234 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



fowls, you must extend your accommodations for them, 

 never allowing less than eight square feet of inside room for 

 each fowl. There is no reason why you cannot keep a thou- 

 sand as well as a hundred, only do not start with the thou- 

 sand till you know how to care for the hundred. I have no 

 doubt that you could give the poultry the entire farm to run 

 over, and put your attention to them so that they would 

 yield you more clean profit than any other farm stock. 



Some will say that everybody is going into raising poul- 

 try, but don't be afraid of that. There is always plenty of 

 room at the top for all of us that can get there. 



What you should strive to do is to raise a better quality 

 of goods than your competitors, and then you will have none. 

 If you can furnish a hotel with fifty or a hundred dozen of 

 eggs per week of uniform color, of good size and clean, war- 

 ranting every one laid within two days of shipment, you will 

 find no lack of customers for your products, at fancy prices. 

 Even if you depend on your grocer for a market for your 

 eggs, it will pay you to have them uniform in color and size 

 and clean ; then, when the times of plenty come, he will take 

 your product in preference to some other farmer's, who be- 

 lieves that an egg is au egg, whether white or brown, large 

 or small, clean or dirty. Work up a reputation for your- 

 self for always having the best, and your customers will 

 come to you, instead of you seeking a market for your goods. 

 In the town where I live there was a grocer who had the 

 name of being a little sharp ; one day an old Shaker drove 

 up in front of his door and went in and asked the grocer 

 what he was paying for eggs. The grocer replied, " Twenty 

 cents a dozen." " Well," said the Shaker, " can't you allow 

 a little more for some that are extra large?" " Oh, no," 

 said the «rrocer, " an es^g is an egg with me ; I make no dif- 

 ference in price." At this the Shaker went out and ])rought 

 in about twenty dozen of the very smallest pullet's eggs, such 

 as most of us would be ashamed to sell at all. The grocer 

 emptied the basket without comments, and learned that there 

 was some difference even in the quality of eggs. 



There is another crop on the farm that is much benefited 

 by keeping large numbers of fowls, and that is the fruit 

 crop. The fowls are very valuable in destroying the borers 



