ke
rapid growth while young. The Leghorns are the leading breed for eggs.
They are "non-sitters" and, being very active, do not become overfat.
Their small size, however, makes them poor table fowls and for this
reason they are not adapted to general use. The Asiatic type, which
includes Brahmas, Langshans, and Cochins, are all clumsy, heavy birds,
which make excellent table fowl but are poor layers and poor foragers.
Brahma roosters will frequently weigh fifteen pounds and can eat corn
from the top of a barrel.

A beginner should never attempt to keep more than one kind of
chickens. To get a start, we must either buy a pen of birds or buy the
eggs and raise our own stock. The latter method will take a year more
than the former, as the chicks we hatch this year will be our layers a
year later. Sometimes a pen of eight or ten fowls can be bought
reasonably from some one who is selling out. If we buy from a breeder
who is in the business they will cost about five dollars a trio of
two hens and a rooster. The cheapest way is to buy eggs and hatch your
own stock. The usual price for hatching-eggs is one dollar for fifteen
eggs. We can safely count on hatching eight chicks from a setting, of
which four may be pullets. Therefore we must allow fifteen eggs for
each four pullets we intend to keep the next year. The surplus
cockerels can be sold for enough to pay for the cost of the eggs. If
we have good luck we may hatch every egg in a setting and ten of them
may be pullets. On the other hand, we may have only two or three
chicks, which may all prove to be cockerels; so the above calculation
is a fair average. If we start with eggs, we shall have to buy or rent
some broody hens to put on the eggs. A good plan is to arrange with
some farmer in the neighbourhood to take charge of the eggs and to set
his own hens on them. I once made such an arrangement and agreed to
give him all but one of the cockerels that hatched. I was to take all
the pullets. The arrangement was mutually satisfactory and he kept and
fed the chicks until they were able to leave the mother hen--about
eight weeks. It is also possible to buy one-day-old chicks for about
ten or fifteen cents apiece from a poultry dealer, but the safest way
is to hatch your own stock.

The easiest way to make a large hatch all at one time is with an
incubator. There are a number of very excellent makes advertised in
the farm papers and other magazines and the prices are quite
r