A REPLY TO "CHANTECLER."

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1752, 17 May 1913, Page 15

A REPLY TO "CHANTECLER."

Sir,—Breeding from immature or weak stock, improper line-breeding, over-feed-ing of moat powders, crowding, and artificial conditions, would bring about tho deterioration "Chantecler" complains about fand aro really the only things I see to complain about). But these ailments are as old as tho hills. I agree that outraged nature is a liard taskmaster, her tines being heavy and sure. But that has nothing to do with selection of the most desirable characters. Selection has to go on, if meat powders have to be reduced. Tho autidote to tho abovo ailments is selection on sano and sober lines, breeding from mature and sound stock, using sound, new blood, cutting down meat powdors, and having roomy and healthy quarters. Breed from the highest producers and deterioration need not disturb one's slumbers. I knov that some unduo forcing is done, possibly to meet, the requirements of tlio millers, but it is a futile endeavour, for the feed prices soar with the higher egg-records, but this is not limited to tho poultry industry. I "Chantecler" is fond of a tilt at the leghorns. Ho may swing his guitar astride his shoulders and «ing to us the sweetest melodies on the "Plump Chook," but wo are .not having it. Speaking, of commercial poultry, all I know (including tho writer, who years ago began with several breeds) have, more or less quicklv, gravitated to the-white leghorn and parted with the rest. This development has been general, and in the <deth of the experts, throughout New Zealand and abroad as well. I asked a neighbour who had been in Petaluma— the greatest poultry centre in America —what breeds ho had seen there. His reply was: "All white leghorns. Hundreds of thousands, and. train loads of eggs. Everyone lives by poultrv." Yet, let us bo explicit. ■Egg-farming is not a get-rich-quick proposition. A man with a sold mine on his property can do a great deal better.— I am, etc., H. LEG.'It-.