The crate-fattening industry while deserving credit for great improvement in the quality of chicken flesh in the regions where it has been introduced, cannot on the whole be considered a great success. It is commonly reported that some of the firms instrumental in its introduction lost money on the deal. The crate-fattening plant has come to stay in the communities where careful methods of poultry raising are practiced, and where the stock is of the best, but when a plant is located in a newly settled region where the poultry stock is small and feed scarce, the venture is pretty apt to prove a fiasco. While poultryman at the Kansas Experiment Station, the writer made a large number of individual weighings of fowls in the crates of one of the large fattening plants of the state. These weighings pointed out very clearly why the expected profits had not been realized. The birds selected for weighing were all fine, uniform looking Barred Rock Cockerels. At the end of the first week they were found to still appear much the same, but when handled a difference was easily noticed. By the end of the second week a few birds had died and many others were in a bad way. The individual changes of weight ran from 2-1/2 pounds gain to 3/4 pound loss, and many of the lighter birds were of very poor appearance. It is simply a matter of forced feeding being a process that makes trouble with the health of the chicken if all is not just right. It is probable that in the future more fattening will be done on the farm, or by the farmer operating in a small way among his neighbors. The reason for this is that the saving of labor in the large plant is hardly as great as the added loss from the shrinkage of the birds due to the excitement of shipping and crowding, and the introduction of disease by the mingling of chickens from so many different sources. The Canadians especially have encouraged fattening on the farm. The following is a hand-bill gotten out by an enterprising Canadian dealer for distribution among the farmers of his locality: HOW TO FATTEN CHICKENS FOR THE EXPORT TRADE. To fatten birds for the export trade, it is necessary to have proper coops to put them in. These should be two feet long, twenty inches high and twenty inches deep, the top, bottom and front made of slats. This size will hold four birds, but the cheapest plan is to build the coops ten feet long and divide them into five sections. What to feed.