ruining
the whole enterprise of her incubation.

After the 14th day the chicks have grown to almost fill the egg. The
changés that have so rapidly been wrought are akin to the marvel-
ous.

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 63

CHAPTER VII.

THE INFLUENCE OF HEAT UPON THE EGG, CONTINUED. THE NECESSITY OF

MOISTURE. ITS ACTION. HOW SUPPLIED BY THE HEN AND BY THE

_ INCUBATOR. PURE AIR THE THIRD ESSENTIAL TO INCUBATION. PURE

AIR. ITS COMPOSITION. HOW IT ACTS. THE INTERIOR AND EXTER-

IOR OF AN INCUBATING EGG. HOW THE CHICK IS FINALLY HATCHED.

WHEN. ITS PECULIARITY AS TO SIZE AND NECESSITIES. THE
BROODER.

T the close of the first 12 hours the egg exposed to incu-
bating heat reveals an areolar spot upon the yolk of
paler yellow hue, again 12 hours and this enlarges and so
continues until at 48 hours from entering under incubat-

ing heat, congestion, or rather hyperemia is seen around a central

vital spot. Faster and fuller these small surrounding arteries extend
outward and over the yolk until within a week the whole yolk
becomes a bed of crossing, coursing blood vessels, all carrying
continually outward and back the blood that receives its impulse
from the little central, oscillating organ called the heart. Behind
this little vital pump somewhere presides a power, we know not
what, but call it *‘ vital force.’? This vital current, for the cir-
culating blood is actually imbued with the potent principle of life
and hence a vital current, absorbs nutrition as it passes through
the surrounding pabulum; and so this vital phenomenon, fixed and
founded in the yolk of the egg, draws on the albumen everywhere
within, and thence builds, from its base in the yolk, the bird’s physi-
cal fabric by process of absorption of all the animal matter within
the egg. This process requires three weeks. The animal matter all
absorbed and the chick full developed from this substance, becomes
the ultimatum of incubation. Then it only remains for the chick to
make its exit from the egg, there being only left the brittle lime, the
moisture all absorbed, at the point of sharpest contact the shell

64 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

crumbles and the chick comes out ; such is incubation.

But during this interesting ordeal the fluid state must be maintain-
ed of all this matter, thus absorbed from the interior of the egg, by
the circulating channels of the living, growing chick; andso evapor-
ation is insufficient to meet the constantly increasing demand for
moisture. After the first ten days of incubation, when the first,
third and thinner fluid has been absorbed and left the rest more
dense and difficult to absorb, because less liquid, the nutritional
changes are much less certain and, hence, the death during incuba-
tion is largely in the last stage. Hence, we see that moisture is truly
an essential, and now must be supplied in vastly greater quantity,
than is possible by evaporation and so, after the first ten days, nature
demands that the eggs be sprinkled. Moisture applied to the exter-
ior, or outer surface of the egg is absorbed through the porous shell -
by the vital heat and circulation that are going on within. If there-
fore, eggs at this stage be freely moistened and exposed to the air,
the absorption may soon be seen ; except when the chick is dead and
then the moisture will remain on the shell and the educated, or ex-
perienced touch, or feeling of the eggs will determine at once, by the
presence or absence of vital heat, whether the chick be dead in the
shell.

We havenow gone pretty thoroughly through the first two essentials
to incubation; namely, heat and moisture, and have not only
affirmed their prime necessity as a fact, but have gone under
the fact to show the philosophy, or the clear common sense that sup-
ports it.

We now proceed to the third and last essential, which is pure air.
It is apparent to every person that fresh, pure air is essential to ex-
istence ; but, all are not intimately acquainted with the actual opera-
tion of this life giving agent.

Pure air is composed in largest part of nitrogen and oxygen; the
nitrogen being over three-fourths greater in the composition of air
than oxygen and serves only to dilute and render the oxygen less
dense and distructive. Oxygen thus combined with other gaseous
elements of air is the grateful and essential generator of all the deli-
cate chemical changes that evolve, or furnish the vital force. When
food is taken and transformed from the solid to the liquid state, and
in its onward passage converted into a milky, murky mass of
chyle and chyme, and, coming on eventually to the lungs, it there re-

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. Se

ceives this vital air, this element of life, o«ygen, by which its color
and essential character are changed, and thence it starts, carrying in
its corpuscles this vital principle to every atom, which it influences
in the perpetual life labor of incessent waste and repair. When an
atom is oxidized, it generates that force that furnishes it, from the
blood, a rich rebuilding of other atoms and so oxygen is everywhere
the essential promoter of those destructive and constructive tissue
changes upon which, alone, the life force depends.

What is true of the human organization is equally applicable to
the operations going on in the incubating egg. These nutritional
changes, here so actively operative are possible only in the presence
and by the power of oxygen. Combined with nearly eighty parts of
a neutral agent, termed nitrogen, it constitutes the atmospheric air ;
and thus reduced in energy, it then excites, as we have seen, those
healthful changes that are, indeed, the vital essence of all nutrition
and vital phenomena and force, such the influence of atmospheric
air; such the essential influence of vital change of tissue atoms, or
oxidation.

In other combinations oxygen becomes more active and causes
combustion and so destroys by burning heat and, still, by combin-
ing eight-nineths of oxygen with one-nineth of hydrogen we have
water ; hence the life giving principle of moisture and pure water in
stimulating those vital changes that constitute what is called nutri-
tion. j

Oxygen, be it remembered, in pure air and water must be present
as the promoter of vital action everywhere that it exists. Hence its
essential service in awakening and sustaining life in the incu ating
eggs.

Thus, we may sum up upon this point as follows: The vital germ
containing the life principle, being imparted by the male, and, from
electric affinity finding itslodgement in the yolk of the egg, where it
lies inert until such a time asthe egg is subjected to those conditions
that induce a change in the vital element from a state of latency
into activelife. The germination; the areolar spot upon the yolk at
12 hours; the congestion around the vitellus at 36 hours ; the beating
of the heart at the end of the third day; the floculus then percepti-
bly margined with crimson fringe and floating upward in the egg as
viewed through the test tube: the dark, spider-like spot, with ves-
sels running out over theinterior of the egg at the end of the first

66 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

week; the enlargement of this dark spot, and the appearance of
light in the air chamber, or large end of the egg; the increase of heat
in the egg; the entire egg becoming dark, excepting at the air
chamber ; the light all around the egg with vibrating thick fluid in-
dicating the death of the chick, also the mottled egg, indicating in-
fertility ; the clear pink, unclouded egg, denoting afresh or iufertile
egg, and the mottled egg with clear pink spots denoting no dark
body, indicating an old infertile egg, and mottled with a dark body
suggests a dead chick.

So much for the interior of an incubating egg as seen upon break-
ing the eggs at various stages, every day, and viewed through the
test tube, before the sun, or in the dark, before a strong light.

The external evidence of incubating eggs are: A cold egg, twelfth
day, denotes absence of circulation within, and hence, no life; an
egg that does not absorb moisture after the fourteenth day, when
dampened, denotes no circulation and, therefore, no life; an odor
emanating from an egg, or a vicid exudation from an egg, with an
odor or not, is proof of decomposition, going on within, and these
poisons forced out through the pores by the expansion of the gas in
the egg under heat and moisture.

If [ am dwelling too definitely on all these details of incuba-
tion, my apology must be, [am following in succession, every step
of nature, not as learned from books; but as seen by me during a
series of years, in the incubation of thousand of eggs.

Finally, the twentieth day the imprisoned chick has drawn its last
nutrition from the interior of the egg, its vital heat and circulating
blood have absorbed every particle of the substance of the egg into
the chick and used it as food, until therenow remains only the vigor-
ous little animal, anxious to get out, and nervous from finding no
longer any nourishment within the egg. All the moisture, all the
animal matter being taken up by the chick, there only remains the
brittle shell of lime, punctured by thousands of pores that allways -
break first at the bigger end of the egg. Why? Because there the
air chamber has kept the inside fiuid from the shell by a special
membrane and so the egg is always less moist and more brittle at
the bigger end. There, too, the head of the little chick is turned for
air, and so there the relatively sharper portion of the chick, the beak
breaks through the rotten wall. When the beak breaks through and
the chicks find fresh air it presses in that direction and soon breaks

STANDARD AND COMMELCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 67

away from all feeble tesistence and so ends the period of its incuba-
tion.

Reader, I hope you have fully understood the ordeal of incubation;

for the process of developement from the first inception of life in
the egg, on and on, to the end of incubation, is a perfect por-
traiture of the processes of your own, and all other animal exis-
tence.
The chick is hatched and independent of the egg. In other words,
under the influence of special essential conditions the egg has been
vitalized and transformed from a state of inertia, or latency into a
living creature. The egg being thus transformed the chick now
claims our special consideration.

When first hatched a chick will actually oocupy more space and
look much larger than when three or four daysold. The yolk, though
all absorbed from the egg, is yet within the chick undigested and
thus affords food for the chick for about thirty hours. During this
period we notice the setting hen, if left entirely alone, to sit in
quietnde, hovering her brood and never offering them food. Her
unerring instinct impresses her with the importance of keeping them
warm. This proves to be an actual necessity to the safety of the
chick, because the yolk of the mother egg is yet within the chick
under the processof absorption and complete digestion and so this
delicate vital function must be consummated under elevated tem-
perature. Hence the habit of the hen in hovering her young almost
exclusively for several days.

The first necessity, therefore. for the newly hatched chicks is not
food, but a dry and warm place, well ventilated and protected from
draughts or chill or dampness. Why? Because, if food be forced
_ upon a delicate digestive organ, already doing the full measure of
- its duty, the result must be indigestion or disease. This we often see
in little chicks a few days old. and this error, of too early feeding,
has injured the Incubator. .

Again, the chicks must not get chilled for the first few days. Why?
Because cold checks chemical change, and such chemical or vital
changes as this absorbing and digesting yolk of a very young chick
being thus chilled and blighted, the result must be indigestion and
disease and death of the chick. This is all important and the source
of so much prejudice because of failure to raise the chicks. Look
to the brooder.

68 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

From all the foregoing we think it will be conceded that a dry and
warm place to put the little chicks immediately after removal from
the Incubator is the only safe and sensible proceedure.

A brooder, therefore, becomes as much of a necessity as an Incu-
bator and yet the brooder is always almost overlooked and ignored
by the majority of those who buy an Incubator.

Friends, reflect a moment, what possible use can you have for an
Incubator, but to hatch chickens ? and without a brooder how shall
you protect and preserve the temperature proper for swarms of lit-
chicks. The brooder, then, becomes a pertinent consideration, in
this connection, and must be introduced to public acquaintance in
every text book or article that assumes to advocate the scientific
system of poultry culture.

We have elsewhere in these pages refered to this subject, and ad-
vocated what we believe to be the best, most practicle and cheapest
of all brooders yet introduced to the public. Let us enlarge upon the
idea and present several plans.

First: the inverted box brooder 20 by 6, or 8 ft. let down in the
ground floor, heated by lamps that enter the box by tin pipes at the
ends, with a tin pipe in the center for chimney for all the lamps.
Cover the top of the box with sand, all on a level with the floor, and
soon the whole sand floor is warm, and the radiated and ascending
heat warms the whole house. Thus we combine a building and a
brooder.

The building may be made of upright pine plank lined with tared
felt, and roofed with same, and so rendered very dry and warm. On
either side, on a level with the floor, small doors or holes may be
made, through which the chicks may be allowed the liberty of the
outside inclosed run about the house ; when chilled, they may return
in upon the warm floor. Thus, practically, you have all the advant-
ages of the bottom heat brooder, at trifling cost, and on a very large —
scale, without the inconvenience of having a brooder in your way.
Thus, too, it is impossible for chicks to pile up and crush each
other.

Building and brooder No. 2: Procure a small steam engine, from
which cast iron pipes shall run the full length of the building, and
return parallel with, and two feet from the first, and so on, until the
whole width of the floor is covered, the last returning pipe to re-enter
the boiler below the exit of the first. Then cover the pipes with

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 69

dirt and cement and sand over alland thus the engine will propell |
the hot water through all the pipe and thoroughly warm every part
of the floor building. The heat may be gauged, either in the engine
or where it is distributed in the building. The Perfect Hatcher Com- —
pany, Elmira, N. Y.. advertises to do that work. Also the Success ‘
Hatcher Co., Lancaster, Pa.

The engine will cost $400 or $500, but the extent of its services
aay thus be sketched. It possesses foree enough to carry water
everywhere even hundreds of feet. It will enable you to attach rub-
ber hose and when the house needs cleaning, remove everything
down to the cement floor, which should slope each way from the cen-
ter, and then wash and scour the floor with hot (carbolized) water.
It will enable you to cook your feed by scalding water or steam, and
so save half your feed which would pay for the machine each year.
It would furnish the motor power to shell your corn and to grind all
your feed and so you could fatten pigs, poultry and ducks with all
ease, in great numbers and very cheap. *The engine furnishing the
motor power for shelling and grinding, for supplying the hot water,
for sending it in rubber pipes to any place to steam or scald
and so soften the food, besides furnishing heat for chicken nur-
sery.

Remember first, that cooked, or steamed, or softened food. when
thus ground and mixed as we shall soon prescribe, is the best possi-
ble preventive of disease and the foundation idea in successful poul-
try culture. Why? Because ground, softened food fattens fast and
induces rapid growth. Why? Because over half the labor of digest-
ing is done by thus grinding and softening. Chicks or pigs or ducks
cannot get too fat while growing and so this form of food warm and
ground and softened imposes no labor on the digestive organs, and
thus the young stock may be pushed rapidly forward, built up in
physical vigor above disease. Thus one half the feed bill may be
saved and the young stock strengthened against the’ adverse
iufiuence of inclement and cold changes and from all the indi-
gestions.

Aside from the brooder, as thus connected with the building,
I may safely commend the different make that are advertised in the
pages of this publication. They are all excellent within their limits
and for all who cultivate less than six orseven hundred chicks are all-
sufficient.

70 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY OULTURE.

CHAPTER VIII.

FOOD. FOOD IN ITS RELATION TO LIFE. FOOD IN ITS RELATION TO
HEALTH. FOOD IN ITS RELATION TO DISEASE. FOOD ANALIZED.
FOOD ADROITELY DIRECTED BY SCIENCE. FOOD IN ITS RELATION TO
FAT AND WHAT FATIMPLIES. TABLE GIVING ANALIZING DIFFERENT
GRAINS, AND GIVING THEIR SPECIAL AND RELATIVE VALUE AS DIET
FOR VARIOUS DUTIES. FORMULARY OF FEED. FEED FOR LITTLE

CHICKS RELATIVE VALUE OF DRY AND COOKED FEED. POULTRY -

FOODS OB TONICS.

@AK now confront one of the most important, one of the
' essential subjects of poultry culture. It underlies every-
thing, it is the power that impells all other forms of force,

#@ J it furnishes blood and brain and bone and feather and
flesh and is, indeed, the power behind the throne of vital force itself.
We refer, of course. to food.

A chapter, then, demands its proper place in this connection
devoted to poultry diet.

Ifthe foregoing be true, then, we think, all will concur that there
is scarcely a subject within the wide range of poultry culture so really
important as poultry diet.

We shall offer in this connection a few suggestions upon intelligent
scientific feeding. The excellencies of everything are first induced
by fine feeding. The marvelous milk and butter yield of Jersey and
Holstein cows were first secured through formidable bills of feeding
until these characteristics became established and were transmitted,
and thus, the so called ‘‘ strains of pure blood”’ are built up, all hav-
ing their origin in special diet directed to accomplish the end in
view ; but all emanating from fine food, selected diet, elegant nutri-
tion, which ever is and always was, and ever will be, at the beginning
and at the bottom of everything available. Even religion will thus
more perfectly bud and bloom and ripen her precious fruit, for man

~

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 71

is a monster of hideous mein, a savage beast, and utterly incapable
of keeping the least of all the commandments on an empty stomach

Science has analized the brain and found it to contain phosphorus
and, where this element abounded most, the intellectual faculties
were relatively enlarged, and, so in dementia or melancholia, or con-
ditions that suggested impairment of the brain power, phosphorus
was suggested, and soon established its claims to confidence as a
remedial agent.

Again, by analizing the waste material of active brain workers, it
‘was found that phosphorus was found in overly relative proportion
tothe rest of the waste material after specially prolonged or arduous
intellectual effort, and, so science began the search for phosphorized
food and found it largest in fish and oysters and eggs ; and so these
articles are universally conceded to contain the higher intellectional
elements of brain food.

Again, nitrogen is largely found in muscular tissue and so science
has sought for such food as was richest in this essential for furnish-
ing the greatest amount of muscle and found it largest in wheat and
lean meat.

Thus, special kinds of food, like special drugs are elective in their
action, operating upon and affecting certain parts of the system ex-
clusively. Thus, epicac affects the stomach; alces, the bowels:
nitre, the kidneys, and ; opium, the brain and, therefore, it becomes
self-evident to all that diet, like drugs, may be adroitly directed ;
and, under the auspices of sense and science may be so employed as
to serve the poultryman’s purpose whether that be to fatten for
market, to develope the production of eggs, or to stimulate the gen-
eral developement of his growing chlcks.

Let us illustrate: We feed our stock for various purposes ; our
chicks we aim to rapidly develope in every direction. We feed our
breeding birds in the direction of the fibrous and the muscular, to
the end that they may be active and vigorous and so best fitted to
sustain the heavy demands continually made upon the constitution
that must freely furnish the richest nutriment in hard shelled eggs ;
and, again, we feed to fatten our fowls, so fast and fully, that they
may not lay and so the sooner be ready for market. Thesame nu-
trition will not answer all these ends, and so, we tax our acquaintance
with Poultry Dietetics, and according to the indications as afforded
us by the researches and dictum of science, so we differently direct

72 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

diet, as we differently direct drugs, to do a certain, definite duty.

Suppose, in fuller illustzation, that we feed our breeding stock on
corn, combincd in fullest measure with everything else they will eat.
The result must be an over production of fat;and, with such condi-
tion, an end to all activity and ovulation, because science and ex-
perience, both, assign to corn the highest potency in producing fat.

Fat is notan indication of special strengthin any physical func-
tion. The Hon. 8. S. Cox declarcc in Congress that, ‘‘fat overlay-
ing abdominal muscles, never produced a Disraeli nor a Gladstone.”

Excessive fat, qualifies a bird or animal only for one thing and
that is to die. It indicates, in breeding stock, the strongest evidence
of injudicious feeding. Here, then, is the most important problem
thatthe breeder can confront, since color and characteristics, gcod
or bad qualities, health or disease, life or death, stand in direct rela-
tion to whatand how we feed. All are affected, and doomed, in one
direction or the other, by diet,

Let us remember that perfect digestion, that is, where there isa
proper balance between the waste and the repair and the elimina-
tion going on in a living organism, when digestion is thus perfect,
we have acondition of physiological ease, which is health. But,
when this desired state does not obtain, and we have indigestion
from any cause, as from improper food, or from sudden changes of
temperature, then this indigestion implies a condition of physiologi-
cal disease, which is, more or less, in the direction of death. .

To demonstrate the foregoing facts and to furnish a reliable index

_to intelligent feeding we respectfully offer the dictum of seience on
this subject in the subjoined table which expresses the comparative
dietetic value in each direction and the chemical composition of dif-
ferent grainsin building up the animal organism. With such facts
before us we have only then to comprehend what condition we require
in our stock tobest promote our purpose, and then select such diet
as the following formula suggests as best adapted to induce that de-
sired condition.

— - - e

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY OULTURE. 73

Chemical Composition of Cereal Food.

a w

53 8 = 5 = 22

| eee] a | eee ee |; ageless

aa s ao...) Fea 2 d
| peg | °Se| F868) S| #8 | Ae
KIND ° sg O| Aan g BS) -

| gue) geil Gae| » | 82 | ax

| orenam. | S25| 228] ge8| 2] 32 | 2

Bes! Me BSA | aA as

| a= mo oC Mo ~ >) orircs

| weo| m | 8+ ral Gane =e

Fy 2, A Q

ss WHEAT. 18.00 | 66.80 | 7.50 | 2.10 | 3.10 | 2.50
|

| BYE. 12.50 | 64.65 | 14.90 | 2.25 3.10 | 2.60

| ‘BARLEY. 12.96 | 66.43 | 10.00 | 2.76 4.75 | 3.10
.

| oars. 14.36 | 6059 | 9.25 | 5.50 | 7.06 | 3.95

| INDIAN CORN 12.50 | 67.55 | 4.00 | 8.30 | 590 | 1.25
|

| ‘RIOR. 7.50 | 88.65 | 1.00 | 0.80 | 1.10 | 0.90
|

From the above, chemical science assures us that wheat is richer in
nitrogenous material, or flesh and muscle matter than any other
grain by about 30 per cent. The minerals, such as lime, soda and
potassa obtain largest in oats and barley, while corn and rice repre-
sent most prominently the oil and fat producing diet. Hence the
scientific deductions that accord with all experience, teach that young
chicks should first be feed on wheaten bread and later with fine
cracked wheat. Why? Because such is by far the most nourishing
diet. Whatthen, is the condition of the chick? The yolk of the
_ mother egg, which represents 30.7 per cent of fat, is yet not fully ab-
sorbed and digested. It, therefore, needs no fat producing food,
rather under such conditions, the tender life most needs such food
as will soonest make it muscle and strength and flesh instead of fat.
When eggs are fed avoid the yolk; but the white of eggs and well-
drained milk curd and fine chopped, lean meat and white bread and
fine crushed wheat all belonging to that class of elegant nutrition
which represents the rich, nitrogenous or fleshand muscle food and
suited especially where ever physical strength and endurance are de-
manded. But. shall we not feed corn to young chicks in fine, crack-
ed form, in bread or in the form of dough? We answer in the name

74 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

of science, No! not for one full week. Why? Because, as we have
seen, the chick when hatched is over fat and weak. We therefore,
seek such diet as shall add no further fat, but rather flesh and muscle
and bone and strength.

Well, what does our formulated table furnish ? First, it suggests
that wheat will give the flesh and muscle and strength; and second,
that oats and barley will make three times more bone than corn.
See table. These, then, of course, should first be fed.

To formulate the proper diet for chickens under two weeks old
we suggest the following: Crushed wheat 20 pounds: ground oats
15 pounds; ground barley 10 pounds; flour of ground oyster shell 1-4
pound. Mix thoroughly with hot sweet milk, or hot water or bake
into bread and feed warm and often, but spareingly, only so much
each time that all will be eaten. This, with well-drained milk, curd
aud coarsely crushed wheat should form the main diet for the first
twoweeks. Cooked milk is the most elegant diet at two or three
weeks old.

All this is especially relished by the chicks because it is precisely
what they need. There is no guess work about this business;
but actual science, which is only another name for classified common
sense.

Chicks kept dry and warm and thus fed, grow fast and strong and
need no vile hen to hurry them out and about, into dew and damp-
ness and death.

This much for the first two weeks, after which add to the foregoing
formula ; 20 pounds of corn meal, and either steam or scald and so
soften the whole mass before feeding. Young chicks for the first six
weeks should be fed about as often as a babe the first stx months,
which is every three hours.

After three weeks, dry cracked corn and wheat may be given freely,
especially in the afternoon. I mean rather to say, dry feed should
not be freely fed in the morning, I am not certain that it is better
to feed dry feed at night. The universal idea seems to be thata
chicken must be occupied all night is digesting dry food, so thatit _
shall be kept secure and safe from the evil effects of hunger and cold.
Hence, they say, fill the crop with dry grain, which is longer and
more difficult to digest.

But, honest reader, is that correct? Do we advise such diet for
little children on going to bed? Do you select for them onions, and

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 75

pickled pigs feet, and hash, and cabbage, mince pies and fried pork ?
In short, are not the laws of digestion and of physiological life oper-
ative to a similar end in all animal organisms ? Do you believe a
three year old child would rest and grow and do as well on astomach
full of dried apples, or popcorn, on retiring at night as if fed on
milk and bread, or milk and mush ?

Then, which idea is correct, to feed a three months old chick on
going to roost, until his cropis distended with dry wheat or dry corn,
or fill him equally full of the same material, crushed and softened
by hot water andso made easy for his little organism to digest? In
both cases the same nutrition is afforded, but in the one way his
digestive organs are worked all night and so are robbed of their
proper rest, while, under the ground food-diet the most difficult part
of digestion is done when the food is swallowed. The nutritional
changes go silently and easily on, the child or chick is soon sweetly
unconscious and covered all over in the quiet and healthful embrace
of refreshing sleep.

I would gladly enlarge and press the general adoption of the ground
food idea for chicks atnight, only I have advocated the other side so
blindly and so long that it seemed consistent here only to place the
two plans in comparison and ask you to think for TONES EG on every-
thing and be original, even in poultry culture.

Well, what does the foregoing table suggest as the most suitable
diet for breeding birds? We answer that wheat, in various forms
and combinations, make the most excellent diet for laying hens. I;
may be fed alternately as bran and shorts, scalded and fed stiff and
warm with pepper and salt, or steamed wheat, or combined with
other food, as in our first formula, it may be either scalded, or baked
into bread.

Whole wheat and crushed corn at noon, and steamed corn and
wheat at night.

Be careful not to get the stock to fat, especially asiatic stock, meat,
in the form of boiled beef heads, cooked tender, with potatoes three
times per week, will make hens lay by putting their system and
health in finest possible condition. Any other method of stimulat-
ing egg production is ruinous.

_ The various nostrums known and sold as poultry: food are good
to the extent that they increase the fowl’s general health. Suchis
the great merit of ‘‘ The American Poultry Food.”

76 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

The best poultry food for stimulating egg production is elegant
nutrition rightly Se and cleanliness, warmth and perfect
comfort of fowls.

Ground oyster shell eet dry and where the fowls can find it and
sulphur supplied in soft food a few times per “week and the flour of
ground oyster shell and ground black pepper and oil cake meal and
charcoal, or whatis better, parched corn ground coarse and mixed
into feed, make up the most thorough of all appetizers and poultry
tonics that we have ever yet tried during the laying and molting sea-
sons, when the greatest possible draft is made upon the system, and
when there usually comes, in consequence, those nervous prostrations,
those green discharges, those irritative indigestions which constitute
the essence of chicken cholera. What shall we do for these condi-

ions, I answer kill all the lice, keep everything clean, feed flax seed,
or oil cake meal, and black pepper, and flour of oyster shell, and
sulpher, and charred corn meal, in steamed and crushed food. Put
oil cake in fresh water and give three or four times a day, throw out
one hour after, so they may not drink the water, either too cold or
warm. Have plenty of shade and green food and, thus do not let the
cholera come.

Unless these precautions be considered: and heeded, unless the
poultry breeder perfectly and practically understands that there are
certain seasons of the. year more rife with these relentless poultry
ravages than others, and atthe same time is fully informed why this
is so, these insiduous and subtle scourges will certainly fasten theiz
footing in the midst of your flock.

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTBY CULTURE. Ti

CHAPTER IX.

CHICKEN CHOLERA. WHENIT MAY BE EXPECTED. THE CONDITIONS THAT
PREDISPOSE TOIT. THE REASONS WHY THOSE CONDITIONS GIVE RISE
TO CHOLERA. SCIENTIFICALLY AND FULLY EXPLAINED. THE CAUSES
OF CHOLERA. WHAT CHOLERA ACTUALLY IS. THE ORIGIN. HOWIT
SPREADS. ITS CAREER. WHEN AND HOW TO TREAT IT. CASES RE-
PORTED. METHODS OR TREATMENTY FALSE NOTIONS OF CHOLERA
EXPOSED. POPULAR PRESCRIPTIONS CRITICISED FROM A SCIENTIFIC
STANDPOINT.

= See, HICKEN cholera, though it may come at any time, is pecu-
“ liarly prone to present itself during the hot summer and
= autumn seasons, Why? Because, then, those conditions
= out of which it is born, are always present. Then fowls
are iacted by ovulation, then they begin their annual molt, the
new feathers as they come out deplete most heavily the life forces of
the already enfeebled fowl. The new appearing plumage counter or
draw away the nervous infiuence that digestion demands to enable it
to be perfectly performed.

The food must now be softened and ground and rendered easily
digestible or else it proves a source of digestive disturbance, irritation
is induced, the crop fills up with mucous fluid, the fowl becomes
feeble, the constructive changes are checked in the system and hence
nature no longer calls up through the palate for further food, and
hence the ‘‘ fowl has no appetite.’’ Every other element of diges-

_tion has stopped its function. Vital force is no longer generated.
Distructive changes, and constant discharges continue to exhaust the
fowl, and soon its flickering forces fail. All its nutritional opera-
tions are over, the fluids pour out of the relaxed system, and death
results from exhaustive indigestion.

The causes that first induces this vital degradation ;: that first dis-
turb the healthful harmony of digestive changes are, first: excessive

78 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY OULTURE.

heat; second: moulting ; third: warm or impure water; fourth:
an irritation of the mucous membrane of the stomach and bowels from
depression of over work, or over heat, or the drawing off of the vital
forces by fledging plumage, or sudden exposure to dampness or cold;
-and fifth: indigestible food, or food not especially easy of digestion
and suitable to this condition of the digestive system.

Vermin are also propagated most plentifuliy during these hot
months, and their influence in breaking down the health and vital
forces through nervousness and indigestion has already been suffi-
ciently set forth in these pages. -

So much for the conditions that are causative of cholera.

Other causative infivences come direct from the disease itself, such
as putrid discharges, and these are properly a different set of influ-
ences and are commonly called *‘infections,’’ when the fatal influ-
enceis operative immediately among the fowls, or ‘‘ contagious”’
when caught up in the humid, heavy atmosphere of night, or damp
weather, and wafted over fences and fields and through other flocks,
fomenting and thus finding its way among the fowls of whole sec-
tions ; it rises at length to the dignity of a general epidemic and de-
fies all doctoring.

Under the auspices of such wholesale evil every effort is often im-~
potent: every drug is worse than wasted. It is like the dreadful
freshet that is fed from ten thousand fountains, or like the terrific
cyclone that generates electric life by attrition with all it touches un-
tilat length, it pours an awful avalanche of endless, electric, eddy-
ing fury, into the very center and soul of the fearful storm. Such
are evil agencies when once in motion ; when once they are widened
in their work, and broken beyond all bounds ; such is ‘poultry indi-
gestion when once it emanates in a home of disordered hygiene,
when first it springs from famine and filth and assisted by all the
agencies that we have sketched ; when thus it starts, it is indigestion,
it grows into cholera, it soon mounts upward on the wings of the
wind, and becomes contagious and so widens and deepens into the
dreadful cholera epidemic. Then it is indeed dreadful. Truly a
“‘ pestilence that walketh in darkness and wasteth by noonday,”’ the
ghastly ghost that will not down at your bidding, but which laughs
at your calamity and derides the universal distress. ;

Well, what can science and experience suggest for such a state, for
such a poultry plague? They both declare it is like sin, or anyother

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTUL. 79
!

wrong influence, it must be treated early, if at all. It can only be
successfully treated in the early stages. How then ? By carefully
regarding the diet and considering the condition of the fowls during
the hot and dangerous season of* moulting in summer and fall and
stimulating diet easy of digestion. Prevention by proper care and
diet constitutes the cure for poultry cholera. But, do not wise men
claim to cure the worst of cases by special drugs, or what they call
specifices ?

For this reason we have gone back of the so-called cholera, and ex-
posed its origin, have acquainted you with the conditions that are
causative of the scourge, that all might plainly comprehend the fact,
that the most that any doctor ever did was to produce a condition ;
if the condition exists that must produce cholera, the only sensible
thing that human agency can do, or attempt, is to change the condi-
tions. Other doctors may claim to cure, but I never knew a mortal
man to do such a miracle.

I have often changed the conditions, but, nature, or a power that
presides still higher always causes the force that relates to life to
bring about the cure.

But don’t yougive drugs? Yes, but only to produce a condition,
and mostly to assist digestion and never when the vital forces are
stopped.

But hasn’t a French savant of science by name of M. Pasteur per-
suaded nature to impart to him the true panacea for all this dreadful
poultry pleague? And can you definitely define what he actually
does, to forestall the force of this agent of evil called chicken chol-
era? Why, M. Pasteur secures and dries the blood of a bird that is
thoroughly infected with cholera, and dissolves and injects this pois-
oned fluid into the blood vessels of a healthy fowl, and so he clains
to be able to destroy the susceptibility of this doctored system, to re-
ceive the infection from all the vulgar agencies that are causative of
cholera. :

In short, M. Pasteur maintains that all the evil genei that engen-
der cholera are barred by this simple procedure.

Another foreign celebrity has more recently arisen above the hori-
zen in the great German Empire and has beamed out over the intell-
ectual waste places of the rest of the world the full effulgence of his
scientific force. Dr. Koch of Germany, has excited the highest hopes
of humanity everywhere and awakened a scientific interest in pro-

80 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY JOUBNAL,

fessional circles second only to the triumph of Jenner when he dis-
covered and demonstrated the protective power of vaccination against
the scourge of small pox.

This German savant assures the world that he has discovered in the
blood of cholera patients, by miscroscopic aid, certain animalcular —
existences, a species of Bachteria or Fungi of such infinite fineness
and yet such aggravating influence that they irritate the nervous sys-
tem, poison the pabulum of tissue or atomic nutrition, and so be-
come causative of asiatic cholera.

This great discovery has, at least, the negative merit of being
novel and new and difficult to down. It has stimulated the most ex-
haustive scientific research, and the result has dug about and des-
troyed the foundation of the Docitor’s fame, since some reckless
seientists have swallowed, injected and freely taken these living
germs into their system suffered no discomfort.

Even so may the large lumbracoid worm be found in cholera pa-
tients and yet not stand in a causative relation to cholera.

The fact, we think, is well founded, that cholera originates in in-
nutrition induced by excessive heat, unhealthy food and water, and
air. Add to these mental or physical fatigue, or any depressing in-
fluence, and nutritional changes are arrested, repair is stopped and
waste isincreased. Vital force then begins to diminish, the blood
vessels relax, and their fluid contents flow out into the intestinal
track and are expelled from the system ; the blood becomes too thick
to circulate in the smaller vessels from loss of water, the extremities -
and skin grow cold in consequence and death closes the scene.

Such is cholera, differing but little either in the fowl or the human
family.

In this disease especially, a grain of preventation, is more than
any vaunted article of cure.

In the human subject a hypodermic injection of morphia, 4 grain,
under the skin, of the stomach after each action, is the best and
only cure.

In the most hopeless cases it often closes the fatal flood gate,
and saves the wasting life. Then the most easily digestible and
stimulating diet restores nutrition and healthful functions are
resumed.

But opium in any form, in my hands, has always been fatal to sick
fowls. I feel that my recent experience in treating this affection may

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 81

be of general service and so I report two cases from among several,
all of which were equally and entirely successful.

First case: A fine Buff Cochin Cock, two years old, beginning his
moult in July, became stupid, ceased to notice his mating, stopped
crowing, comb turned blue, would walk but a few yards and sit down,
crop full of thick fluid (mucous from stomache irritation), trembled
and looked frightened and would not eat. Bowels loose withyellow,
frothy discharges at first, but soon became green and thin and soon
milky, or like rice water with mucous, which indicates the albumen
of the blood is passsing out through the bowels together with mucous
from lining membrane of bowels.

Well, surely here is what is termed a case of sporadic, or spontan-
eous cholera. This case originated in my yard from excessive heat,
from debility of breeding, and from the exhaustion incident to
moulting.

I could not afford to loose that Buff Cock as he was a $50 bird. I
_ put him apart in the shade on the blue grass; gave him oil cake,
water, fresh and cool to drink. and then procveded to medicate him
as follows : took a cold biscuit, soaked it in sweet milk and worked
it up soft ; then added about the fourth of a teaspoonfull of ground
black pepper, the same of flour sulphur, and ateaspoonful of ground
oyster shell ; mixed thoroughly and made into pills the size of pecans
or peanuts and gave him one fourth of the biscuit by putting it down
his throat ;in two hours gave him another fourth, and so on, in six
hours had given all and he improved from the first to get well. Ifed
him on wheat bread and milk for several days until his discharges
became normal and he rapidly recovered.

Case second: My Plymouth Rock Cock, first pen was a noble
essex specimen and taken the same as my buff, except that he
became blind in one eye. I treated him the same, did nothing for
the eye, and he, too, and several others since have all recovered from
that treatment.

I have seen chickens ravenously swallow crushed china plate and
recover at once from diarrhcea,; hence the use of the oyster shell.

I think the flour of these shells would be also very good thus given
in boluses of peppered and sulphured milk and bread.

I have but little faith in the Douglas mixture, because, the fowi gets
too much iron and too much acid.

It will be remembered by all physiologists that iron composes but

82 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY OULTURE.

3 parts to the 1,000 of the blood, and is never indicated in the treat-
ment of a human patient suffering with intestinal irritation. Itdoes
not digest and too often irritates.

Instead of the Douglas mixture, finely powdered iron added once
or twice per week to the soft food in the proportion of 10 grains of
Lactate or Carbonate of Iron to 10 pounds of food and 2 or 3 big
spoonsful of ground oyster shell and leave out the acid and your food
will be much more rational and, I think, more healthful. If you do
not care to combine these ingredients you will find “‘The American
Poultry Food,’’ made by C. J. Ward, Chicago, Ills., equally good.

Then to conclude on this subject, let me impress the vast impor-
tance of so feeding and cleaning and careing for your fowls that they
may not get sick; but don’tfeed too much. A little, but often. Be
espeeially careful from May until November, but especially during
July and August for cholera, and for those fowls and chicks that are
fledging the cold mornings and nights and hot days of autumn look
out for Roup,

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 83

CHAPTER X.

ROUP. WHAT IT IS. ITS RELATIVE AND REAL IMPORTANCE. ROUP
DIVIDED INTO TWO STAGES, FIRST, THE SIMPLE CATARRH OR MUCOUS
RATTLE, ITS CAUSE, MATURE AND SIGNIFICANCE. SECOND, ULCERA-
TIVE CATARRH OR DIPTHERITIO ROUP. ITS RESEMBLANCE TO DIPH-
THERIA INHUMAN FAMILY. ITS ORIGIN. ROUP DESCRIBED. TREAT-
MENT.

@oti11.E cholera is more rapidly fatal than roup the latter is
the more relentless and ruinous in the end and the most
persistent of all poultry plagues.

: S&S Roup is an inflamation of the mucous lining membrane
air of the passages which often pushes its presence into the cleft pal-
ate, the mouth and eyes. In its incipiency, or at first, it is only a cold
or catarrh, unless contracted from others by infection and then it
assumes a specific and especially active and ulcerative aspect at
once.

Roup, therefore, may truly be studied and treated as two distinct
varieties. First; the simple catarrh, or mucus rattle that is charac-
terised only by a slight odorless and clear mucus issue from the nose
and which scarcely affects the appetite or general health of the chick.
This variety may so remain for months, but usually recovers by good
diet and dry, warm, clean quarters. Itis usually the result of expos-
ure to damp and chill weather, foul quarters and poor food,

Second : ulcerative catarrh, or Diphtheritic Roup is closely allied
in all its essential characteristics to malignant diphtheria in the
human subject. The origin, or causation is doubtless due to filth,
insufficient or improper food and cold, wet roosting places, either,
or all combined is cause sufficient to produce congestion and inflam-
mation of the delicate membranes of the throat. The eyes begin to
water, the nostrils are closed by tenacious glue like exudation, the
bird breathes deep and difficult, the mucous collects in the windpipe

34 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

and all over the glottis, or opening into the air passage yellow ul-
cers and cheesy exdations are deposited causing the bird to cough
and often ends in suffocation. The swelling extends from the nos-
trils upward and outward invading the orbit and swelling and clos-
ing the eyes, bursting and permanently blinding the fowl.

The worst forms of malignant roup seem prone to ulcerate every-
where about the head and throat until the whole presents a swollen,
shapeless mass of indurated ulcers everywhere offensive and highly
infectious. This form of roup is rarely ever completely cured. The
putrid products of ulcerative supuration so easily finds its way to the
lungs whence it enters the blood, that the whole bird is soon filled
with the poison.

There is no disease more dreadful, none so unpleasant to treat,
none so likely to propagate its like among all the otherbirds. If the
bird survives the inflammatory ulcerations, if these be checked
there is likely to follow a chronic catarrh, which at any time may
rekindle from dampness and cold into a radical renewal of the first
and worst features.

This disease like pneumonia, is peculiarly predisposed to relapse
from the least exposure after a previous attack, because the damp
and chilly air must be brought into actual contact with the now
debilitated and sensitive surface, and so one season’s acquaintance
with roup permanently impresses itself on the memory.

It began once in my flock from little chicks being abandoned and
exposed by the hens and soon spread among the fowls.

Treatment: Pen up every bird in large, dry, warm quarters.
Whitewash daily with carbolized lime. Keep out all drafts of cold,
damp air ; feed hot bran, mashed potatoes and meat and medicate the
throat and mouth and nostrils with chloride of sodium, or common
salt as follows. Take a bucketful of warm salt water, put a teacup
full of salt to that amount of water. Then catching the bird examine
the throat and nostrils, removing all cheesy matter and pressing all
mucus out of the nostrils, then filling a pint cup for each afflicted
bird, hold it by the feet, with head down, choke it until the mouth is
wide open and then insert the head into the solution, comb down, so
that the medicated water may enter the cleft in the palate and goout
at each nostril and into the throat. Every part of the affected sur-
face may be thus immersed and all at once, and so easily that I am
persuaded it is the best possible manner of applying the medicine.

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 85

Each should be separately treated, not all from the same cupful, but
one cup will do for all.

Sulphate of zinc, with equal parts of chlorate of potassa, a half
ounce of the mixture to a bucket of water ; or sulphate of copper, or
nitrate of silver may be used about two drachms of each to the same
amount of water, may each be tried in turn, but I have succeeded
best with the salt water and carbolized whitewash.

Kerosine injected into the nostrils is said to cure ; and camphorated
sweet oil so used is the one remedy relied upon by Mr. B. N. Pierce
of Fancier’s Gazette. But the best remedy, where the bird will score
less than ninety points, is the hatchet. Kill every bird as fast as
badly affected, treat the mild cases with energy and you will soon put
an end to roup. But do not let it get a foothold in your yards,
prevention is the best plan of treating all these dreadful diseases.

The one grand, golden idea to be practically put in operation among
poultry and all other stock is this: Live yourself and treat every-
thing under your care like a true christian. Keep scrupulously clean
and care religiously for the comfort of all thatis dependent upon you.
Then others may have chicken cholera and roup but you are not at
all likely to be so punished.

86 STANDARD AND COMMEROIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

CHAPTER XI.

GAPES. WHAT IT RESEMBLES. COMPARED TO CROUP, DANGEROUS FROM
ITS LOCATION. DIFFICULT TO TREAT. HOWIT KILLS. THE ESSENCE
OF THE DISEASE. ITS SYMPTOMS. HOW THE OHICKS DIE. WHEN
THEY CONTRAOCTIT. HOW LONG PREDISPOSED TO IT. THE OONDI-
TIONS THAT PREDISPOSE TO IT. HOW TO AVOID GAPES. THE MOULT-
ING PERIODS IN THEIR RELATION TO DISEASE. HOW OFTEN CHICKS
MOULT. HOW OFTEN FOWLS MOULT. PRACTICAL FAOTS IN CONNEC-
TION THEREWITH. REAL CAUSE OFGAPES. NOGAPESWHEN CHIOKS ARE
HATCHED AND REARED BY THE INCUBATOR PROCESS. WHAT GENERATES
THE GAP-WORM? THE PECULIARITY OFGAPESAS TO LOOALITY. ITS
RAVAGES IN SOME SECTIONS OF EUROPE. TREATMENT. THE POPULAR
PLAN. ITS DIFFICULTIES. THE AUTHOR’S REMEDY AND HOW HE
FOUND IT.

NE other formidable affection that often carries off whole
flocks of little chicks deserves consideration in this con-
nection. The Gapes. This disease, like membranous
croup in little children, is difficult to tesa and especially

aneercun from this exclusive location. Both are located in the up-
per air passages and are rapidly fatal by way of nervous prostration
and suffocation. But only in the manner of death and seat of the
disease are the two affections at all alike. Both, however, tax the
cleverest curative skill.

Our purpose in this place is with Gapes. The essence of the dis-
ease, or in technical terms, the pathology ofgapesis the simplest pos-
sible and always the same, and consists of one or more small, red,
round and crooked worms in the trachea, or windpipe, scarcely so large
or long as a pin. These continually accumulate and by their presence
provoke 2 constant gaping effort to admit more air and almost con-
stant strangling cough or forceful wheezing efforts at expulsion.
These labored efforts grow continnally worse as the worms constantly

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 87

accumulate until the chick dies from utter exhaustion, or complete
suffocation. Usually the chick is exempt from this affection until
four weeks old; usually they contract itfrom five or ten weeks; after
three months old I have never known one attacked. The period,
then, when subject to this dreadful disorder, is from four to twelve
weeks old; usually, if. indeed. not always, this disease comes at
the time when new feathers are beginning to come out and draw
heavily upon the vital resources of the chick.

The gapes do not effect the chick before it begins to fledge, nor
after it has on its first coat of feathers.

Thus, it will be observed that the period of moulting and the start-
ing of the new plumage ushers in almost all the more dangerous
forms of poultry disease. From this fact we draw the following
practical lessons: First; Select for commercial poultry culture
such variety of stock that feathers out earliest, hence less liable to the
- only disorders they will never be old enough to meet before they are
marketed, which should be at three months old and before the second
moult. Second; By observing the moulting periods of poultry and
then giving them special feed and care we may always maintain a
perfect immunity from these three worst of allother poultry ills, viz;
Gapes, Roup and Cholera.

A chick, it will be remembered, moults twice before it is eight
months old. Itshedsits infant coat of dawn and receives its first
-coat of feathers at from three to nine weeks old. It then, if ever,
suffers from gapes. Itsheds this first coat of feathers at from six
to eight months old then is liable, or predisposed to Roup and Chol-
era upon the slightest adverse influence which acts as an exciting
cause. It wears the second coat of feathers one year, which finds the
chick over one year old and, therefore, a fowl. Ithasits first annual
moult asa fowl, at eighteen months old and thenitis, especially,
that the bird is liable to cholera, unless especially fed and cared for
till the new annual plumage appears.

Fowls moult once annually. These are practical facts of vast im-
portance to the poultryman, since it enables him to know the dread-
ful disease and the physical conditions that predispose to them and
the seasons and kind of weather that acts as exciting causes. But,
respecting the cause ofgapesother than what has just been suggested,
we must confess our utter ignorance. Corn meal dough fed freely
to the ehicks has been indicted for doing such mischief and there is

88 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

much evidence in the direction of conviction and yet, having recently
tested the theory, I find thatgapesare generated where no such diet —
is fed: but not so bad. Tosome extent we still suspect the diet of
corn meal dough as causative.

I think thus far, no gapeshave invaded the flocks of chicks that
have been hatched and reared in anIncubator. Why ? Because the
brooder plan of caring for the chicks precludes the possibility of
those exposures so notoriously incidental to the care and control of
the old perambulating hen.

This suggests another fact. All the preventives yet devised for
gapes that have proved successful consists in keeping chick confined
in dry, healthy quarters, spading up the ground and giving varied
diet, but the best of food. Thus adopting to that extent the scien-
tific system. This done until the chick has fledged or feathered and
all dangeris passed. Why? Because, then, the debilitating influ-
ence is over-and the covering of feathers keeps the chick’s constitution
from feeling the chilling winds and dampness. These facts that re-
late rather to prevention strongly suggest the cause to be any agency
that tends to depress the vital force, such as foul weather and feed
and the excitement and debility due to fledging.

Thus negatively, we may diagnose, or determine the cause of any
difficulty, if only we may find the sure prevention, the opposite must
certainly contain the cause. But, what generates the worm, espec-
ially of one kind and always in one place, and that in the air pass-
age ? This we do not definitely know and conjecture is fruitless in
the absence of absolute proof ; but, practically, we are pretty well
armed against thegapes,since we can surely prevent them as above
suggested, and, we can cure them by the simplest method.

Gapes seem selective in their visitation, attacking certain sec-
tions, exclusively, while others never know what they are, by sad
experience.

In certain parts of Europe they are a terrible plague. I recently
read of their inroads among the great poultry raisers of France, to
destroy as high as 1,500 chicks and Pheasants in a single night.

Every possible remedy has been suggested to effectually reach and
remove, or else destroy this nest of little spiral worms in the wind-
pipe of the chick. Horse hairs looped and let down, twisted and
drawn outis a popular plan, and feathers medicated and pushed down
the pipe to persuade the worm out. ‘‘ Tincture of camphor and pep-

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 89

per in the water,’ and on the feather, have been reported a success;
but if any good old lady of either sex will let me see them take a chick
pull foward its ton gue and hold it there, even with assistance, then
take a feather or doubled horse hairand go down harmlessly into the
- chicks windpipe, bring out all those worms and the chick gets well,
then I will confess her surgical skill of the very highest possible
order. EI have always seen these experts fail and, like myself, they
always succeed, in my presence in killing the chick.

Finally I found a remedy to reach and kill the worm. Being one
night among my chicks that were all over the floor of the hen house
coughing and gasping, I decided to try carbolized sulpher, as [knew
from experience with it that one can easily fill the air with it, and
that, I thought, must reach the worms and, if so, either the sulphur
or carbolic acid must prove fatal and at the same time not harm the
ehick. So believing, I took several handsful of sulphur into which
fluid carbolic acid had been stired in the proportion of one or two
drachms to the ten pounds of sulphur and throwing it recklessly all
over the chicks, I set up the most terrific cough and commotion, but
every chick was better next day ; and by repeating the next night,
cured every chick of the gapes.

A better way of making the application would be to fill an insect
powder box, containing a small bellows, which can be purchased at
almost any drug store for fifty cents, and filling it with the carbolized
sulphur, blow it directly into the air passages and so save 500 per
cent. of your sulphur and do the work better.

The chick will rally in health and strength at once when it coughs
up the dead worm, which will be inside of twenty-four hours.

Without intending to advocate the efficacy of sulphur for every-
thing, it will be found to have a wide range of application in treat-
ing and preventing all those affections where insect or vermin, or
parasite existence is supposed, or proved to play an essential part.
Used as an ointment with. carbolic acid it will readily cure scaled
legs, because, there an insect life lies under the scales on the legs.
So lice can be completely cleaned out with carbolized sulphur on
anything, or fleas on dogs ; but let me implore every person who reads
these pages never to grease anything that wears feathers. Itis un-
necessary andit ruins feathers to grease them ; besides, if you still
adhear to the ancient hen system and attempt to seta hen with a
partical of grease onher, the eggs will rot of course. Why? Because

90 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

the grease closes the pores and shuts out oxygen.

Often in the late fall months a flock of nearly grown chicks will
break out with pustular eruptions all over the head, comb and wat-
tels, sometimes so seriously as to destroy the comb. The pustules
contain green, thick pus and are infectious. Open all the pustules
and annoint the effected parts with carbolized sulphur ointment.
Feed sulphur in bran or soft food and keep birds out of cold or wet
weather. The disease is not serious, itis ‘‘ chicken pox” or ** dry
roup ;’’ indeed, we feel that when we have thoroughly mastered the
situation, have a perfectly intelligent understanding of the seasons
when the three most formidable of all poultry diseases appear and
the condition ofthe fowls or chick’s physical system at those particu-
lar times, which so thoroughly predispose them to those ills, and when
thus enlightened as to the cause, and can both prevent and cure
Gapes, Roup, and Cholera, we have very little else to fear from those
other lesser ills and ailments that never rise to the dignity of epidem-
ic disease among a flock of chicks or fowls, and, so our present pur-
pose is only to point out those formidable affections that would be
likely to wreck the enterprise of extensive poultry culture and so, in
this connection, have not thought it necessary to go beyond the con-
sideration of the great Trinity of poultry trouble, which are Gapes,
Roup and Cholera.

Of course, these do not cover the whole of poultry diseases; but
diarrhoea and canker are so nearly identical with cholera and roup
that a similar treatment will generally suffice.

Bound crop had better be opened early, at the top, the contents
cleaned out with the finger boldly and the inch or two of opening
sewed up by passing three or four stitches deep through theskin and
muscle of the crop, and feed the bird soft food for ten days in con-
finement and then cut out the stitches.

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY OULTURE. 91

CHAPTER XII.

A POULTRY FARM DIVISION INTO THREE DEPARTMENTS. FIRST, A POUTRY
FARM FOR EGGS. SECOND, A POULTRY FARM FOR STANDARD FOWLS.
THIRD, A POULTRY FARM FOR MARKET POULTRY. MATING FOWLS,
MATING FOWLS FOR FERTILE EGGS AND VIGOROUS, HEALTHY CHICKS
FOR VARIOUS PURPOSES. ASIATIC MALE BIRDS UNFIT FOR COMMER-
CIAL POULTRY CULTTRE. ASIATIC FEMALES THE ONLY KIND SUITABLE.
REASONS WHY. DIVISIONS OF RUNS, HOUSES AND GROUNDS FOR 500
HENS. HOW DIVIDED. HOW TO BE HONEST WITH AN INCUBATOR BY
RAISING YOUR OWN EGGS, HOW TO MATE FOR EXHIBITION. HOW TO
FIX FOR SHOWS. THE INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL FEED. HOW TO CHECK
OVULATION IN HENS. ‘

@\E; now come to the more congenial care and management
of aPoultry Farm, and, we confess, our special pleasure
in the elaboration of this fruitful theme. There are three

¢ separate and distinct departments of poultry culture
that admit of coming under the caption of a poultry farm,
namely; Ist., a poultry farm for eggs, 2nd., a poultry farm for breed-
_ ing market chicks, and 3rd., one for cultivating strictly standard or
- thoroughbred exhibition and breeding birds. Which of these afford
the greatest profit must relate very largely to place and circumstance.
For instance, the breeding of broilers, or young chicks for early
market would be barred by bad market, or if the location was so
far from a large and populous city that transportation of chicks
would be impracticable, would, of course, suggest one of the other
departments such as eggs or blooded fowls, which may be safely sent
any distance.

We shall say but little in this work of the egg farm, because
we are conducting some valuable experiments, and because the
original purpose of the present volume embraced only Standard and
Commercial Poultry Culture by artificial process. We shall shortly

92 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

issue a manual on the “ Egg Farm,’’ which, we think, will prove
especially serviceable.

We now propose, first a few suggestions of the practical operations
of Commercial Poultry Culture by artificial process. To this end we
insist on assigning to the hen her only proper and profitable func-
tion, that of furnishing fresh and fertile eggs in the greatest possible
quantity and state of perfection. And let us for these reasons look
carefully into this matter and be sure that our stock and matings are
such as shall insure us the largest number of finest fertile eggs from
large, vigorous stock. The reason assigned for all such precision
and particularity in detail are fully set fourth in the preceeding
pages and need not be repeated here,

We now confront a very important consideration of this question
of poultry culture and one which must always practically affect the
issue of all our operations. I mean the scientific mating and man-
agement and proper varieties of fowls for fertile eggs and vigorous
beautiful chicks.

For market purposes a judicious cross of pure bred varieties has
proved much the most successful, because we thereby secure the ben-
efit of new blood and avoid that of continual inbreeding which, to
some extent, retards in time, the growth and size and value both of
chicks and eggs.

The thorough-bred asiatic males are disqualified for purposes of
commercial poultry culture by reason of the vigorous duties imposed
upon the breeding birds and, as six or eight females are the most
that can be mated with an asiatic male bird, the question of house
room and runs become an item for consideration.

The greatest possible number of hens to each harem will greatly
assist in economizing space ; and such males must be selected as
can best accomodate the largest number. To this end the male bird
becomes an important factor. He must be large and vigorous and
and very active and yet fully matured. These qualities are abso-
lutely necessary in the male, that he may fertilize the eggs and
impart his size and stamina to the chicks.

It, therefore, becomes evident that the asiatic male bird must be
barred by the essential conditions for such mating.

But, if, for this cause we cannot employ the asiatic male, neither
ean we for equally good reasons employ the hens from the smaller
varieties, because the size and rapid growth of the chicks are points

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 93

of vital importance, in view of the vast quantities of food several
thousand chicks will daily consume. We, therefore, from the very
nature of the case, cannot employ the smaller females for want of
size,

With these facts before us, we are forced to select that variety of
females that combine in fullest measure the very important qualities
of size, vigor and egg prolificness. We care nothing, whatever,
about the hen’s action, since she is assigned to no service that will
call such qualities into action ; but we must have perfect action in the
male bird and, of course, the greatest size consistent with that essen-
tial quality.

Again, itis of first importance that these birds be bred from the
best laying strains, and chicks will always sell better that are all alike
in size and color.

To meet all these essentials including size, vigor, action and egg
prolificness in the fowls, and hardihood, uniform color and large
early maturity in the chicks, werecommend the following mating as
most beautiful and vigorous and, therefore, best.

First: Fifteen large, early hatched Buff or Partridge Cochin
pullets mated with a large and vigorous Browm Leghorn yearling
cock.

We will insure this mating to produce large, brown, beautiful Yel-
low legged chicks that cannot be equalled for vigor and that will weigh
two and one-half pounds each, at ninety days old.

These Buff, or Partridge Cochin pullets will each lay eighty eggs
from November first, to the middle of April, a little over five
months ; and such a male, if rightly fed, will fertilize almost every
egg.
The male bird might be better if half Buff cochin and half Brown
Leghorn ; but he must have the best of action.

Another mating equally good is the following :

Second: Fifteen early hatched Light Brahma pullets and one
large, high grade, rose-comb White Leghorn cock one year old.

These two matings, we believe, all things considered must prove
the very best possible for purposes of commercial poultry culture.

These fowls thus mated should be quartered on dry, gravely, rich
soil, well drained and set inshade trees and clover in summer and rye
in winter.

Five hundred hens thus mated should have five acres of pasture to

94 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

do perfectly well. This should be surrounded with a tight, high and
strong barbed wire fence and so divided that roads would admit a
wagon or cart to come all through the quarters to convey feed and
haul away manure, etc. The houses should be built in rows behind
each other with the largest possible space between, for pasture.

In five acres there are 13,200 square feet and 500 hens, divided into
pens of 15 each, give 33 pens, say 35 as two extra could be used for
broody hens. The 5 acres divided into 35 pens would give to each
pen about 377 sq. feet, including houses and roads, or about 15 or 20
feet to each bird. The houses can be made of upright pine boards
very knotty and rough, lined and covered by thick tared felt, six feet
high in front, four in rear, roof one way pitched and graveled ; house
10 x 20 feet, cement floor.

The original cost can be better calculated by each for himself,
as land and labor and lumber vary in price in every locality.

These quarters, if not warm enough in winter, can be made so by
the use of the box brooder under the floor heated by coal oil lamps,
or better still, by glass in the roof; the building lined will make the
house very warm.

Once thus fixed, eggs can be relied upon from November to July,
through the coldest of weather, and such eggs will give infinitely bet-
ter satisfaction, better hatches and better chicks than any other pos-
sible source. Do not depend on anybody else for eggs.

These hens should be all changed at the fall moult, fattened and
dressed for market before they moult, and replaced by pullets that
were hatched from the same stock, new male birds annually intro- —
duced, and so the greatest of all difficulties that the artificial system
of poultiy culture ever encountered may be thus completely over-
come.

The practical necessity will be seen to be a reliable supply of per-
fectly fresh and fertile eggs that are not shaken, nor chilled and from
stock that are full of health and vigor, of large size and early to ma-
ture. Such a test never failed, and such is the only way to be honest
with an Incubator. .

Will any sane man doubt that this can be carried out and will any
nonest man decry the Incubator, when such essential conditions are
not complied with. Of course, the latitude that we have all allowed
the general plans and specifications as herein sketched for yards and
buildings, are not at all arbitrary or unalterable.

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 95

The purpose on which we insist is to provide ample, cheap and

comfortable accomodations fora vast flock of fowls and secure the
necessary quantity and quality of eggs.
_ These fowls are all young and not easily fattened, but demand to
be fed on the scientific principles suggested in our article on food.
Remember the condition we require in these breeding birds is the
fleshy and muscular, the fibrous and not the fatty condition.

Feed for vigorous health and thus for eggs.

After these birds have been bred from October or November, until
the following June, thus covering the season when broilers, or market
poultry pay the largest, it becomes necessary to remove and market
them all for the several following good reasons.

First: They will not lay as lavishly the second year as they did.
the first, because they will have attained full growth and develop-
ment and, hence the full feed that:is required to force the largest
egg yield from early pullets would fatten hens and induce them to
set.

Second: As we have seen in our article on the predisposition to
disease, there is scarcely any danger so long as fowls are in full
feather, but so soon as they begin to moult, the loss of feathers
allows of loss of vital heat and the further drain upon the system from
the starting new plumage and the oppressive heat by day, and the
cool nights of autumn, contribute to cholera and roup.

Third: A thorough cleansing, whitewashing and disinfecting of
all the quarters through August and September are essential to main-
tain for the succeeding year the most perfect condition of health upon
a poultry farm.

It therefore, becomes an important and necessary part of the gen-
eral management to stop incubation in May and fatten the fowls in
June, market and clean up and prepare for early fall.

We thus get the best prices for chicks and the fowls will pay
their first cost. We get the greatest possible number of eggs
within any period of a pullet’s life the first five or six months
of her laying. We avoid the cholera, we keep everything
scrupulously clean and we get our fowls fat and marketed
before they moult,

These fat hens, correctly cleaned and packed and consigned to any —
first class establishment in New York will command a ready sale at
from 10 to 18 cents per pound.

96 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE

So much for eggs and stock.

Everything, of course, depends upon that, and unless thus organ-
ized, no persons can provide them for you at any price.

By the arrangement here outlined, your cost all comes back
to you in the annual sale of fat fowls, the best of eggs and stock
secured and after the original outlay everything in the form of cost
and care are reduced to the lowest possible point at which any large
and lucrative enterprise can be successfully prosecuted. But sup-
pose we do not care to breed for market, but our purpose is to fur-
nish the finest, standard breeding and exhibition stock, wherein does
all this outlay essentially differ in the prosecution of the two depart-
ments of poultry culture. We answer, mainlyin the mating.

Whatever variety of standard stock be thus confined the male bird
should not beallotted over five to eight hens, first, because the large
breeds will better fertilize the eggs of a few hens and, again, the
fewer in each flock, the longer the pasture will last and the less liable
to disease.

Again, five asiatic females will lay 400 eggs during the breeding
season and, if only these five be assigned to the care of one vigorous
cockera], experience and science assures us, that the eggs are much
better fertilized and the vigor imparted to the chicks is soon made
manifest in their superior size, strength and early development.
What is most essential above all in this fine blooded stock is color,
vigor, symmetry and full size and development. Therefore, in order
to insure the most perfect reproduction of the breeding birds, do not
draw too heavily upon his vital resources by giving him too many
hens.

Fanciers, or standard poultrymen remember, do not breed so
much for quantity as for quality. Since superior excellence of
standard merit determines the price upon what their yards produce.
For example, a vigorous asiatic male bird that will honestly score 96
points will readily sell in England or America for $100, while 10
birds that would score only six points less would not bring the same
money.

Quality, then, is the essential consideration with the fancier, and
high quality can never come from even the best standard specimens
ifovermated. I trust this point will stand impressed, because it has
much to do in determining the vigor, the beauty and highest scoring
qualities of pure bred poultry as well as everything else.

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 97

Such high priced and rare standard stock as would justify the cost
and exclusive care of the standard breeder must often be kept and
continued in breeding and cross breeding and so the same yards
must be always occupied, and for this reason, also, the number
should be as small as possible ; thus, the same general plans of poul-
try houses and grounds will serve equally well, both for the occu-
pancy of market and standard mating.

Nor shall the diet be different, since in both cases the condition of
the two classes must be keptin the finest possible plight for egg pro-
duction.

Wi:th so much room thus assigned to six or eight high class birds
we are in condition to relieve the cock and separate him from further
company and contact with the hens when the moulting period
appears, and the sale and incubation of high priced eggs are no
longer allowed. Then, of right, the breeding stock should rest, and
ovulation be no longer allowed, because the fruit of these functions
are worse than wasted, and should be reserved for such time as they
shall again command the fancier’s price in the revival of tradein the
coming spring. Besides this, the birds should be shaped for the
shows, for there the breeder must bring the merits of his stock to
that truest test which, if successful, makes his market. The cocks
then, should be partitioned from the harem and all more fully fed
and filled out plump, especially up tosomething over standard weight
making allowance for loss of fiesh while shipping and showing.

The faults of symmetry must now be filled with fat, the oil that
lends lustre to the plumage is, also, thus secured and the plump and
perfect, full and faultless form of the grandest, sleek and splendid
specimens of exhibition stock largely rely on the service of sufficient
fat to insure, at least, the finest possible condition. Well, how shall
this be rightly done? Weanswer by checking ovulation in the hens
and relieving the cock from duty in the harem and by generous diet
such as combine the fat elements as formulated in our table. Wheat
and oil cake meal especially beautifiy the plumage of Buff Cochins
and buckwheat, says Mr. Wright, is especially adapted for the fitting
up of the Partridge Cochin for exhibition.

Now, whether the true philosophy of the good effect of such diet
be in the deposit of the coloring matter peculiar to these cereals, or
whether it be from the elegance of such diet, as science and exper-
ience have found that they afford, or both, we are not positively

98 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY JOURNAL.

assured ; but, physiological experiments have shown that pigs fed on
madder alternately, off and on for several weeks, revealed the alter-
nate red and white colors in the laminz of their bones, from the
deposit of the red coloring of the madder. Sulphur, too, imparts its
coloring principle when fed in food ; but oil cake meal possesses the
universal quality of imparting an oily gloss to the hair and plumage
when fed with bran and shorts and crushed corn and oats steamed
and fed warm.

The present purpose is only suggestive ; but, surely, certain select
and elegant articles of diet do impart a peculiarly grand, gaudy
plumage to fowls.

But how shall we check the function of ovulation in our laying
hens? We answer by breaking up their relations and changing their
quarters.

Cows are also very sensitive in this respect. I once purchased from
Mr. Felch and shipped from Natick, Mass., to Illinois some 40 Jer-
sey cows. They all received the best of care enroute and ever after ;
but, though many Were fresh and others became so soon after the
trip, yet, not until the next coming-in did we learn the full value of
these glorious little fawn milkers.

Hens will often cease laying at once on shifting them into new
quarters and if often so disturbed, hens and pullets may be kept from
laying almost completely. They never look so fine as just before
laying.

Since we are now considering for awhile the so-called Fancy Fowl ;
but, if you will allow me to say with more propriety. the pure bred |
fowl, we would respectfully suggest that much greater success must
come from the culture of large numbers of one variety than a few
each of a great many varieties. Why? Because each is essentially
different from all the rest in form and feathers. For instance,
the high cushion and broad low blocky build of the Buff Cochin
would be radically wrong to keep as an ideal in the mind in
mating your Light Brahmas and again, either of these varities can
not be fed as freely as the Leghorn or Plymouth Rock for the reason
that they would soon take on excessive fat and so be utterly broken
down before the end of the season’s breeding. A natural partiality
for some particular variety of pure blooded poultry will soon suggest
to each the particular variety he can best breed up to the highest
perfection. The demand is infinite for all varities that are truely
fine.

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 99

No living poultryman ever admired intelligently every standard
_ yariety, and for that reason and endless others, would not and could
not master the standard requisites to its correct cultivation.

The endless diversity involved in the study of ten or twelve varie-
ties would confuse, confound and utterly destroy that able accuracy
in the delicate details of developement so essential to the success in
all.

No breeder can succeed unless he studies the standard, assisted by
delineations from the best artists and then bring the bird you would
select as your breeder for perfect symmetry into the presence of this
crucial comparative test.

Thus equiped we go to the best exhibitions and there bring our
own and other birds in critical comparison with each other, and
with the true standard delineation. Possibly our bird is too low in
back, or flat in breast, or otherwise so strikinly defective that we are
amazed how much the standard comparison has pointed out. Other-
wise we were uninformed, and so unfit to go forward and must fail if
we do, thus uneducated.

100 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

CHAPTER Xe

THE PRINCIPLES OF STANDARD POULTRY CULTURE, CONTINUED. THE
ESSENTIALS OF A SUCCESSFUL POULTRYMAN. HOW TO BREED FROM
DISQUALIFIED BIRDS. ORIGIN OF THE IDEA IN AMERICA. THE INFLU-
ENCE OF THE MALE BIRD ON THE PROGENY, HIS GREATER PREPOTENOY
ON ACCOUNT OF HIS GREATER VIGOR. HOW TO MATE FOR CORRECT
LEG AND FOOT FEATHERING. HOW BEST TO SECURE THE SIZE. WHY
THE MALE BIRD IS MORE PREPOTENT. DR. STONEBRAKER’S PHILOS-
OPHY ABOUT THE PROPER AGE FOR BREEDING BIRDS. REASONS IN
SUPPORT OF HIS VIEWS. IN-BREEDING. ITS NECESSITY IF CONTAM-
NATION OF BLOOD CAN COME FROM COPULATION. THE QUESTION
ARGUED AND THE RESULT PROVED INCORRECT. THE ONLY POSSIBLE
MEDIUM FOR CONTAMINATION OF THE FEMALE IS THROUGH THE
MEDIUM OF THE MIND. INBREEDING EXPLAINED, ADVOCATED
WITHIN CERTAIN SAFE LIMITS. A PEDIGREE FOR FURE BRED FOWLS
A NECESSITY.

@HUS the principles of poultry culture must, of necessity,
be studied like all other sciences, if we succeed. By such
a process of direct and comparative study of each variety
we breed, we become expert and deeply interested, and
such a qualification is absolutely essential to successful standard
poultry culture. In this, as in everything else, brain must be in the
business. ‘‘ There is no excellence without great labor.’? No natural
born poultrymen. He may be inclined in a given direction by special
talents and taste, but there is absolutely no self-sufficiency of genius
in anything. Education, hard, patient and persistent labor is the life
and soul of all true excellence. Poultry culture is no exception we
assure you, and all who embark in the business as a profession must
first of all understand the necessity of this natural and educational
qualification. Do not be ashamed of the business as a Poultryman,
for success demands that all shall be proud of it,

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 101

Thus impresed and prepared for their comfort, then buy the best
fowls that can be found. If only two or three, breed these and con-
tinue to buy the best and never let a few dollars deter you from mat-
ing up the best living birds. The most perfect is none too good to
breed, since the closest aproximation to perfection in the parent
stock will, from necessity, under the laws of inheritance, that, like
produces like, give very much better standard specimens than cheaper
and far inferior fowls. It is asad mistake to suppose that from poor
or even pretty good stock, the higher and splendid standard speci-
mens may possibly be produced.

A stream can not rise higher than its fountain sources, and be
assured, that the same natural laws hold dominion over the mightest
and minutest details of hereditary descent as faithfully as they do in
the domain of gravitation.

But all can not buy these best specimens, since there are but com-
parativly few, and these command the heaviest prices. How then
shall they be secured? How can they be bred? We answer, first,
breed directly from the most perfect specimens as before suggested.
This any one may do who has good judgement and a bank account
to his credit, but to breed these best specimens from “‘ disqualified
birds,’’ requires great skill and scientific experience ands yet, such
is the source of every thorough bred bird. I mean, to trace him
back to his ancestry, he is indebted to that scientific device for all
the standard excellencies to which he has attained. The origin of
this idea is altogether unknown to me; (we find in Mr. Wright’s
large work, ) but to Mr. I. K. Felch, of Massachusetts, must be
accorded the credit of giving it form and features and filling it
with practical life among American fanciers. Especially in fixing
the color, this eminent poultryman has demonsrtated the greater
prepotency to be in the male birds, and thus mating the deep
colored males to the lighter females he attains to a standard mean
in the progeny that is much superior to either parent. But I
think that he will allow exceptions to this greater prepotency in
the male, for, in fact, it often occurs that the female evenin color,
imparts to the progeny her greater influence in fixing the correct
color, and so Mr. Felch affirms, we think, in his second best matings
of Light Brahmas. Butthe preponderate influence we think, belongs
with the male as we find the dark male to give deeper dye to all the
ofispring more uniformly. We do not know that that theory is

102 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

affirmed further than the mating of the Light Brahma; but our own
experience remarks it running among all varieties.

A Buff Cochin male, bred to Partridge Cochin pullets will put the
buff color on the chicks and breed out the striped feathers in three
matings. A Plymouth Rock male bred to Brahmas will mark all
chicks after himself. The male, in general, has that prepotency as
to color.

Again, the sex is largely males in early spring clutches, while the
vigorous male is not reduced. by over duty, while in feeble cocks, or
much depressed by the season’s service, the latter progeny are more
largely pullets.

We think, however, this question of imparting the greater degree
of personal influence in fixing the color and other characteristics
peculiar to either parent depends, in largest part, on the vital vigor
of the one or the other. It, therefore, may be in favor of either, but,
on account of this fact, the rule favors the male bird, he being asa
rule, more vigorous.

In mating for correct leg or foot feathering we have made long
and careful observation and found it unsafe to breed a male Cochin
with stiff, heavy hocks even tovery sparely feathered hens ; but some
of the fintst hocks we ever saw were secured from vultured pullets
and light-feathered, vigorous cocks. But the experiment must not
be repeated with these improved progeny, but made permanent by
observing the law of the first and best mating which calls for spe-
cial best selection. This special selection embraces both the best
mating, that is, the most perfect, and, also, the second principle,
which must seek such specimens as shall secure the best mean or
compromise between the imperfect pair. é

To illustrate. If we mate a Bnff Cochin pair, full, in breast, and
body, broad in back, high full cushion, full round soft hocks and
heavy foot feathering, even rich deep under and outer color,
small even combs pure buff wings and standard tails we should
expect elegant offspring from such a source, for such birds are ~
very high in standard excellence, such would be the best possible
mating.

Again, if we select just such a male but very heavily hocked, with
stiff quils protruding down and backward from the hock joint you
dare not mate him at all, even though the female be barren of mid-
dle toe feathering and light in hock; but, if the female be immensly

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE 103

feathered, even approaching the vulture, and the cock be vigorous
and sparcely feathered, the progeny will many of them be finely
feathered. Thus, the principle all through proves the prevailing
greater power of the male bird to impart his special features and, I
will add, also his form upon the flock. The size of the chick, we
think, may be most easily secured from the hen, since it is almost
impossible to breed a very large male bird successfully, and entirely
so, to small hens.

The one idea we would impress is, if we try to get a standard
balance or midway point of merit, or, if you please, an average
mean between two birds that are out in different directions in the
same section, or part, then expect the male bird to have the greater
modifying influence since he imparts the vital principle that moulds
all the matter of the mother egg largely in his own image.

Thus we rest from further pursuit of the principles of mating,
claiming nothing original but the reason why the male bird hath the
greater prepotency of power to impart to the progeny his own pecu-
liarities of color, form and feature.

The fact is founded in this; that the male bird is the more vigor-
ous, and that he imparts the vital principle and governing force.

These two matings, we think, are all-sufficient for all professional
poultrymen who cull their chicks carefully and closely, and the
principle will be found to apply universally and to all varieties.
With the interminable train of petty details we have nothing to do,
since the principle will explain what is wise to accept or reject in any
and all instances of mating.

Another all-important principle suggests itself at this point and
one which my distinguished and learned friend, the late Dr. Stone-
breaker, of Waco, Texas, insisted upon with his usual earnest accur-
acy and great ability. Reference is made to the full maturity of all
breeding birds.

In a series of excellent articles in several poultry periodicals just
before his death he detailed the experimental facts in support of his
theory and did much to dissipate the almost universal practice of
breeding from pullets and cockerels, instead of yearling and two
year old stock. An impartial consideration of this question warrants
the conclusion that no standard bird should be bred under eight
months old. Doubtless, if allowed, the precocious thoroughbred will
begin to crow and cackle to mate and multiply and reproduce their

104 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

species at a much earlier age, in fact, a friend of mine set a Buff

Cochin pullet, hatched in January, upon her own eggs and she

hatched a fine brood the 23rd of August of the same year. Leghorns
and Plymouth Rocks lay even earlier, but these precocious pullets
and cockerels should be kept separate and not allowed to ovulate, by
often shifting them into new quarters and so allowing them to
continue their full growth and development on to maturity.

The whole argument in susport of Dr. Stonebreaker’s theory is
deduced from the physiological fact that nature’s operation can not
be contravened and yet contiue perfectly on to the end and give the
best possible issue. If nature requires at least one year to fully
develope a bird its vital resources should not be diverted, or drawn
upon during thut process.

We think the axiom self-evident, that nature cannot hold on and .

let go at the same time, and, if her resources are directed to the
developement of a bird and meanwhile, those resources be arrested
by a counter call diverting the vital influence in the work of generat-
ing the species of the parent bird, the breeding bird must suffer
from arrested developmement, and stunned in every sense, and the
progeny from such source musi, from necessity, be imperfect and
deficient in vigor.

Therefore, in breeding standard specimens, the purpose being to
attain as nearly as possible to perfection in every sense, the full
maturity of either one bird or both, is certainly advisable.

It will readily occur to allas difficult to determine, without positive
and careful experiments, the relative result in breeding from mature
and immature yards; but the intelligent and patient observations of
Dr. S——, enabled him to say as a fact of his experience, that chicks
bred from pullets and cockerels were vastly less vigorous than
were the chicks from specimens over one and under three years old.

We have thought the subject worthy of introduction and believe all
will be benefitted and appreciate the scientific and practical sugges-
tions inseparably associated with this subject. It is only right and
proper for us to goupon record and we cheerfully re-affirm and de-
fend the faith of ourlamented friend.

Cockerels and pullets 8 or 10 months old crossed with cocks and
hens are probably old enough,

The early hatched chicks, say of January, February, March and
April, but not later than May, are suitable to associate with hens of

\

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 105

the previous year, or even three year old hens, when they themselves
are one year old. We believe the two year old cock the best age for
breeding males for standard specimens.

Inbreeding demands some certain and reliable assertion either
against the practice or in its support according as science and exper-
ience have established the truth. What are the facts? Inbreeding
is a necessity if it be true, as some assert, that the first sexual con-
gress and conception impresses indelibly the features or influcnce of
the male upon the female forever ; for surely those hidden influences
would harrass all our operations and, being completely covert,
would everywhere confront and confound all accuracy of calculation.

Every effort at introducing new blood would prove utterly impo-
tent against the previous impression, or, if the virgin specimen be
thus first impressed by this outside or alien element, then we should
start off at a tangent under the auspices of a new influence never to
be able to return.

It is, therefore, well thus to make the issue and remark the utter
antagonism of inbreeding and introducing new blood, if it be true
that contamination of blood in a bird, can come from copulation.
Inbreeding, in that event, must be our only security, since no
mortal ken could know the Inrking love that is stamped upon the
plastic soul and insured to all the future offspring its own unending
image.

But are we forceed to inbreeding from such a fallacy ? Andis this
asserted contamination a fallacy or a fact. We answer inthename
of science it is not only false, but it is not even respectable nonsense.
What is the scientific fact? All animal existence are propagated
through ovulation and sexual vitatization. In the case of all mam-
mals the egg is evolved from the female ovary, just the same as in
the fowl and further, it is vitalized by copulation just the same in all
instances ; but in the animal the egg thus vitalized findsits lodgment
in the maternal womb and there, though the vital circulation is indi-
rect, though the growth and development of the foetus are affected
under the auspices of osmosis or the passage back and forth, that is,
to and from the foetus through intervening membranes, still the ma-
ternal brain and blood presides over all and propells all the pro-
cesses of intra-uterine life. Though the child or animal in the
womb does give back to the mother’s blood the waste material of its
own body, yet this debre is dead and is cast out and can not, in the

106 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY OULTURE.

nature of things, contaminate the mother. In order to possibly pro-
duce such impression it must be living fluid and so enter her circu-
lation and contribute to cell-construction, or the atomic rebuilding
of her body. Then, and then only, could the father ingraft himself
upon the mother through the little life within the womb. The fact
i: that, the father cannot thus contaminate the mother with the most
malignant disease. The off-spring will suffer, but the mother
escape. Why? Because what the mother imparts to the child is
imbued with life, but what it gives back is dead matter and incapa-
ble of harm to her.

The father, then, cannot contaminate the mammal mother through
the medium of intra-uterine life. What, then, may be expected of
the fowl? Like the animal, the egg is evolved from the ovary, it
enters the ovaduct and somewhere in its passage to the outer world
it is met and vitalized by the electric life principle of the male, It
continues on, receives its casement or shell and comes forth con-
taining the essential germ which, subjected to the same conditions
that the animal egg receives in the womb, which is heat and moisture,
it germinates and grows into vigorous life. But the fowl’segg never
germinates within the fowl andso never gives back anything what-
ever to the mother, but receives the male influence, seals it in ashell
and, egg and influence and all are expelled together. Thus the egg
receives the vitalinfiuence of the male, but never touches nor tarnishes
the circulation, nor the physical system of the hen and so contami-
nation of the blood by copulatiou isa physiological absurdity. It is
contrary to life’s processes. The influenca of the male will reach
only those egg that are evolved in and thrown off from the ovary and
are in the ovaduct all ripe and ready for the reception .of the vital
influence ; but beyond these the male influence is actually impotent
and inoperative by way of copulation. or sexual contact.

Such is the dictum of physiological science on the subject and
from which we see that the only possible source left for those per-
manent impressions to forever influence the breeding of an animal
or hen must be through mental media, which we are willing to con-
cede under exceptional circumstances, of strong attachment and
highly developed and sensitive mental organization, but we can
scarcely credit the existance of this deathless devotion, this perman-
ent impression, this heavenly endowment in a hen. And so we are
not forced to practice inbreeding from fear of contaminating any

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 107

particular species upon which we admit a cross. The success of the
cross, of coarse, is another thing.

What are the evils of inbreeding? Does it depress the vital
forces? To some extent we think it does. But we think the danger
in this direction is unduly magnified. When inbreeding is practiced
and pushed to produce the pure blooded racehorse with his perfect
symmetry and iron constitution and staying qualities. When we
practice inbreeding between the parents and progeny of cattle for
purpose of perpetuating especial merits of milk and butter and
beef, all of which depends upon strong constitutional capacity, we
doubt that the dangers of judicious inbreeding for three or four gen-
erations are worse or half so fatal as the folly of annually introdne-
ing new blood.

When we see a_ ‘rain of fowls breed for 25 years from one line of
males and refreshed from without only at long intervals and, then
through the females, and thus continue to enjoy the highest reputa-
tion and merit for elegance in everything, we are convinced that in-
breeding is the only safety from going to pieces and destroying any
strain, especially in color and excellent qualities.

Of course, continual inbreeding dwarfs and degenerates and,
therefore, is wrong, but when the purpose is to reproduce identity
of type in everything as in pure bred stock, the only possible pro-
cess by which it can be done is to breed in and in judiciously, intro-
ducing new females every three or four years of the finest possible
merit, and as much as possible, like the strain in cultivation. Select
the new blood only, from the finest standard specimens, of the best
strains in existence, and then for years again go forward inbreeding
from the best standard specimens of what we have, that is nearest
the desired type to which we aim to attain, and so is brought about
the different forms and features of the same variety of fowls and so
is secured the best possible result that come from any system of
standard orpure bred poultry cclture.

But do not_write for ‘‘ fowls that are no akin.”’ You will certainly
hazard a chance of securing a start in the strain you desire. No one
can tell the result of a cross, and a cross is what is ordered when your
injunction to the breeder is that, ‘‘ the birds shall be no akin.”? We
think it only necessary to thus suggest the point, and offer the prin-
ciple, to make the truth apparent that,so many changes as must
come from the annual introduction of new blood could not but ruin

108 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

the best result.. Nature without a miracle must refuse to blend such
constant, strange and incongruous elements as are hidden in each
new and, to some extent, improper pair, into one ideal and symme-
trical whole. Remember, therefore, that while perpetual inbreeding
is not to be practiced, nor, is it here advised, still the greater danger
comes from so-called new blood; and, that all thorough or pure bred
stock result from inbreeding.

Again, a pedigree for standard fowls is an imperative necessity,
because it brings our operations into systematic accuracy and ena-
bles us to know the actual breeding value of every male bird espec-
ially. Otherwise everything is guess work and must go wrong.

The females of every pedigreed pen should be carrefully studied
as they begin to lay and soon the intelligent observer may readily
recognize the egg of each particular hen.

The eggs should be stamped at the nest and when about to hatch a
separate drawer assigned them in the Incubator and the chicks spec-
ially marked aud recorded as hatched. If extra care be urged against
the pedigree system, the counter fact is clear that, better prices will
be paid for what you can recommend and sell with satisfaction to
yourself and to your patrons.

In either, market or pure bred poultry ee honesty is always
the best policy. We know of one instance where a pen of poor birds
were sold and shipped west where expectation was high and the
whole population had assembled to see the fine fowls, but when they
came they were poor specimens and the disappointment and disgust
were universal and did the breeder infinite injury. So our transat-
lantic breeders have filled several orders for Buff Cochins that would
be disqualified at any first class show in America, and so American
breeders are afraid to further hazard the enormous cost and bad
importation. We would pay the price with pleasure if we could de-
pend upon securing their finest specimens and this feeling is univer-
sal and is here suggested as the source of greatest injury to the com-
merce in fine fowls.

There cannot possibly arise anything so ruinous to trade as loss of
confidence, and, the trade in fine fowls rests exclusively on confidence
and when its sacredness is outraged by receiving a bad specimen,
both confidence and further commerce are killed. Thus all intelli-
gent poultrymen should see that violating the confidence of a patron
re-acts upon and ruins his own reputation and business.

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. is 109

The commerce in market fowls and chicks is differently conducted
as the stock is inspected before paid for, in most cases, and consign-
ments are continually made to one firm and must be found satisfac-
tory.

From all the foregoing what shall we conclude? Does poultry
culture pay? If rightly conducted it does beyond the universal be-
lief.

And which department yields the greater profit? Which ever you
prefer ; both yield the largest returns for care and capital invested of
any other known industry and the encouraging feature is the demand
is constantly increasing.

The food supply cannot be surfeited. If a few fowls pay well,
enlarged numbers pay equally well, if rightly managed.

Like every productive industry this must pay near populous sec-
tions and cities where markets absorb such food supplies. There,
astonishing prices are paid for tender broilers from December until
May andJune. Often 50 or 70 cents per pound for chicks that weigh
from two to three pounds, fat and fine. These can be furnished by
the Incubator and brooder system at any time and in any quan-
tity when once prepared. Preparation and expense must be incurred
in every occupation; in this we are not utterly dependent on the
action of the elements as in agriculture. Whether itrains, or not
the poultryman is equally indifferent. His operations go on under
cover controlled by agencies of which he is master; and man must
eat and so his supplies must sell. Unlike the professions, or merch-
andise, or agriculture, or all the vast and varied avocations with
which the human family have become more familiar. Poultry
culture is not so subject to contingencies. Itisn’t overdone. There
is a demand for it and the demand is almost infinite. The new
South and California, because of the mildness of their climate, are
especially suited for this commerce. Disease has been the dread,
but on this we trust these pages will prove that once free from ver-
min and epidemic ills, and with the facilities afforded by modern
invention, poultry culture cannot fail to engage the business brain,
the active energies, and even the enthusiasm of the American produ-
cer.

A gentleman recently assured me he realized a net profit of $7.00
each from 300 hens. Another instance, he raised 3,000 ducks by the
Incubator process, which weigh 31g pounds at ten weeks old and for

110 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY JOURNAL.

which he realizes forty cents, live weight.

Regulated as prescribed in this publication, mated and managed
as herein advised an early Asiatic pullet affording from 70 to 90 eggs
in six months must average from 20 to 25 chicks and these selling at
from 40 to 70 cents per pound and costing 5 cents per pound must
afford a net yield of over $10 per hen.

A poultry farm of 8 to ten acres, with 500 or 1, 000 hens, carefully
managed near some populous city cannot yield less than $5,000 or
$8,000, net annual profit.

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 111

CHAPTER XIV.

THE DIFFICULTIES THAT THIS INDUSTRY HAS TO OVERCOME. THE GREAT-
EST OF ALLIS PREJUDICE. THE REASON. THE AUTHOR AND FARMER,
COMPARING NOTES. RELATIVE PROFITS FROM POULTRY AND AGRI-
CULTURE WITH EQUAL CAPITAL. THE RESULT ATTAINED BY POULTRY
MEN IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE UNITED STATES. THE IMPORTANCE
OF DUCK CULTURE. THE PRACTICAL MISSION OF THE INOCUBATOR ON
THE FARM AND FOR DOMESTIC USE. THE PRACTICAL WORK OF HATCH-
ING AND HANDLING YOUNG CHICKS OF ALL KINDS, AND FOR ALL PUR-
POSES. THE UNDERLIEING PRINCIPLES THE SAME. WHERE TO
PLACE AN INCUBATOR AND WHY. THE VALUE OF VENTILATION. THE
PROPER DEGREE OF TEMPERATURE FOR A HATCHING HOUSE. THE
EARLY REMOVAL OF THE CHICKS FROM THE INCUBATOR, AND WHY?
PURPOSE OF THE GREAT NURSERY. HOW HEATED. HOW VENTI-
LATION SHOULD BE EFFECTED AND REGULATED. ESSENTIALS FOR
‘THE CHICKS. HOW MUCH SPACE ALLOTTED TO EACH. THE PHI-
LOSOPHY OF SAND, AS A RETAINER OF HEAT AND AS AN ABSORBMENT.
HOW OFTEN CHICKS SHOULD BE FED AND WATERED. HOW THE FEED
SHOULD BE GIVEN. POULTRY CULTURE ESPECIALLY ADAPTED TO THE
PACIFIO COAST AND TO THE CLU=AL CLIMATE OF THE SOUTH.

HE difficulty that poultry culture is compelled to overcome

before she is admitted into full fellowship with other and

older industries is prejudice. It is difficnlt to divest a

m.2n of prejudice by argument or by facts and figures ; he

must know the thing and must of necessity, delay all action ‘until

others realize the merited results of more faith in figures, more

energy and self reliance. Poultry raising must be boldly admitted

to the same opportunities that are extended to agriculture and the

rearing of all other stock. No sane man can hope to succeed in a
business for which he is unprepared and of which he is ashamed.

And, need we wonder at the amazement and incredulity of the

112 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

masses, who are just awakening to the serious consideration of the
high claims of this industry ? Poultry Culture is a new industry. It
was degraded for ages by inattention and neglect, because it was
then impossible to make it profitable. Then it had no literature,
no light, no scientific assistance, and what could agriculture and the
arts do to-day without the assistance of science and invention that
have also revolutionized all aspects of labor. These have actually
blown the inspiring breath of modern scientific progress upon the
dead body of ancient poultry culture and it stands up among the liv-
ing, lively industries and commands respect. But it is not the
poultry culture of the past, that must beinvestigated and controlled,
if at all, on scientific principles that cannot beignored. Persons that
have killed and dressed chickens almost ever since they escaped from
the cradle. have seen the sand in the chickens gizzard and yet never
thought of putting sand in their food ; and yet we assure you it will
often assist digestion and check a diarrhcea when all other agents fail.
Of course objections are easier than investigation ; and if persons
are sealed against argument, if facts and figures can make no im-
pression, then poultry culture, nor culture of any kind will likely
hold out to such, an helping hand; but tosuch as are willing to weigh
the issues and be honest with poultry culture and fix, for its demands
as for farming, give it confidence and capital, due dilligence, time
and talent ; conducting it as an enterprise that demands intelligent
study, then poultry culture will surpass farming. ‘

A few years since with $500 invested in fancy fowls I sold $800
worth, cleared $500, and had left over for stock twice as many fowls.

A rich farmer, near me, with $20,000 invested, made less clear
money after charging up everything against us both, than I did ; he
with $20 000 and I with $500 invested. Suppose I had half his money
to devote to poultry culture to best advantage.

Iknowa gentleman who quit a $5,000 law practice, bought 160
acres of land, built and stocked it, all from 45 Light Brahma hens in
less than 10 years.

A gentleman in Indiana worked for 50 cents per day, bought a pair
of fowls, began poultry culture and within a few years bought and
stocked a fine firm and now carries on a poultry commerce worth 8
or $10,000 per year.

Another gentleman in the east began about the same way and now
sells $8,000 worth of fine fowls annually.

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 113

Another cultivates exclusively by the Incubator and has cleared
over $7 on each hen ner annum and employed over 300 hens.

Again, Iam in position to prove that the artificial cultivation of
ducks for market will, and do yield over $1 net profit on each young
duck, and that any Booed duck will lay over 80 eggs in the course of
five months.

Duck eggs hatch remarkably well and they seldom ever die a nat-
-ural death. Thev will eat everything and require no water except
such as chickens drink from a fountain. Ducks are great foragers
on grass, and better still, on green young clover. They grow faster
and develope infinitely better by restraining them from the pond,
just as chickens and pigs and all stock do better and fatten faster
when restrained from rambling in the fields.

We think it safe to calculate on 80 per cent. of duck eggs hatching
in a first class Incubator and it is more than safe to count on the sur-
vival of fully 75 per cent. of all that are hatched and so if I claim ©
that a good large pair of Pekin Ducks can be made to yield a net |
profit of $30 in six months, I intend no outrage upon pnblic credul-
ity but am certain it can be done. I am certain I am too low in my
estimate, but, am careful to be safe. These stalwart young creatures
weigh 314 to 4 pounds within 80 days from leaving the shell, and are
certainly the finest of allfood. They readily sell in cities at from 30
to 40 cents per pound early in the season. They are usually sold live
weight after being bled. The meat is most delicious and once intro-
duced is in great demand.

I need scarcely magnify the mission of the Incubator further ; but,
hope what we have said may be of service to all who embark in
breeding fowls or chicks for any purpose. The underlieing princi-
ciples apply equally to poultry culture, either for the fancy or for
food. Thus’far we have had in view the hatching of chicks for com
merce, may we suggest from experience that the hatching of athou-
sand chicks for home consumption, is anything but labor lost. If the
restaurants can pay from 50 cents to $1.50 for a nice young broiler of
from one to two pounds weight, a half a dozen of such savory food
every day for domestic use will go far towards making the farmer a
friend to the Incubator, and Gentlemen, may I suggest to you, asa
physician, that you eat to much pork and not enough fresh tender
food like these very young broiled birds. If these enormous prices
can be paid in cities, certainly the farmer can afford to own and

114 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

operate his Incubator and live sumptuously on these luxuries that
cost him only the healthful fun of hatching them and feeding for six
or eight weeks. I have tried and can consciously recommend it. We
expect within ten years to find the Incubator as freely used on the
farm and wherever there is a flock of fowls, as the sewing machine
and other inventions that lighten labor and conduce to the health
and happiness of life and the luxury of cheaper, better living.

We come now to the practical work of hatching and handling young
chickens of any and all kind and for any and all purposes, since the
process is identical in every particular and demands the same feed
and care whether the chicks are intended for market or exhibition.
An Incubator-should be placed ina large light and comfortable place,
well ventilated and entirely free from wind and water. Why? Be-
cause light is essential that the operator may see in turning his eggs,
trimming the lampsand attending to details.

Ventilation is absolutely necessary, because the lamps are burn-
ing and the eggs also giving off poisonous gases, that soon load the
air and affect the health of the incubating chicks in the eggs.
Hence a cellar unless it possess these important requisites, is unsuit-
ed. The temperature should never be below 65 degrees in a hatching
house, because, when_the valve opens and the outside air enters
among the eggs, the chill is injurious; and, when the eggs are taken
out and aired for five or ten minutes, each day, after the first ten
days, the air of course, should not be too severely cold. The proper,
temperature, therefore, for a hatching house is between 65 and 75
degrees. L

The process of incubation, so far as what goes on in the eggs, has
been fully considered. The directions for operating the machine
must always accompany the sale; for, since no two machines are
alike, any attempt to cover the action of all in a book would be
burdensome. But the chicks hatched by all require the same atten-
tion, and should be removed from the Incubator as soon as dry, to
avoid the poisonous gas that is generated during and after the hatch-
ing while the chick isdrying. Very young chicks, thus long confined,
are subject to very unhealthy air to say the least, and must be bene-
fited by early removal to a place of equal comfort and pure, warm
air. Weinsist on this point because, whereas, it was one of our es-
sentials to successful incubation and the philosophy fully set forth
in that connection, it is scarcely necessary to suggest the importance

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 115

of applying the principle still. when the little chicks are further
along in life.

The shells removed and burned and the chicks removed and care-
fully and comfortably quartered in the brooder at a temperature of
about 100; for twenty or thirty hours, give no feed as the absorbing
yolk within the chick is all sufficient during that time. The building
or nursery being divided into pens or appartments of ten feet square.
may be heated by a bottom heat brooder or by circulating hot water
through underground pipes or by both combined. The Success and
Perfect Hatcher companies do all such work cheap and reliably.

Stoves are constructed for heating such houses with hot air or
water, the water being better because it holds the heat longer. These
stoves are self-feeding, of different sizes and power, and range in
price from $50to $300.

Ventilation should come trom the top of the building, because’
there the heated air and gas meet and modify, the fresh, heavier and
colder air. The Electric Ventilator constructed on precisely the
same principle that controls the heat in an Incubator would be the
most reliable register of the requisite temperature. The Incubator
manufacturing companies will be glad to give estimates for such
work.

The main purpose of the great nursery should be to furnished the
chicks perfect cleanliness, comfort, pure air and water, and sufficient
to eat. When the weather is dry and not too cold, the chicks delight
to go out through an opening into the enclosed adjoining yard.
They do so in quite cold weather for a short time when they attain to
four or five weeks old. It invigorates their energies and appetite
and should be encouraged fully to the extent of their inclination.
Experience alone and intelligent observation will adjust in harmony
the practical operations of this industry, The purpose aimed at in
these pages is to indicate the general principles, the essentials, that
are applicable everywhere and leave to each latitude and locality and
to each person the carrying out of the lesser practical details accord-
ing to the intended extent of his operations and his pleasure and
purse.

It is plain to see that it would be impossible to prescribe details
for any duty unless limited in extent and in everything to one par-
ticular plan. The essentials for incubation, we feel, are fully under-
stood. We feel too, that thus understood, the mind takes hold of the

116 STANDARD AND COMMEROIAL POULTRY OULTURE.

whole question in abroader, better and more tangible shape; and so
we shall now proceed to consider briefly the essentials of the chick-
ens :

First: Then, how much space should be allotted to these little
chicks ? We ourselves have succeeded admirably with one foot to
each chick until four weeks old. A house, therefore, 24x100 feet with
a four feet passage through center, the sides subdivided into ten pens
on each side 10 feet square, will amply accommodate 2,000 chicks
until they are four weeks old. These pens should be supplemented
by runs, into which they open when warm enough to let them out,
even for anairing. When the whole nursery is quite warm these
young chicks take great delight in sallying out, soon to return to the
warm floor of the nursery. The floor should always be covered deep
with sand; because it maintains high heat when once thoroughly
warmed and so can be relied upon during the cold changes of night
and again, sand is the most perfect absorbent and so keeps the chicks
quarters clean automatically ; that is the chicks themselves keep
their quarters clean by scratching the offal deep into the absorbing
sand. Of course, in due time, the sand must be sifted and supplied
by more that is fresh; but, this process materially lessons the labor
and conduces to the evenness of the temperature and, therefore, to
the health and success in careing for the chicks. With these bottom
heat brooders, where the chicks can retreat from too high or too
low a temperature, where the feet and body are kept comfortable,
where ventilation is rightly regulated, where chicks will not need nor
want to crowd, and where everything is systematically attended to
the chicks will not die if rightly fed. Thus for about four or six
weeks, thechicks should be kept at a temperature, at first of 100,°
dnd then after several days, declining gently down to 98, 90 and 70°.
The time at which chicks should be allowed such temperature depends
especially upon their condition. If they fledge out fast and pass
rapidly over the first pin feather critical period, and the first feathers
come promptly out to their protection, then they may be moved at
any time when thus conditioned, to larger but similiar and somewhat
cooler quarters ; but, the change of temperature must be guaged or
gradual, and never allowed below 70 to 80° in the house. If the
chicks incline to cooler air, allow them the liberty and choice, either
of house or runs when the weather is dry. So much for temperature
and how to preserve it and the right degree.

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY OULTURE. 117

If the enterprise aimsat larger outlay, or more contracted opera-
tions, the apparatus for heating and circulating the water may be ac-
cordingly increased or diminished, and the same adjustment of all
the essentials, including grounds, breeding birds, buildings, Incuba-
tors, brooders and all.

Chicks should be fed and watered every three hours during the day-
time, the last feed being as late as 8 or 9 o’clock at night. The food
should be grouned or crushed and cooked or softened, but, not too
wet. The feed should be given warm, but care should be taken, that
it be not too hot, as food thus fine and scalded, long retains the heat.
For this and other reasons, given in these forward pages, we urge
that the cold, dry feed of corn, usually ordered at night, be set aside;
and the warm, steamed feed at night be substituted ; because it con-
veys free heat into the system at once; and, because it digests more
easily and rapidly and, therefore, the same quantity of food genera-
ates more animal heat, and taxes the digestive strength less in the
operation. We deem these reasons sufficiently self-evident to need
no further argument. What shall befed, we have already fully set
forth in our articles on food in the earlier chapters of this publica-
tion, to which the reader is respectfully referred.

It will be observed that in all this enterprise the question of tem
perature plays the largest part.

For this reason our plans have been presented from the stand-
point of the cold North, where nature is ice-bound and bleak during
- that portion of the year when the highest prices prevail for these
tender and tempting broilers. But the suggestion is pertinent that
this encouraging industry is especially adapted to the genial climate
of the Pacific coast and the southern portion of the United States.
Tf home prices in the South are less than in New England and the
populous cities of the North, ice and refrigerating cars will overcome
time of transit and the distance of travel and so the author com-
mends to all, butespecially to the citizens of the South, Commercial
Poultry Culture.

118 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY OULTURE,

CHAPTER XV.

THE COST OF RAISING BROILERS. EVERYTHING WEIGHED AND WORKED
OUT FROM POSITIVE EXPERIENCE, AND CAREFUL FAOTS AND FIGURES.
THE CONCLUSION REACHED AGAIN BY THE AUTHOR, THAT THE POSSI-
BILITIES ARE $10 FOB EACH HEN EMPLOYED IN COMMERCIAL POUL-
TRY CULTURE UNDER THE BEST POSSIBLE CIRCUMSTANCES.

@e i have on several occasions kept the best record we could
! of the cost of various flocks of chicks from hatching up
to three months old and found the average did not vary

{ but the smallest fraction from five cents per pound for
aa We have instituted careful inquiry and find the experience
of others very similar to our own. A friend furnishes us the most
elaborate experimentation published in the January number of the
Poultry Keeper, 1885 and which is so nearly coincident with my
own calculations that with perfect confidence in its accuracy we
quote it in full:

‘* But few persons have familiarized themselves with the weight of
chicks at different ages and in order that we may derive some accur-
ate idea of weights from the shell to more advanced age we submit
the following which we think will be of special practical interest.

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 119

The subjoined experiments being made to get at the exact truth. The
result is as follows and may be readily verified:
The egg weighs, when fresh 2 ounces.
The weight of new hatched chicks 114 ounces,
as ae ie chick 1 week old 2 -- :

66 66 sé 6é 9 6eé ee 4 é
« (3 73 ce 3 “é ‘sé 614 73
“c ec ‘ce of 4 cc ee 10 sc“
66 6é be (73 5 66 if 14 ‘ce
66 6é 66 cs 6 66 6é 181g 6é
éc 6é &é ‘ Ff a3 73 23146 73
? A
6c ce 73 73 8 ‘ec te 28 6é
66 sé be ce 9 (73 té 39- 6c
6é 6é “é 6é 10 ce 66 36 6é
“ec ce ce 6é 11 a3 6s 41 (79

‘The chicks experimented with were Plymouth Rocks mixed with
other breeds. The result will show heavier weight if the high grade
cock be used with the full blooded Cochin or Brahma hen.”

“* They were fed mostly on a mixture of bran, oat meal and corn
meal moistened with milk or water and baked, sometimes nearly
cooked with boiling water. Whole wheat and skimmed milk cheese
served as a variety during the first 4 weeks ; and the cake was some-
times made richer by tie addition of a little animal meal (pulverized
bone and meat.) Out of quite a flock not one chick died from
disease. They were fed very regularly, three times a day; and all
they would eat up clean. A flock of which increased two pounds in
weight a day, consumed less than six ponnds of corn meal; or its
equivalent in other food, in 24 hours, and what vegetable or animal
matter they could pick rp, which in spite of our limited range did
not appear to be very much, at least they always appeared hungry
when they came for their meal.”’

The error in this experiment was in giving the chicks unlimited
range since they derived from the constant exercise only an appetite
for food which, instead of going to make fat and weight was wasted
in their rambles for food. The better plan is restricted pasture and
feeding every three or four hours.

From the above, however, we see that the actual expense of making
one pound of ‘‘ spring chicken ’’ was in this case not over 4 cents.
The market price in cities during July varied between twenty and

\

120 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY OULTURE.

twenty-eighr cents.

‘* We might have forced these chicks faster by giving them greater
variety of diet but didnot attempt to force them. Or we might have
grown them slower and with less expense, but with longer time had
we let them shift for themselves. There were no grass hoppers. Let
us analyze the weights and notice the ratio of gain.

The first week the chick did not quite double in weight; but the
second week it doubled exactly.

The third week, though not doubling in weight, the gain was
greater than during the second week and for some cause the ratio
was not equal to that before or after the third week, the gain being
only 214 ounces, while during the fourth week the increase was 334
ounces. The fifth weekthe gain is still greater and the ratiois given
below:

Chicks newly hatched 114 ounces.
‘* gained first week %% re

“cc “é 2 “sé 9 “cc
“cc “ec 3 ‘ 216 “cc
sé “cc 4 “ce 316 ‘ec
“é ee 5 se 4 “cc
a 6c “ec 6 “cc 41g “ec
‘ “ec re ee 5 “es
sé &é 8 “ec 41g “cc
“c “c 9 ce 5 “ec
“ec “ 10 “ 4 “ec
‘cc “cc 11 “ce 5 “ec

The greatest gain considering the age was made when the chick
had attained the age of seven weeks, the chick then weighing 2314
ounces or very close to 144 pounds. When nine weeks old the weight
was exactly two pounds—32 ounces.

Although the weights here given refer to that of a single chick, the
experiment was made with a small brood and an average arrived at.
The term ‘“* chick”’ being here used simply for convenience and we
call particular attention to the fact that theexpense of making each
pound was 4 cents, but it may be repeated that they were not forced
and could have been made to weigh a little more, or by attempting
to make three cents grow a pound of “ chicken ”’ the growth would
have been less.

The quality of food is the secret of growth and we have always

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY OULTURE. 121

claimed and demonstrated that from the time the chick is hatched
until it is grown, the cost per pound is 5 cents as a maxium limit, but
if the five cents be not judiciously expended it will not produce half
a pound.

The paramount consideration, therefore, in commercial] poultry
culture is the vigor and size of the breeding stock, the quality of food
for the fowls and chicks and the judicious manner of feeding.

The profit depends upon the season of the year when the chicks
are hatched; about the 15th of January is the beginning of the
broiler season which ends about the first of June.”’

This accords with our own experience and so necessitates our be-
ginning the process of incubation about the first of October or No-
vember.

The prices are highest during March and April, and chicks that
weigh half a pound retail at from 75 cents to $1.00. Then the chicks
that weigh three-quarters of a pound are preferred, which are fol-
lowed by those weighing one pound.

The following will be found the safest rule for estimating the
prices of young chicks at these periods. The sum of 75 cents is the
price to be expected for a chick from a half a pound weight until it
is six monthsofage. This uniform price runsinthismanner: A
half pound chicks sells at $1.50 per pound, or 75 cents per chick. A
three-quarter pound chicks sells at $1.00 per pound or 75 cents per
chick. A pound chick sells for 75 cents. Aone and a half pound
chicks sells at 50 cents per pound or 75 cents per chick, and so in-
creasesin weight and decreases in price until the chick weighs 6
pounds and sells 0¢ 1214 cents a pound or 75 cents perchick. Of
course the prices sometimes vary, but wecan safely assert that if one
half pound broilers reach the market in March and the chicks
brought in continually until the season for ‘‘ spring chicken ’’ is over
there will be no difficulty about prices. The figures given are retail
_ prices for one dozen chicks.

Observe that in the experiments given the chicks weighed 10 ounces
when 4 weeks old. The cost up to that age is just two eents ; we
throw off the two ounces for a margin and leave the weight 8 ounces
at one month old. Now let us suppose that, instead of selling the
chick at 75 cents, we leave a great margin in price and call it 25
cents. We will then have 23 cents clear profit from an expense of 2
cents for food.

122 STANDARD AND COMMEROIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

In the experiments, however, the chicks gained a quarter of a
pound the next week and while weighing 10 ounces, at 4 weeks old,
reached 14 ounces when five weeks of age, having gained a quarter of
a pound the fifth week and as the ratio was more than a quarter of a _
pound each week thereafter, often reaching five ounces, we may
safely claim that up to the age of three months a chick @iil gain at
least a quarter of a pound per week, as follows:

Chicks 4 weeks old 44 pound
‘

‘é 5 “ “ 3 ‘
‘sé 6 ‘“c Ta | ‘“
‘c "4 ‘“c rT 114 ‘c
‘ 8 ‘sé alte? Be ‘“c
“ 9 ‘ec “ 13 ‘6
“ 10 ‘“ “9 “
ee bf ‘ ‘“ 21 ‘é
“49 “c “ 216 73
“ 43 és “ 234 ‘sé
“44 “ “ 3 73

In the experiment the chicks weighed two pounds at eight weeks
old, but we have allowed two extra weeks for a safe average for an
entire brood, as some of the chicks may be sickly or inferior, but we
could have easily put down that a chick will weigh three pounds
when three months old or even more for we have often had them to
weigh four pounds at that age.

Another experiment which we have made previous to the one cop-
ied above demonstrated that chicks double in weight every 10 days
until they are 40 days old, but such rule is not infalliable, as we find
the gain greater at some periods than at others, but the cost of food
for the second experiment was one cent a week until the chick was
10 weeks old, when the expense increased and so did the weights. It
is admitted however that the chicks were not as well fed and provid-
ed for as they should have been. The cost was of course less than
one cént until the fifth week, which was exactly one cent and when
the tenth week was reached the total amount expended for each chick
was exactly 10 cents for 10 weeks, the small amount eaten the first
four weeks leaving a surplus which was added to the latter period of
the experiment. The weight of a chick at the end of 6 weeks was
exactly 18 ounces or a pound and two ounces, the cost being 6 cents

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 123

Let us now look at the table and notice how it compares with the
others, we doubling the weight of the chicks every ten days :
Chicks at hatching 114 ounces,
aS 10 days old 2% as
‘ec 90 “ec “eé 5 ‘é
“é 30 &é 6é 10 &é
ce 40 of 6eé 90 6é

Now compare it with the first result which we gave in weeks and
we find that in three weeks the chick weighed 614 ounces while in the
case just mentioned the chick in 20 days weighed five ounces. We
are satisfied with the difference or rather the close result. In thirty
days the chick doubled from five ounces to10onnces. In the result
by weeks we find that the chick four weeks old weighed 10 ounces,
only two days difference in ages between them. In 40 days the chick
weighed 20 ounces, having doubled again in 10 days. In the result by
weeks, we find the chick at seven weeks old weighing 2344 ounces
and as the two days difference is something, it partially compensates.
for the heavier weight ; but we have demonstrated by two different
experiments that a chick will double in weight every 10 days until it
is 40 days old and that though not doubleing after that time the ratio
of increase is, however, very rapid. It is conclusive then thata
chick will gain at least one quarter of a pound every week on an ay-
erage, until it is three months old.

Tn one experiment we found the cost of food four cents a pound
and in the other we made it more but as the cost of food for the six
weeks was six cents and the chicks weighed about 18 ounces, which is
one pound and two ounces, the cost was a fraction over five cents a
pound, but the ratio was reduced as the chicks advanced in age, as
- the gain in flesh was greater andhence in order to leave a fair

margin we can confidently state that the maximum cost of a pound
of chicken from the shell to maturity is five cents, but maturity
meansthe moment a chick becomes a fowl, as it is easy to see that
a fowl when once it has reached the limit of its weight, may become
fiveyears oldand yet not weigh an ounce more but consume any
amount of food. Thus young poultry can be produced the cheapest
and with considerable less trouble and a better market.”
Suppose then we are fully prepared with houses, runs, heating ap-
paratus, machinery for cooking our food and every contrivance for
the better care and comfort of the fowls and chicks, suppose that

124 STANDARD AND COMMEROIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

our parent stock be Brahmas and Cochins with high grade cocks as
advised in these pages, suppose our process of cooked food be en-
riched with ground meat from such dead animals as can often be
secured as a gift and we feed these chicks every three or four hours
what they will freely eat. The truth is irresistable that we should
gain much in weight at the tender age of four weeks and be enabled
to market them before they were large enough to occupy much space
and at a net profit of from 40 to 70 cents per pound. Now we will
suppose that our pullets lay 80 eggs each in six months, and thatisa
very low estimate since Mrs. Judie’s Light Brahma pullets, advertis-
ed in this book, exhibits an egg record of over 90 each in a little over
five months, we will suppose that we hatch and raise one half of these
eggs into vigorous chicks, and sell them at from 60 to 70 cents per
chick at four weeks old, the net profits per hen thus accrueing, must
closely approximate $15 or $20, but, barring all accident and leaving
the largest of margins that seriousness and honesty could ask, we
think we shall not be criticised as uncandid nor extravagent in calcu-
lating the actual profits of commercial poultry culture at $10 per hen
during a period of six months, if planned and prosecuted as here ad-
vised.

We think from the foregoing, data may be furnished to enable all
to see this subject and estimate its worth.

We therefore close the consideration of this department of poultry
culture in the honest belief that it promises more than any other
known industry for the labor and capital required in this enterprise.

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 125

CHAPTER XVI.

A POULTRY FARM FOR EGGS. ITS REQUIREMENTS. HOW DISTINGUISHED
FROM THE OTHER TWO DEPARTMENTS OF POULTRY CULTURE. ITS
ESSENTIAL OUT LAY. THE AMOUNT OF LAND AND WHAT KIND. THE

- KIND OF BUILDINGS FOR 1,000 HENS. THE VARIETY OF HENS.
HOW TO MANAGE. HOW TO ECONOMIZE. THE QUESTION OF THE
MANURE. ROOSTS AND NEST. HOWTO PRESERVE THE EGGS. THE
‘““HAVANNA METHOD’’ A FRAUD. THE ONLY TRUE PLAN OF PRE-
SERVING EGGS. THE AMOUNT OF EGGS 1,000 HENS WILL LAY. THE
PRICE TO BE EXPECTED FOR EGGS IN JANUARY AND FEBRUARY. THE
PROFITS OF THE EGG FARM. CONCLUSION.

POULTRY farm for eggs exclusively: We have classi-
fied the natural divisions of a poultry farm under the
Mm caption of a poultry farm for commercial or market

4 X poultry ; a poultry farm for thoroughbred fowls and
a poultry farm for eggs; and having considered the first two
in their somewhat intimate association, as goverened by the
principles that apply to careful poultry culture in general, pointing
out the exceptions and essential distinctions between the two depart-
ments of the industry, we come now to offer only afew considera-
tions that shall include the third and last department, viz. a poultry
farm for eggs.

If we cannot offer such fascinating figures in this as in the possibil-
ities that fill the other fields, fill them with facts, fill them with ex-
perimental demonstrations that drive out all doubt, if the egg farm
be modest in comparison and content with its revenue, it has in its
‘favor afew important facts that merit our consideration and its in-
troduction to the full fraternity of the other departments of the great
poultry industry.

In the first placea poultry fazm for eggs requires but little capi-
tal. That: then is a solid virtue. Let us specify. We need in this

126 STANDARD AND COMMEROIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

no heating machinery, no division runs, no cocks to keep apart, no
Incubator nor brooder, nor any expenseof advertising or exhibiting
which costs so heavily in the other departments of market and fancy
poultry culture. These heavy drafts done away, the actual expense
of this last and easiest enterprise is certainly very modest.

We have nothing to do with male birds and so escape all rules and
regulations of mating and expense of sub-divisions, forests of fences
and their great expense.

We require a two-horse shelling and grinding machine to crush our
corn, oates, barley and cerealfood and a chaldron for heating water
to scald the food. Bran and shipstuff can be bought ready for use
and suitable to mix with other ground food as good and cheaper than
wheat,

Oyster shell and bone meal can be bought as cheap as we ean pre
pare them and so we escape the careand cost of the process. We
have proposed to ourselves to offer at the last of this love feast with
our friends the best ofour book, and, if it shall be blest in its mis_
sion in calling away from the other over crowded industries the
capital and confidence required in this, if the great producing classes
of my countrymen shall be incited from what we have said to serious-
ly consider this question and decide to embark in this business and
remove thestigma from this “ granary of the world” implied in the

annual importation from foreign countries of over 16,000,000 dozens ©

of eggs to he consumed in this country, we shall feel that full satis-
faction that flows from honest patriotic services to country and
human kind.

We need perhaps ten acres of ground for our pasture as we shall

call it instead of a yard or pen. Our house should be built in the
center of this clover field which should be set in the midst of an or-
chard. We need the shade and the hens will help the trees by eating
all the insects and so we cultivate a doublecrop. We select for our
purpose say 1,000 hens and assign them to this clovered orchard of

ten acres, surrounded by high and heavily barbed wire set closely _

together to keep out intruders. In the center we build our house.
This house can be built very crudeand cheap or very elegant and
costly, but the idea kept constantly in view all through this book has
been to present this subject in its cheapest best and most economi-
cal aspect otherwise we should have ordered our entire roof of glass
and indicated other elegant outlay in keeping, but we doubt that

\

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 127

spending money for display beyond the actual necessity and come
fort of the situation can be justified in ourselves much less can it be
defended in advice to others.

The question then in this connection is, how can we accommodate

with safety and comfortable quarters 1,000 hens? The main house
should be 300 x 12 feet making 3,600 square feet. The plan should
be the box house or pine plank nailed upright to sills and plate,
roof sloping one way, this requires no frame nor rafters as the roof
which should consist of pine plank sheeting may be nailed at each
end tothe plates and supported in the center by two rows of string-
ers, 2 x 4 pieces, running parallel and four feet apart the full length
of the building. These rest the roof in the center and the plates at
the ends. Sostayed, supported and fastened, the roof forms the top
of the box and renders it firm and reliable and saves all framework
and material. This roof should be covered with 2-ply tarred felt and
graveled. The front or higher side of this house should be 8 feet and
look to the north and the lower side 5 feet high and look to the scuth.
This would let the roof slope to the south. Then set the roof as
thickly as need be with large sash of glass for perfect light which
would also contribute much to the warmth. Then on the north side,
the higher side of the house, build a shed ten feet wide and the full
length of the building, let it join the main building and its roof slope
north and be covered as the building by tarred felt and gravel, this
would protect them from the north wind and give 3,000 more feet,
6,600 square feet in both building and shed so combined. The com-
munication between the two apartment could be made through doors.
The floor of both buildings should be made of fine rock down to
the depth of four inches, filled in withsand and covered with cement.
This is necessary to keep the hens from scratching holes in the dirt
floor dut more especially to keep minks from entering at night and
cutting the throats of 50 or 100 hens. The floor then covered deep
with sand absorbs the manure and this sanded. guano will sell
for four times as much as will pay for all the sand, its hauling and
handling.
_ Th- nests should be so constructed as not to take up the room
within the house and so should be built in the shed near the ground
against the partition and entered from the main building through
holes cut through the partition and so letting the hen enter the nest
from the main building.

128 STANDARD AND COMMEROIAL POULTRY JOURNAL.

The plan of the nests should be a long box running the full lengiti:
of the building, partitioned so that each nest would be 16 inches or
a foot square, depending upon whether large or smail hens were used.
The eggs to be gathered from the shed by lifting the top of the nest
which might be made to hinge open.

Other plans present themselves to me and still otis will be sug-
gested to others, and, bear in mind thatall the plans that I offer are
not at all arbitary but simply suggestive and such as commend
themselves for simplicity and economy. The purpose being to be
practical tomake money. The roosts shouldrun the full length of
the building if necessary and consist of a folding frame attached to
the south innerside of the shed, so constructed by hinges that each
morning each section of the frame roost may be folded up and fas-
tened against the side of the wall to which it is attached and let down
again at night and so be always ready when wanted at night and al-
ways out of the way wheen not needed during the day. Thus each
morning the roosts may be raised and the droppings be gathered
with a small amount of sand with a shovel and barreled ready for
shipping when full.

This much for our houses and contents except the water and
feed. The former should be furnished from an ample cistern and
pump within one end of the building supplied from the vast amount
of roofing and the water pumped fresh for the hens in a suitable
trough, three or four times a day inside the house in winter and out-
side insummer. The ground, steamed food fed in shallow troughs
in the same way.

The ventilation should come from the highest point in the house,
namely, its junction with the shed, and, where the air is allowed to
enter the descent should be broken by a partial loft to avoid the evil
influence of the least draft upon the fowls. Watchfulness and intel-
ligence are requisite to decide when the fowls are comfortable and
healthful.

We come now in order to consider what varieties are best for this
business? We want a fowl that will lay the most eggs possible, that
will eat the least amount possible, that will not become broody, that
are extremely hardy, that will diffuse themselves ali over the ten
acres of ground, that will not lay about and get too fat for this use.
What fowl will fill the full measure of this requirement? We want
a fowl atthe same time of sufficient size that when we want to fatten

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 129

/ .

it in the fall for market, just about the period of moulting, it will

weigh about 6 or7 pounds, net. This must force our selection to a

cross between the Leghorns and Asiatics or to the Plymouth Rocks,
pure. But are we compelled to an annual saleof the whole thousand
hens and replacing them with pfillets ? And shall we make or lose
by such annual sales? We are obliged to sell unless we can depend
upon the non-setting integrity of our hens the second summer and
this can only be claimed as applicable to the Leghorn hens and so
the Leghorns must be our choice unless we annually sell off the entire

‘stock, for no other variety can be depended upon fcr two successive

seasons. And ifit be found advisable to fattenand market just be-
fore moulting to escape the dangers from cholera among so many
hens then we do not want the Leghorn on account of its being too
small and because it will not lay any more eggs the first season, then
the Buff Cochin or Brahma. If the size or weight of the egg entered
into the question of price, then the Asiatics or high grade birds

_ would be much the best, but so longas eggs are sold simply for so

much per dozen, irrespective of size, then the Leghorn eggs are as
profitable as any, and so these questions are introduced for practical
consideration and we think fully illustrates the importance of what
we aim atin this work, namely, of presenting every side of the sub-
ject under the caption of what we may truly call “‘ The Principles of
Poultry Culture.’’ We are inclined to advise for this farm the Leg-
horn pullets and try them the second year. Weneed no fire or heating
apparatus to this enterprise since it is not our purpose to call upon
our pullets foreggs in the winter. We aim to carry these pullets
through the winter well nourished for vigorous laying from January
on until Augustthus covering the most prolific period of her life. The
purpose being to pack the eggs the next morning after they are laid
or the same night.

And now we confront the question that has barred the great mass
of those who keep poultry for profit from entering commercially
into the production of eggs, we refer to the difficulty of preserving
them for any considerable time perfectly pure. The difficulty that

‘allhave encountered should we think be first pointed out and then

the right direction and the reason. We ourselves tried the famous
“Havanna Method’? and failed; first, because the “‘ Havanna
method ”’ like the ‘‘ Common Sense Hatcher ’”’ is destitute of the very
essentials upon which success wholly depends. Second, it does not

130 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

exclude the cocks from association with the hens and so allows the
eggs to become fertilized. Such an egg is very easily injured by the
action of heat and it is almost impossible to gather eggs promiscu-
ously and not include in your packing many that are blighted, even
after subjecting all to the closest test before a strong light. If only
afew be blighted they injure all the rest, and so this fundamental
factis foreign to the method above mentioned. No method can keep
pure eggs perfect if once they be fertilized.

What are the facts as afforded by actual experience? An egg fer-
tilized and subjected to heat will evince the transforming influence
of the vital germ in a very few hours, whereas an egg not fertilized
may be placed in an Incubator and subject to one hundred and three
degrees of heat for ten or fifteen days and the egg will then look and
smell and taste and digest perfectly pure.

These are the all sufficient tests and prove that non fortiized eggs
will keep perfectly as against heat.

But, how shall we pack them for certain success and assurance that
they will be preserved pure through the whole of the spring, summer
and atumnal season on until the price of eggs reaches from 25 to 40
and 50 cents in December and January ? We answer, have no male
birds on the place, raise your own eggs, gather them every night, let
them get cool, pack them in perfectly pure and clean large boxes in
a deep, dark, cold cellar in salt, with the big end of the egg downand
the little end up, with salt between the layers and also between each
egg. Whythe bigend down? Because the air chamber is then at
the bottomand supports the egg and as the air cannot escape up-
ward and out but is beneath the egg’s substance it does not escape
atall. Whereas if the small end be down the air evaporates and the
contents of theegg descend intothe contracted space of the smali
end and often ruptures the lining membrane or allows air to enter
above it and below the air chamber. Thus surrounded with the
chlorine in the salt and free from any principle that can awaken
change within the egg, thus packing on the big end and away from
the light and where it is cool eggs will keep sweet and pure all sum-
mer. The limeing process we think injurious because too caustic and
has the effect when in solution of encrusting the egg and changing
the color of the albumen a greenish straw color. All this requires
much care in washing when ready for shipment. But we have been
asked, ‘‘Is it possible that hens will lay withouta male bird ?”

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY OULTURE. 131

Persons who have raised chickens all their life ask seriously how

‘Jong lt takes the Incubator to hatch its brood and if we are in earnest

in the assurance that ovulation in the hen is entirely uninfiuenced by
the cock? Surely poultry culture isin its infancy.

Well, we shall assume that no one will doubt that vigorous and
well cared for Leghorn pullets will lay 130 eggs each inside of eight
months. This with 1,000 such pullets would give us 130,000 eggs or
10,8331¢ dozens and counting these at 25 cents per dozen, gives us
$2,708,25 or barring all accident andleaying a wide margin in price
since at the season of the year specified it is never difficult even in
villages to command from 35 to 45 cents for good eggs in January
an@ until the 25th of February, but in great and populous cities it is
more than reasonable to assume you can engage your ten or fifteen
thousand dozens at from 35 to 50 cents per dozens,

Thus the egg farm with but little cost and care when compared
with all other avocations that yield the same income will be found
the leasthazardous and tho most fruitful. We believe it entirely
safe to estimate a net profitof over $2 per hen.

We have endeavored in presenting the great subject of poultry
culture to the public in its triple aspect, divided as we did into its

~ natural departments, to place each department before the public on
its legitimate business basis. We, of course, could not be expected
to assure any one nor do we know the realities wrapped up in either
branch of this industry. We can offer you as much exactness as in
agriculture or in merchandise or in the professions, we have given
the underlieing principles of poultry culture and introduced it with
allits past and its present status to your consideration. We have
aimed above all things to be honest and place before ali, the facts and
the philosophy in their support, so that all might judge of the just-
ness of our conclusions. In short, our purpose has been from the
beginning of this book to include in its scope an honest advocacy
of artificial incubation, and rearing chicks of all kinds, including
their feed and essential necessities, their mating, management, dis-
eases, cause and sure ; the possible profits of all departments of
poultry culture <nd its history, past and present; its development
and all the influences that effect it. We have given it much thought
and labor and hope we have succeeded to your satisfaction; and now
dear friend, whoever and wherever you may be, if after you have
read this book you desire to become a poultrymex by profession be

132 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE,

careful and educate upward, slowly, economically and thus surely.
Do not hurry! the field will never be full. Its history points the
other way, but that need not discourage us. We have intimated the
prejudice and inacquaintance with the fundamental principles of
poultry culture and have aimed to remove the dangers to be dreaded
through disease. We believe we have proved that poultry culture will
pay, and now as we part from this delightful theme we feel a sad-
ness in saying farewell. We offer you all with our blessing and the
hope that these pages will prove of great service to your business of
scientific profitable poultry culture,
Yours Fraternally,
T, B, Spaupina.

HOLIO.O%

133

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

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134 STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE.

SHE illustration and description of the Brooding House,
with the article following is by I. K. Felch, and
considering it of great merit, we asked permission of the

iF publisher of Mr. Felch’s book, Mr. W. H. Harrison, of
nOnieads to use itin our book. Mr. Felch, says:

Our plan for a chicken house is different from all others we have
examined, and our brooders different. But Mr. Tribon, of Brockton,
Mass., has the same thing, to all intents and purposes, only he uses
a plain sheet of zine instead of the water pans, relying on dry hot

air, which we are not sure is just as well in the winter as to secure

the moist heat over hot water, as per plan of brooders.

Ft Ss si tr = = on a we a ni a Be rr ete

NBVANDUANES

Hall Way 3 ft- wide -6 inches lower than the Chicken Rooms

Fig. 2
GROUND PLAN FOR CHICKEN HOUSE.

(ELE

. A BROODER
Fig. 3 Fig. 4

Our chicken house is 15x40 feet in main building, ent up into a
hallway (see ground plan), 3x40 feet and six inches lower than the

STANDARD AND COMMERCIAL POULTRY CULTURE. 135

chicken rooms, eight in number, matching the eight wire projections
5x4 in front to enable the chicks to take the air at will. They should
be induced to take advantage of them by feeding them meat, excit-
ing them to exercise while enjoying the tidbits of their noon meal.
Kach of the 5x12 foot rooms is furnished with a brooder (see Figs. 3
and 4), the base (Fig. 3) being made square in front with a door to
admit the lamp, the two sides and rear end being cut mitring, so as
to have a base nine inches high. On this base rests a galvanized iron
pan three-fourths of an inch deep, the rear flange wide enough to
’ let through a tube of tin one and one-half inches in diameter, that
all smoke may escape from as well as give draft to the lamp. Above
the flange of the pan (by which means it is held in its position) a
strip one half inch, or say three-fourths inches thick, and one inch
wide is nailed, except on each side and end is left a gap of one inch,
making an air-hole three-fourths by one inch (see Fig. 3.), and upon
this rim rests the floor of the brooder one-half inch thick, thus leav-
ing between the floor and the water in the pan an air-space one inch
in heighth. In the center of brooder floor see tube two inches high
and one and one-half inches in diameter that draws the hot air up
from over the tank as it becomes warmed in its passage from the
sides through the air-hole over the water, and it is radiated out over
the chicks and escapes through the fringe of the brooder cover (Fig.
4), the cover resting on the base (Fig. 3), as indicated by dotted
lines. The brooder is heated by a kerosene light of the Diamond
burner style. The base of brooder is 45x48 inches when it rests on
the floor, and 30x36 on the floor of the brooder, the cover being 22x30
inches long. On a warm night the chicks will lay all round the
cover on the rim of the floor outside, and for this reason we make
the cover smaller than the floor of the brooders. By our ground
plan you see from the hallway these brooders (Fig. 2, A) are fitted
into the chicken rooms so the floor of the brooder only rises two
‘inches above the chick’s earth floor: this gives easy access to the
brooder for them. This we believe the best and cheapest brooder
one can build.

American Poultry F'cod.

Trial Package, one lbs., sent by mail, = = $ .50
I'wo lbs., by express, - - = E: . .70
Five lbs., ae - - - - ao 1.25
Ten lbs., = s LEAP ey = = ie. 2.00
Twenty-five lhs., - z = 2 = 4.50
Fifty lbs., = = “i - te S 8.00

Pure Crushed Raw Bone.

The bone we sell is made from selected shank bones, are crushed
raw, and thoroughly dried, thus preserving all the gelatin and nut- .
riment of the bones that are entirely lost when the bones are boiled
or burned. No poultry raiser should be without bone in his yards, if
he wants strong healthy fowls.

Fifteen lbs., by Pet - = = ie $ 1.00
Twenty-five lbs = = = e Z 1.50
Fifty lbs., = = 2 = . 9.50
One hundred lbs., = 4.00

Add 50 cents for Garces if sent We Rreiene

Granulated Oyster Shell,
This shell is all made from clean, sweet, fresh oyster shells, and is
the best that can be produced.

Twenty-five lbs., by Sat ess, s = so $ 1.00
Fifty lbs., = = = = 1.75
One hundred lbs., = = = is 2.50

Add 50 cents for Car es if sent i freight.

Wards maw. Pilis.

These pills are intended for obstinate cases of Roup, and will, if
followed up by care and cleanliness. cure in nearly every case.
Box 50 pills, sent by mail - = é 5 50c
Box 100 pills, =. = - - - - - 75¢

WJward’s Cholera Fills.

These piils have cured many cases 7. Cholera that seemed hopeless.
But no medicine can cure all cases of Cholera, for if not taken in
time, it will not do any good.

- Box 50 pills, sent by mail, - = = a 50ce
Box 100 pills, = - - - £ BR De 75¢

For sale by American Poultry Journal, Chicago, Ill.

IS A THREE-COLUMN, THIRTY-SIX PAGE, BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE.
Published at Chicago, Ill, Subscription $1.00 a year.

—Itis devoted to breeding and management of —

POULTRY, PIGKONS AMD PHY STOCK.

it has the largest Corps of Practical Breeders, as Editors and Correspon-
: dents, of any Journal ofits class in America, and is the

FINEST POULTRY JOURNAL IN THE WORLD!

VOL. 17 BEGINS JANUARY, 1886.

NO OTHER FIRST-CLASS POULTRY JOURNAL OFFERS
— —_SUCH LOW CLUB RATES.

READ THIS SPECIAL OFFER!

To Five Subscribers, One Year for - $3 00
To Ten és os a - - 5 00
Send Six Cents for Specimen Copy.

Cj

THE POULTERERS GUIDE

Is a 48 page book, for treating diseases of poultry. Giving, con-
cisely, the symptons of each disease, and remedies for their treat-
ment andcure. Also directions for Caponizing fowls, and the feed-
ing and careing for chickens hatched in an Incubator, and many
other things useful to the amateur and experienced breeder. Price
only 25 cents, paper cover, or 40 cents bound in cloth. Address.

American Poultry Journal,

103 State Street, = = Chicago, Il.

gs Ola HA te ee

PERFECT HATCHER AND BROODER,

Are the strongest and healthiest and obtain the highest prices.
Chickens by our system can be hatched and raised to three months
of age at a cost of 5 to 8 cents per pound. The prices obtained are
from 20 to 80 cents per pound, the year through. Can you see the
projit ?

The artificial production of poultry is daily increasing in popular-
ity, and is destined to become a great rnd remunerative industry.
It is a business suitable for all classes of people, and can be conduc-
ted with success by the Clergymen and his family, as well as the
farmer and fancier. Itis easily managed, and is already carried on
by the sons and daughters of many prominent citizens as well as
mechanics, etc. The invention of the perfect Hatcher and Brooder

has completely revolutionized this trade and thousands of chickens
are now being hatched weekly to be sold as broilers, for which there
is an ever increasing demand, at such prices as cannot fail to be re-

munerative.

The great problem, never before solved is how can a young man
with a moderate income and a growing family, and a wife who is
ambitious to assist in earnings and support of the family—how can
she do her share and still remain at home to care for the children
and house. This problem is now solved by oursystem. Any one
with a good, ordinary city lot, say 60 x 125 feet, can put up abuild-
ing that will hold and raise to three months of age 2,600 chicks, and
place in the market at least 800 chicks per month, on an average
profit of 20 cents each, eight months in the year ; they can use our
Portable Brooder, if on a rented spot, and place 400 chicks in market
per month, from same space. This business also commends itself
to widows with a growing family—clergymen, old people who can
do light work, and ahost of others to whom most avenues of employ-
ment are closed, and remain at home and be independent. The
market for this product is unquestioned. See our large circular for
facts on this point.

The largest part of our trade to-day is from our old customers,
which is proof positive of the merits of our system. Our Incubator
is known throughout the world as the standard Incubator. We
have during the past year filled orders for the Ostriah Farms in Cal-
ifornia, besides others for export to the following countries : Japan,
Constantinople, Turkey; Brazil, Panama, New Zealand, Gibralter

and Barcelona, Spain; Sweden, England, Paris, France ; Mexico,

Sandwich Islands, and many other parts of the world. All this in
addition to our domestic trade, which extends to every part of the
Union. We can furnish testimonials by the hundreds—they come
in every mail.

tae For further facts and information, address,

THE PERFECT HATCHER CO., Elmira, N. Y.

"TEE:

a PERFECT BROODER. | =

=" *
YOO
XRAY)
ae Wy

ae
eet

DOXA

XXX

In offering our Brooder, with its latest improvements, we are con-
fident it is in every respect what its name implies. We are con-
scious that our earlier plans of brooders were not a success ; but it
took time to develope all their defects. We therefore have been
steadily advancing, until now we know it will do its work successful-
ly, and is the successor and rival of the natural brooder—the hen. It
is well known by all how she broods her chicks, viz., she sits upon
the ground ; the chicks run under and around her body, with which
they come in contact ; they are enveloped in her feathers and are
surrounded on all sides by her warmth. She even warms the ground
slightly, and thus keeps their feet and legs warm, which we find to
be of the utmost importance. It would therefore seem that from the
teachings of the mother hen, a successful brooder should long ago
have been devised, but strange as it may seem, we have all gone —
astray. But we claim now to have solved the problem. The success-
ful brooder must be based upon the principle of the. hen, viz: a com-

fortable warmth surrounding the cnick, a warm floor—but not too

warm—and a comfortably warm atmosphere surrounding the chick.

The chick needs to lie down and sleep like any other animal. They

cannot lie down on a cold floor ; it must be warm or they will huddle

together, andthen the mischief is to pay. The atmosphere must be
warm or they will suffer. There must be good ventilation, and con-

stant, or they will be poisoned by their own carbonic gas, the same
as would result from a dozen people sleeping in a small room with
all the doors and windows closed. The brooder must be portable;

it must be placed on the ground, so the chicks can run in and out
at their pleasure on pleasant days; it must be storm proof, and
proof against all animals dangerous to chickens ; it must haveample
room for the chicks, so they can be kept inside on all cold and rainy
days ; It must have a glass run, so that when the wind is sharp in
March and April, November and December, the chicks can bask in
the sunshine and bid defiance to the cold, shivery winds. It must
be of that adjustable character to circumstances and seasons, that it
can be placed in a building of any suitable character, or out on the
lawn, or in the field, at the pleasure and convenience of the owner.
It must be so arranged that a person can raise the largest number of
chicks possible, in a state of health, on the smallest possible spot of

ground.

<|SUCH A BROODERI po

We offer to the public, to whom we appeal to jndge it upon its
merits and with good common sense.

Our system of brooding is in every respect equal to our system of
hatching, and we can show that a loss of five per cent. in raising is
too large, if proper care is given. Weinvite all interested to call and
see us—see our Factory, our Brooding house, which holds 3,500
chickens, and see the chickens themselves. We can prove what we
claim. All information free.

PERFECT HATCHER C0,, Elmira, N. Y.

px¥ORD'S INcypATO®

The Original, Most Successful and Complete in the World!

An Introduction given to Axford’s

luc ubators at Colonel Wood’s
Museum, Chicago, by one of the
Managers.

a Ee 7 ae I

posts

These are Incubators, hatching by
artificial means. Early chicks are
what we want; hens have no such de-
sire. In 1870, with all the resources
of science and skill, it was a marvel
that attempts had not been made suc-
cessful to excell Egypt and China,
where for hundreds if not for thou-
sands of years they have been hatched
in immense numbers. There the fayv-
orable conditions must not be forgot-
ten. The profession being handed
down feom father to son, and all its
details kept religiously secret. No
European has ever bean allowed to

= NI2ivisit the interior of the oven. Here
= = we show you the Chicago style! Mr.
Price $170.00 Axford, schooled in_ the geological
museums of London, and having been awarded prizes for electrical instru-
ments in that city, in 1864, was a fit man to undertake it, and was first shown
here in 1875, hatching chickens between Christmas and New Years. Chick-
ens from it hatching on the cars, in the Northwest, with the thermometer
20 degrees below zero ;on the upper decks of the U.S. mail boats, on the
Mississippi ana Ohio Rivers, to Canada and sunny Mexico it has pleased
thousands. Theyare also hatching now on the lakes. Mr. Axford ran 28
at the Southern exhibition, the grandest effort ever made of modern incuba-
tion and were the only ones present. The machines are quite simple, and
if you have any friends in the country, they will be under obligations to you
when you send them our circular. ERAN.

We have now excellent facilities for doing fine work, having introduced
machinery, and employ non but the best of skilled mechanics.

Look out for the original as infringements are out.

‘*No Incubator is of any value nnless it contains within itself every con- ~
dition that nature furnishes for the successful hatching of the chick.”
Here is where the Axford lays out all other competitors.

Send stamp for circular. Be sure and write your Name, Town, County,
and State, plainly, and give full shipping directions when ordering.

Inquire at 5th and Cottage Grove Avenue.

AEORD & BHRO.,
CELZICAGO, Tiss.
Take Cottage Grove Ave. Cars, or Il]. C. R. R. to 43d St.

mi

SS
5
SES S27

Hf

HL che
(Ze

=|

1
B=
EF

The pene Most Successful and Complete in the World;

Price, $30.00, Capacity 11 Dozen. :
66 60,00, 66 35 6“

Additional Nests of any Capacity, may
be added at any time. Price of 11
Doz., $20.00, and 32 Doz. $35.
ee SS SS
<<] Seasoned and Re-tested Thermometers, Boxed $1. De

Sent by maii free

odGET OUR EGG TESTER!be

And thereby hatch twice as many chickens. The result will surprise you !
—Any one canuseit. Mailed for 35 cents.—

eee Et ere
QUR ALARM BELL FOR HEAT OR COLD !

Is a wonder, and will always do good service as an extra guard against ac-
cidents, or any maliciously disposed person. Asan alarm in case of
fire it is invaluable, and will save lives and any amount of
property. Price $6.00, including the battery.

Bae oe oa

We have never sold Brooders, but give plans to our customers how to
build them, as well as cheap permanent brooding houses for large quanti-
ties in which chicks can be grown cheaply with ease. But for any who
may not have the facilities, we will make one for sample, for 50 chicks with
lamp, etc., $12.

Send stamp for circular. Be sure and write your name, town, county and
State, plainly, and give full shipping directions when ordering. Enquire
at 45th and Cottage Grove Avenue.

ASFEFORD «& BRO.,

CHICAGO, ILL.
Take Cottage Grove Ave. Cars or Ill. C. R. R. to 43th St.

CAPON INSTRUMENTS,

i °

IRSTRUPEPTS FOR MAKING CAPORS,

WITH FULL PRINTED INSTRUCTIONS.

d

OOM.
FINE CUTLERY AND SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS,
E. A. YARNALL,

tts SOUTH 1020 ST, PHILADELPHIA, PA.

© THE?GLIMAX-INCUBATOR:AND-BROODER. =

The Climax Incubator
stands at the head of

perfect control. It has
the finest regulator of
any Incubator in the
World, the Electric Bell
isa perfect safe guard
againts all accident®
Cheap, simple, durable
reliable. |

__ “OVO

CLIMAX
BROODER

i Mien,
AUAULAVEYENENUEU EN LUEAELL
TUNA UA LALLA TUUUUUUUCANU SHH

|

It is just as perfect as the Hatcher, positively non-crowding, perfectly
heated and ventilated, and has all the essentials of a first-class mother.

T. I. COUSINS & CO.,

EXane, McKeen Co., Pa.
"Send for Descriptive Pamphlet.

This machine has made the best public and private record of any Incuba-
tor ever invented. It hasnever hatched less than 90 per cent. of the fertile
eggs wherever it has been exhibited in public.

The ‘* Monarch” won the first premium in the great competition of In-
cubators at Madison Square Garden, New York City, February, ’85., for
hatching the greatest number of chickens, and the best percentage of eggs
Thirty-two machines competing, W. C. Baker, Judge.

‘ The eees were carried three hundred miles in a trunk the day before
atching.
E ; WattTuam, Dec. 11, 84.

The committee on awarding the prize of forty dollars, offered by the
‘* Waltham Fanciers’ Club,” for the best approved Incubator in actual oper-
ation, hatching chickens during the exhibition, Dec. 9, 10 and 11, 1884,
awarded the prize to the ‘* Monarch” Incubator, invented and exhibited by
James Rankin, cf South Eason, Mass. And the committee do hereby cer-
tify, that the hatch was 95 per cent, of 475 eggs which were placed in the
Incubator the first day the exhibition opened; and that the eggs
were out of the Incubator three hours and fifteen minutes in_transporta-
tion, and were transported forty miles by rail and four miles by carriage-
road before arriving at the exhibition.

J. H. SwASkEy.
Gzro. WoLLEY +7 Committee.

W. EK. SHEpDD,
TAUNTON, Jan. 11, 1884.
Mr. JAMES RANKIN:

We desire to thank you for the fine display you made with your Incuba-
tor at our fair last week. It was the center of attraction for all. The fact
that you brought about 400 eggs from Easton with the mercury at zero,
packed them in the Incubator and had them hatching the next day, and got
a yield of 90 per cent.in fine healthy chickens, is recommendation enongh
for your machine. Wishing you the success you deserve, we remain, yours

truly, F. L. Fis, Pres. of Southern Mass. Poultry Association.
PHILANDER WiuLiIAms, Vice-Pres. of Southern Mass. Po’ltry Asso’tion.
Be PS

j= "Send for Circular. Address JAMES RANKIN, South Easton, Mass.

_<| THE be
Yak (larren BRODER!

a

iT i a

No more failures in the Poultry busieess on account
of Inability to Raise Chicks.

THE MOST RELIABLE BROODER ON THE MARKET,

——MANUFACTURED BY——

PELZ & GO..

——DEALERS IN——

— POULTRY SUPPLIES

Of e 2 ee oe on. ee leading Incubators in constant oper-
at ou Send for our hee list.

103 North Second St. PHILADELPHIA, PA.

HATCHER BROODER!

—— The “* Success’? Hatcher now stands Second——
to None. It is the best

ELECTRIC REGULATED INCUBATOR

In the world. We make no exceptions. The battery lasts two years
without any attention and turns the Lamp Flame down and
opens the valve without any complicated clock work. It has
extra moisture pans for use in warm weather, saving the
trouble of sprinkling the eggs. We are willing to
put the ‘‘ Success’’ against any Electric Regulated
Incubator in the wor.d for $100.00 cash. Di-

—plomas or Medals not wanted.——

qs"Send for our new circular giving testimonials. It will one
cust you a postal card. Address,

THE “ SUCCESS HATCHER CO., Lancaster, Pa.

THE BEST HATCHERS AND BROODERS ON EARTH!

The vexed question at last solved. The long looked for perfection
in artificial hatching realized without batteries, springs or clock
work. We guarantee the machine to keep the same tempera-
ture winter or summer. It requires no Electrician or
Engineer. A child can manage it successfully.

PRICE-LIST OF HATCHERS.
No. 1, 200 Egg Capabity. - $35.00

Me OO. ss - 65.00
eee OU es - 100.00
PRICE-LIST GF BROODERS.
No. 1, 200 Chicks, - - $15.00
« 2, 400 Cee : 25.00
“« 3, 800 : - - 30,00

HEAD QUARTERS

——FOR ALL KINDS OF——

<IFANCY CHICKENS, be

«<{ AND EGGS. be
Gc. C. WHIPPLE & Co..

NO. 59 MARKET ST. ~ = CHICAGO, ILL.

Sena Eor Circular. |

«CV. GROSS. pe

—am<_MANUFAOTURER OF _2 1m

[oR
a

——— a
z ely i iL 7
Se

Mm i
a

=

incubator Lamp,
Drinking Fountains,
Eee Testers and
«| TESTED THERMOMETERS. }»

—And the GROSS Automatic Self-Feeding—

Ege Turning Trays and Poultry Breeders’ Supplies.

2117 and 2119 State St. Chicago. Ill.

THE BEST MACHINE OUT

SS

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ee
SS

aA AA
f>4NO
AA am

1 ca

The Incubator above Illustrated embodies in main the principles
employed in the construction of the AMERICAN INCUBATOR
for the past year. But Ihave spared no pains or expense
of money, thought or labor to improve my machine
in every possible way, and to keep fully abreast
with the advanced thought of the times.
The American Incubator is offered to the public in full confidence that it

meets a long and widely-felt, as well as growing need of poultry rais-
ers, whether producing for the market or simply for fancy.

PRICES: |
No. 1, holding 150 eggs = = $30 00
“ 1, with extra oven - = = 45 00
* 2, holding 250 eggs . - - 3500
“ 2, withextraoven ~- - = = 55 00
“ 3, holding 500 eggs > -~ 5000

Brooder capable of containing 100 chicks, complete,

with lamp, = = = > 6 0O

The Incubator, with all its parts, crated for shipment, weighs about 150
pounds ; brooder, 60 pounds: cs i Wii's ,

4225 Langley Av., Chicago, Til-

C. Cc. CUSHING,

ST. LOUIS, - MO.

__=) Breeder of Thoroughbred Pedegree -—_,,, :

Light Brahmas,
kr. Cc. VWWhite Lesnorns,
Piymouth Rocks and
Foyal Pekin Ducks.

beOx<] EGGS IN THEIR SEASON. DeOx<t

I keep nothing but the very best. Satisfaction guaranteed.
COL :

THE NEW “SUCCESS” HATCHER!

Stands at the head. The flame turns up and down and the valve opened
and closed with out clock work, weights, chain or pulleys. Our
—new battery needs no attention for two years.—

("Read what the author of this book says :

C. C. CUSHING:
402 North Second Street, St. Louis, Mo.

DEAR Siz: The 400 egg ‘‘ Success ’’ came and is in line of duty, and holds
her temperature toadot. She works like “a thing of life.’’ I verily be
lieve her, all things ccnsidered, her beauty and merit, her perfect reliability
and her low price, and in fact, her Perfect Success, to be the best machine
in existence. Yours Fraternally, T. B. Spatprne, M. D.,

Edwardsville, Il,
("BEFORE BUYING

o<{ Incubators, Brooders, Fowls, Eggs, Wire Netting, Poultry Journal or Books [>>

Send for my fine Illustrated Circular.

N. B.—Machine Shipped From St. Louis or Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

eet he = oe

INCUR ))
‘ | | INCUBATOR, hh

AN

VENTILATING BROODER

In their Operation copy the hen more closely
than any other machine.

THE THERMOSTATIC INCUBATOR ©

Regulates the heat automatically and certainly without using electri-
cal apparatus, and without lamp trips ; has constant descending
ventilation, so that it does not become foul; supplies mois-
ture automatically ; enahles the chick to leave the egg
trays assoonas hatched, so that the eggs are not
fouled by droppings; is more easily managed
than any other incubator; has the best record
—of any machine in the market.——

—THE—

VENTILATING BROODER

Heats and ventilates from beneath by warm air, and obviates the
stifling of chickens by crowding. For testimonials and price list ap-
ply to

FE. §. RENWICK, Patentee and Manufacturer,

19 Park Place, = . New York, N. Y.

«| JAMES E. WHITE, be ~

WAUKEGAN, LAKE, CO. ILL.

__.__QBREEDER OF@

PLYMOUTH ROGKS®°WYANDOTTES.

Winners of the highest honors at Chicago, Indianapolis, Cleveland,
Toledo, St. Louis, ete. My birds have won the best prizes wher-
ever exhibited, and are recognized as the choicest in America.
Have been a breeder continuously for ten years, and an
exhibitor for nine consecutive years.

PLYMOUTH ROCKS, GIANT OF BATTLES STRAIN,

“Giant of Battles ’’ was the sire of ‘‘ Ben Hur ”’ and the grandsire of
“True Blue,’’ both of which birds I raised and sold; and this -
strain has produced more prize-winners during the past four
years than any other in America.

RECORDED, 1885S:

At the Great Chicago Exhibition , won Ist, 2d, 3d and 4th on Cocks
2nd, 4th, and 5th on Hens; 1st and 3d on Cockerels ; 1st, 3d,
4th and 5th on Pullets, and 1st and 3d on breeding-pens

\

WYANDOTTES, Black-Hawk, Strain.
RECORD, 1885.

At the Great Chicego Exhibition my birds won Ist, 3d and 4th on
Cockerels ; 1st, 2d. 3, 4th and 5th on Pulletts; 1st & 2d on
Breeding-pens

THE WORLD’S FAVORITE!

ot Dee e ea ae wenn enc ene en men nn ae ree nnn an nnn nn nnn nnn nnn nnn nena anew t een nannee

FnL.CEZ PEIDIGRE'E!D.

The universal experience of eminent Poultry Fanciers accords the
Light Brahma the first place in egg production and for a profitable
and all purpose fowl. Ibreed them exclusively from Felch’s Pedi-
greed Registered Fowls.

EGGS IN SEASON $4.00 PER 13.

Zoo FINE CHICKS FOR SALE NOW, 2 OO

“No variety of pure-bred Poultry has retained the public favor and
that of poultry fanciers so long, as the Light Brahma.”’ American
Pouitry Journal.

‘¢Tight Brahmas never lose their hold on public favor.’ Fancier’s
Gazette.

“The Light Brahma has been thoroughly canvassed for 30 year’s,
have never been supplanted by any breed and thus they bring the
best evidence of their merit. They bear the stamp of true nobility
in form and carriage, and will please and satisfy all who love large
fowls.”’ JosEPH WALLACE, Ep, Nat. Poultry Monitor.

‘Mrs. Judy and her splendid Light Brahmas will never disappoint
anybody. Dr. T. B. SPALLDING.

My male birds score up in the nineties, and pullets 94 and upwards.
One pullet “ Daisy”? began laying at six months, and laid 15 eggs in
February, and 94 eggs in the following 97 days. My three ‘‘ Belles
of Madison ”’ laid 275 eggs in 106 days. Address, :

MRS. R. A. JUDY,

Bawardsville, X11.

CHE POULTRY KEEPER!

Has the Largest Circulation of any Poultry Paper
__._—=in the World.&_..__.

P. H. JACOBS, Editor.

LES HED At

PARKESBURG, CHESTER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

Subscriptions: One Year, 50 cents; Six months, 25 cents. Has
over 100 contributors. Is a free and independent journal, and
——is filled with choice reading matter on——

<<] PRACTICAL POULTRY KEEPING. [>>

Se

SAMPiIsE COPmy FREE TO ATs:

|
The Pouttry KezprrR was formerly published at Chicago, by
W. V. R. Powis. It has been purchased by a company, who
intend to give it every advantage. The company does
not deal in any kind of poultry supplies except books,
preferring to push the paper, and give the adver-
—tisers the benefit of all sales. ——

[=s"Send for a Sample Copy. Address,

POULTRY KEEPER, Parkesburg, CHester County, Pennsylvania,

/ WYANDOTTES,
“ ‘WHITE COCHINS,
: WHITE LEGHORNS, |
/ WHITE CRESTED BLACK POLISH. ™.

nnn ne ene ee ee nem nee we ee ne a ew enw ee een nce e cece cen scesesa ness sacwesseeassssassneceeseeenn aes sen nan -

.
.
.

.
.

Winner’s of Ist Prizes at the Worlds Expositions, New Orleans,
and at leading exhibition during the last six years. Send for illus-
trated circular. Address,

Dr. E. B&B. WESTON,
HIGHLAND PARK, ILL.

-

Gir Your Own Bone Meal, Oyster
We Shells and Corn in the $5 Hand Mill Sk

ee a Pat.). Circulars Free. .a

dress
8, Easton, Pa. aa
ae (\ 2 . Ge x

sy
i

100 per ct. more made in keeping poultry.

_ Saixog, N. J., CUMBERLAND CoUNTY, Feb. 1884.

Winson Bros’ Dear Sirs:—I Treceived the bone and shell mill you sent in
the Fall. Should haveacknowledged the receipt of it_ sooner, but I wanted
to give it a fair el which I have done, aad would recommend it to all

who keep poultry. 1 would not take twenty-five dollars for mine if I could
not get another. P.§.—To prove my assertion above: While my neigh-
bors during the month of January, were getting but 2 or 3 eggs a day.
was getting from 20 to 41 per day. From January Ist to the 31st inclusive,
I got 792 eggs from my flock. I have callers almost_every day to see the
mill, Yours Truly, GEORGE BONHAM.

<{T. B. SPALDING, be

EDWARDSVILLE, ILLINOIS, PA

Originator and Breeder of the

= =B = A

ORANGE STRAIN OF BUFF COCHING
<<] PURE PARTRIDGE COCHINS [><>

DARK BRAHMAS AND ESSEX PLYMOUTH ROCKS
n=] ALSo _,,.-—,

JERSEY COoOws..
EFOww LS and CHicHs

Of highest standard excellence for sale. I raise and sell nothing but the
very best stock. Eggs for sale in season at $5 per 13.

tes" Send 2-cent Stamp for Illustrated Circular.

CENTRAL ILLINOIS POULTRY YARDS,
W.L.R. JOHNSON,

Buckley, Iroquois Co., Ills.

Importer and Breeder

High Class Langshan’s

——— AND ==

Wiihnite Cochins.

SEND FOR CIRCULAR.

American+Poultry= flood!

A TONIC FOOD THAT KEEPS FOWLS HEALTHY, AND
CARRIES THEM THROUGH MOULTING SAFELY.

20) =o

It is made of the purest and best materials, and contains the phos-
phates and iron, etc., that go to form bone, re-invigorates the blood
and in every way tone up and strengthen the_system. All these in-
gredients are in such form a& to be quickly assimilated by digestion
and the good effects are at once visible in the appearance of the
fowls. In offering this preparation to the public, the proprietors are
aware of the difficulty attending the introduction of an article claim-
ing so much as the ‘ Poultry Food ”’ without the support of un-
undoubted evidence of its value. We have, therefore, taken the liberty
to publish a few of the numerous letters received from well-known
gentlemen in poultry breeding, who have used it, and whose testi-
mony raises the article above suspicion of any attempt to humbug

the people. (These testimonials will be sent to any one who wishes to
see them. )

The first effect of the ‘‘ Food”’ is to bring the Fowls into a fine,
healthy condition, thus fortifying them against the maladies which,
as in the human family, first attack the least vigorous. It also sup-
plies all the material of which the egg is composed, and by its tonic
and gently stimulating action enables the fowls to yield a supply of
eggs that seem incredible to a person accustomed to receive only
the ordinary number from his hens.

Its general bracing effect on fowls acts as a preventive of the ord-
inary diseases, such as Roup, Cholera, etc., and even after an at-
tack, it will soon restore them to perfect health. When the fowl has

Cholera, or Roup, also in damp, cold weather, the dose should be in-
creased to double the quantity directed.

For Sale by AMERICAN POULTRY JOURNAL, Chicago, Ill.

PHENIQUE.

Best disenfectant for Poultry Houses yet discovered.
Price , 5 pounds - - - + - $ .50
10 pounds = - - - - - 1.00

PERSIAN INSECT POWDER.

The only thing safe to use on young chicks to exterminate lice,
Sample box by mail - - - = - $ .75
By express, one dollar per Pane

GALVANIZED STEEL WIRE NETTING.

2 inch mesh, by the roll, of 50 yards at 1!¢ cents per square foot
any width. Price less than roll 21¢ cents per square foot.

WILSON’S BONE MILLS

Price. - - - - - - $5.00 each.

INCUBATORS AND BROODERS.

We furnish any make of Incubators and Brooders at manufacturers
prices.

COXIGRU.

Exterminates all lice and vermin, especially good for setting hen’s
nests. Price, by mail, 1 lb, 50 cts ; by express, 5 Ibs. $1.25; 10 lbs.
- - - - - = - - - $1.75

WARD'S AUTOMATIC WATER FOUNTAINS.

For Poultry and Pigeons always clean. Never runs over or drowns
the chicks. Price 75 cents each. $7.00 per doz.

yas~ Send for our illustrated price list of poultry yard supplies,
Containing instruction how to make capons. Sent on receipt of a
2-cent stamp. :

American Poultry Journal, Chicago.

AMERICAPR
| MEAT AND VEGETABLE CHOPPER!

This is the Best Chopper for Breeders now in the Market.

l

No. 1, 8 inch cylinder, Price, = © $5 CO

Cuts three pounds of meatin three minutes. Sufficiently
large for a flock of fifty fowls.

No. 2, 10 inch cylinder, Price, - = 7 00

Cuts five or six pounds in three to four minutes. Suitable
for a flock of 150 fowls.

No. 3, 12 inch cylinder, Price, = = 10 00
Cuts eight to ten pounds, in four minutes.

This size is especially adapted for cutting cooked meats, fruit and
vegetables, for those raising fowls for market; can furnish larger
sizes that cut 100 pounds an hour, prices up to $75.

Insect Powder Blowers, each 35 cents, by mail.
Carbolated Sulphur Nest Eggs, 75 cents per dozen, by express only.
Egg-shipping Labels, 50 cents per 100.

Spring Punch, for marking chickens, $1.00. This isa spring
punch, and makes a clean cut. It does not bruise the web of the
foot nor make it sore. Cuts hole this size: ©

Tube Egg Testers, by mail, 30 cents.

Ward’s Farmers Caponizing Instruments, per set, with spreader,
$2.75.

Yarnall’s, the finest made, per set, $4.00.

For Sale by American Poultry Journal, 103 State St. Chicago, Jil.

FRISBEE'S g ART 4 STUDIO.

fos es Ae ie

PHOTO. COPYING HOUSE,

No. 1,Cedar Avenue.
MAGNOLIA, NANSEMOND CoO., VIRGINIA.

~~, €
ey a Ose °

I take this method of introducing my business, which is. exclusively the
copying of all kinds of pictures to cabinet and card sizes, from wood cuts,
tintypes, engravings, or any picture of any person, building or animal.
Fanciers now have an opportunity of getting a genuine Photograph of
themselves, or pets, at a low rate, and a fine Photograph of stock you can
offer to your customers at a very reasonable price, thereby making it of
mutual benefit.

Mail me any picture you wish copied, with money enclosed, and I will
all ye ur order promptly, and return your original picture if desired.
hese oar aré taken in the most artistic manner ; the best ma-

terial is used an will guarantee a photograph equal or superior to the
copy sent, or cheerfully refund your money. I guarantee all work.

Compare ny prices with pus Photographers, and see if you cannot get
them of me much cheaper. can generally improve the style of an old
photograph. Can copy from any sized picture. Where you have nota
picture it is cheapest to get a tintype taken.

The following are my lowest prices for Photographs of Poultry or Pet
Slock of any kind :

WHOLESALE PRICE LIST OF FINE BURNISHED PHOTOGRAPHS
Cabinet, $1.80, per doz.; 1-2 doz. $1.00; 4 doz. $6,00 ; 8 doz. $10.00.
Cards, 1.25, “ “*§ 12% 0; 41% 490:;9 “ 6.00

Where special negatives are wanted of persons, stock or buildings, I can
take no order for less than two dozen, at the above rate. I have been in-
spired by a desire to furnish my friends with Photographs at a reasonable
price, so that all could afford to have them, and I trust to receivea share
of your patronage.

I shall endeavor to satisfy every one favoring me withan order. Ifyou
wish to see samples of my work before ordering I will send them as fol-
lows: Cabinets 25 cents;Cards 15 cents; Stamps 3 cents each, in two cent
mentee. stamps or silver. I cannot send samples free but will deduct price

st order, which will insure me from loss, as my prices are very
close. Send 8 cents per doz. for cards, and six cents per doz. for Cabinets
and I will send them by mail. Address letters to

FRISBEE’S ART STUDIO, Magnolia, Nansemond Co. Va.

t="Send 10 cents for Catalogue giving full particulars, and samples of
stamp photographs.

In writing to above be sure to mention POULTRY CULTURE.

JAAS =
ma 96% point Plymouth Rock.
BREEDS MORE, AND FINER.
PRIZE PLYMOUTH ROCKS AND WYANDOTTES.

Stock always for sale at low prices. For quality of stock send for new il-
lustrated circular, giving prices, matings and prizes won at the big shows.

Feather fro

nese from prize birds $3 and $5 a sitting. fine prize Jersey cattle for
8a

Also
e at low prices, get the best and finest of SID. CONGER, Flat Rock,Ind.

> "TEE

NATIONALS] CINCUBATOR,-

Is AN

<IIMMENSE SUCCESS! be

It is so pronounced by the practical breeders and farmers from all over
the country. The hatching qualities are unexcelled. The average
being from 90 to 98 per cent. Price and capacity as follows:

LOO Figsss - = = $1200
250 “ = - - = LB OOo
Soo “ =-.- - - - 25 0O

Agent for the Yarnel Caponizing instruments, the best in use. Also for
all Poultry Journals and any poultry book published. I issue semi-annu-
ally, from 20,000 to 25,000 circulars. It is a first class advertising medium as
testimonals show. Send stamp for circular. Address,

74 South AYE. E. R. BADGER, Rochester, N. Y.

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