A distinct branch of the poultry business, and one that is extremely profitable for those who can run it successfully, is raising young chicks in the winter for early broilers. To commence on a large scale requires as large capital, but there are hundreds of men and women who have accommodations on their premises that would enable them to start in a small way, and by investing the profits from the first year they could obtain a really good equipment for the business. Of course, the real starting-point should be a good flock of healthy hens, all of one breed, preferably Wyandottes or Rocks, for really the hen who lays the egg has as much to do with the success in broiler-making as the care one may bestow on the business. Next in importance is a well-constructed new incubator. Don’t be tempted to buy a second-hand machine, which has usually been allowed to stand in a damp cellar or in some outside shed while not in use, for it will in all probability warp or go to pieces when put in commission again. Brooders come third on the list, but are quite as important as the two foregoing, for there is no use hatching a chick unless it can be reared, and the heat and ventilation of the artificial mother is more than half the battle. The up-to-date broiler plant consists of an incubator-cellar, a nursery, or brooder-house, as it is usually called, and a broiler-house. Both the latter are divided into small pens, about two feet wide and five feet long. In the nursery-house, the top ends of the pens are inclosed like boxes to the depth of about a foot and a half, and have hot-water pipes running through them to furnish heat for the chicks to brood under. A flannel curtain cut into strips falls from the top of the inclosed part to divide it from the rest of the pen, which runs down to the outer wall of the house, where a large window lets in light and sun. The pens should have board floors slightly elevated above the main floor, to avoid dampness, and the divisions are made with a foot board about nine inches high, and one inch netting two feet high above that. The brooder-house is divided in the same way, but the hot-water pipes only run around the walls of the house, as the birds don’t need the immediate heat to brood under, after they leave the nursery, when they are five or six weeks old. But, until you can afford the proper equipment, one or two incubators can be run in the cellar of the house or an unused room where there is no other heat. Individual brooders can be used in place of the nursery and brooder-house, if you have any light outbuilding to stand them in. In fact, I like the individual brooders better for the nursery period than the pipe-house system, because it is only necessary to heat as many as are needed, and with the pipe system the entire house has to be heated, even if you are only going to use one section.