| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |TOTALS+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+-----+----+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +======+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+====+=====+====+ The egg record is the up-to-date way of keeping tab on idlers. It goes with the trap-nest. [Illustration: A useful hen gate] As with many other products of home industry the first and best market is the home market. Credit the hens with every pound of meat you furnish for the table and every egg consumed by the family. But you will soon need to extend your market. Across the street, up and down on both sides, you can find people who like "personally conducted" eggs and prefer that the fowls served on their tables should be acquaintances rather than the embalmed kind. You must be business man enough to work up a trade for fresh, clean eggs in attractive packages, and for wholesome meat. It would be a good stroke of business to date your eggs if you know what demand you can depend on. That would help impress the idea of real freshness on the consumer's mind. If you pluck fowls for market it will interest you to know that feathers have a market value. They should be plucked dry and the wing and tail feathers kept separate. Any large city dealer in chickens will probably take your feathers. By-products often make the difference between plus and minus in a year's business. The winner of the first prize of one hundred dollars in the Junior Poultry Contest of the Oregon Agricultural College tells this story: RAISING CHICKENS Boys and girls should raise chickens in the city as well as on the farm because it pays and is a fine occupation. It is a work that never grows tiresome and new experiences are always awaiting you. Various theories are advocated as to the proper manner of feeding and housing to get the best results but simple rules are the best to begin with. Plenty of clean water, clean houses and yards and good feed are needed to get the best results. Spade up a little in the chicken yard every day that is pleasant, but if it is cold and in wet weather provide a scratching shed. Keep the hens busy. Read the bulletins furnished free by the government and the various experiment stations. Also subscribe to a good poultry paper. The ideas you will get from these together with your own experience will make you a successful poultry raiser. By doing all that was stated above I was able to win first prize in the poultry contest just closed. CLARENCE A. HOGAN SUCCESS WITH CHICKENS The contest of the Portland Junior Poultry Association has closed. It lasted a whole year, and it seemed as if it would never come to an end. But if it had not been for the contest I would never have known many of the interesting things I now know about chickens.