Rocky Mountain husbandman. [volume] (Diamond City, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1881-08-25
QGEte Aoulhp Nard.
EGGS,

vest, when they are plentiful, and the sea-
son of scarcity, when they are difficult to,
get. And yet they are staple commodity,
in demand the year round. The poultry
keeper, intent upon making profit from his
flock. is in despair at times, when eggs are
selling at so cents dozen and his hens are
taking vacation or are on a strike. At
other times he is disguised with a surfet of
eggs, when the market price is r. cents per |
dozen, and the buyer even seems to doubt
their freshness as an excuse for taking of
cent or two from this low rate and he is at
all times jealous oil his more successful COM
petitor who carries full baskets to market
when eggs are dear, and is taking his ease
feeding and rearing crop Of pulets or
broiers when they are too cheap to pay for
the corn, the raw material of which they
are made. And our complaining friend
wonders how it is done. He examines his
neighbours flock :; he notes the food and the
water and from it all he can find no ade-
quate season why across the road the hens
should be cheeriIy singing Christmas carols
or New Years lays, while his own are
dumb and NOPE around, doing nothing but
eat. He is inclined to believe it all luck
and, although we don't believe in love in its
popular sense, We are inclined to hold the
same view as he. 1t is luck. But then we
are well satisfied that a man makes his own
lnck. Consider for moment the unlucky
man, Que to whom accidents come at all
m cfn ont vrith lNol 1i,t
he breaks down; whose best cow gets into
the swamp and dies in the mire whose
horse is badly kicked by his mate, left un-
fastened in the stable; whose crops, plant
ed a little behind time, never do we'll
whose grass gets the rain because it il left
the milk is sour, and, what is right TO the
point, whose chickens are always late ones,
aud whose hens steal their nests just before
snow flies, and come in with one starved
chicken apiece just as winter is at hand.
Then, the egg basket is empty all the win
ter, and his aock gets down to business in
lively manner just about midsummer,
when eggs are almost wol thless. All the
.sluck" there is about this is simply that the
man has the i'll luck to be a bad manager
For, although fowls are exceedingly per-
verse in their character, yet they are as
amenable to the ordinary laws of nature AS
any other animal, and are precisely what
their owners make them. With good man
agement they may be made the most pro-
fitable of the farm stock, but without it no
other domestic animal comes to grief so
soon as hen. And this leads us to con-
slider what good management of flock of
hens consists Of. ..r-
1t islands to reason'' that poultry keep
er cannot enjoy success in his vocation un-
less he has chosen the best fowls for his
purpose, whether it be eggs in the season OF
scarcity or chickens for market; and this,
then, may be the first item tor consideration
as regards good management of flock. 10
select the best is not an easy task, for the
best has its faults and as with rose, which
is the first of flowers, and strawberry,
which is the first of fruits. every kind has
it's drawbacks. We cannot have every good
quality in one kind. Then, one who is seek
ing the best fowls is bewildered by the con-
Trajectory opinions and advice OF his friends.
Advice is cheap, and persons are generally
very liberal with it, forgetting that the re-
cipient is the one who has to suffer from
mistakes, and in this way seeker after the
truth in regard to fowls is rendered totally
incapable of making reasonable decision.
One tells him that the White Leghorn is the
fowl for eggs; another says that this bird is
no better for the table than crow, and Will
fly over twenty-foot fence and ravage his
neighbor's fields mile off. The light Brah-
ma has its advocates and its objectors equal
ly: the Plymouth Rock has its friends and
its detractors one says it is the fowl for
farmer, and the worst that is said about it
is that its legs are not always yellow, and
some of the chicks are black. But good
fowl may be of any color, and SO with this;
a dark-legged cockerel will brol as well as
yellow-legged one, and black bird has
no color in the pot. And so it is through
tho whole list in the standard of excellence