1906.] POULTRY MANAGEMENT. IO9 



Now in the transaction of any business the labor question 

 enters largely, and is an important factor in determining profit 

 or loss. It does not matter so much at what prices we sell our 

 farm products. If they cost us more to produce than we re- 

 ceive for them, we are the losers every time, but when we can 

 reduce the cost of production to the minimum, we are in a fair 

 way to pay off the old mortgage. Now I wish to try to show 

 you how by adopting twentieth century methods in poultry 

 culture, you can eliminate nine-tenths of the labor in the care 

 of poultry, and still get better results. I know a great many 

 of you think that an extravagant statement, to say that we 

 can care for poultry for only one-tenth of the labor usually 

 given to the work, but that is just what I believe can be done. 

 Now if I could be a young man again, I would want about 

 one hundred acres of land, a farm of about one hundred acres 

 for my poultry grounds. I would want that farm located near 

 some good market, or, at least close to some good shipping 

 point. I would want the land suitable for the production of 

 fruit. Such land generally is all right for poultry. I would 

 like to have that farm well watered. I would like to have a 

 living stream of water passing through the whole farm, or 

 numerous springs upon it, so that water would be easy of 

 access from any part of the farm. Now what would I do with 

 such a farm ? A\'hy, I would make that farm a fruit and poul- 

 trv farm. I would set out about seventy-five acres of that farm 

 in apple trees, with peach and plum trees between. I would 

 set the apple trees forty to fifty feet apart. I believe in letting 

 everything have the sunshine and the air. I would reserve 

 twenty-five acres of the one hundred for the culture of small 

 fruits, such as raspberries, blackberries, grapes, strawberries, 

 and also for the growth of such vegetables as I might need 

 for my poultry. I would also raise some clover. I would have 

 on those twenty-five acres my brooding houses for growing 

 my chickens. Now that would make an ideal place for chick- 

 ens to develop in. The shade of the raspberry and blackberry 

 bushes would be a protection against hawks and crows. On 

 the whole, I think it would be a safer place than on my neigh- 

 bor's lawn or in his garden. Then on the seventy-five acres 

 set with the lars:er fruit I would reserve twenty-five for my 

 breeding stock and for thoroughbred stock. I should expect 

 to have some pretty good birds, and if good birds were worth 



