POULTRY UPON FARMS. 



147 



way. As a general rule poultry manure is 

 applied too copiously or freely. 



During the last few years very many farmers 

 have been going more and more into poultry- 

 keeping in the way here indicated, distributing 

 the fowls over the farm, and not exceeding the 

 proportion stated, when no rent at 

 Examples of ^^ becomes chargeable. Every 

 Farms^ °^ County Council lecturer to whom 

 we have spoken on the subject has 

 been able to give us successful instances, and 

 we here select a few kindly supplied to us 

 by Mr. George A. Palmer, lecturer to the 

 Councils of several counties in the Midlands of 

 England. 



Mr. J. Haynes, Rock Farm, Inkberrow, 

 Worcester, has six pens of fowl, containing in 

 all 210 birds, averaging thirty-five to a pen. 

 They have the run of lOO acres, and he has 

 kept the same number or thereabouts for twelve 

 years. The movable houses are taken into the 

 corn-fields after harvest, where the birds get 

 their own living entirely for two months. He 

 thinks that with the universal use of the self- 

 binding reaper, which often means three bushels 

 shed to the acre, it will pay farmers more than 

 formerly to stock the stubbles with fowls. He 

 gets 20,000 to 25,000 eggs per annum, and 

 they are marketed at Birmingham by the local 

 carrier (working on commission). He rears 1 50 

 to 200 chickens. The cockerels are sent to 

 market as fast as they get ready, and the old 

 hens are cleared off in September. He con- 

 siders that the manure covers all labour. He 

 stores it in a shed for the year, and uses it in 

 spring to grow mangolds, with such effect that 

 in 1899 (by no means a good year) he grew 

 about forty tons to the acre. He uses dry 

 ashes in the fowl pens, and keeps them lime- 

 washed, and for twelve years has been free 

 from any disease. In 1899 he had a splendid 

 lot of pullets, Leghorn crossed with Wyandotte 

 (whites both), which commenced laying in 

 November, and on February 1st following were 

 still at it, not one being broody. The gross 

 return is £()0 to £\00 per annum, and the total 

 cost of feed £\0 for the ten months they have 

 to be fed. He feeds in winter barley -meal, 

 sharps, and bone-meal, given hot, early in 

 morning ; at afternoon maize, peas, beans, and 

 wheat. He states that the fowls never do any 

 damage, but " improve every foot of land they 

 run on." 



Mr. Ferryman, Copston, Hinckley, keeps 

 250 adult stock scattered about the fields in 

 small lots of ten to thirty, and has done so on 

 the same land for seven years, marketing his 

 eggs and late cockerels locallv, and rearing 



about 200 chickens per annum. Uses chiefly 

 maize and wheat. He keeps the non-sitters at 

 field houses, and the sitters at farm buildings. 

 Finds they are most productive where run 

 thinly — not more than five or si.x to the acre — 

 and prefers White Leghorns, Silver Wyan- 

 dottes. Black Orpingtons, and Buff Rocks. He 

 says that the manure more than pays for the 

 labour, and that he is satisfied with his profits 

 and shall increase his stock. 



Mr. Goodacre, Stockton, Rugby, keeps 

 about 300 fowls in lots of thirty scattered about 

 208 acres of grass land. He gets 26,000 eggs per 

 year, selling some at 2s. 6d. per nest for setting, 

 and marketing the rest locally after destroying 

 the germ. He considers laying hens the best 

 paying branch of poultry-keeping, but goes in 

 for a certain quantity of table fowl in addition, 

 rearing 400 to 500 chickens annually. He feeds 

 the field birds chiefly on maize, but only once 

 daily in summer, and avoids overfeeding. He 

 keeps Orpingtons, Leghorns, and JMinorcas 

 for eggs ; Dorkings, Plymouth Rocks, and 

 Orpingtons crossed with Indian Game for 

 table birds. He does not give figures, but says 

 his poultry " pays better than any branch of 

 the farm." 



Mr. Passmore, Wootton Wawen, Birming- 

 ham, who occupies about 200 acres of mixed 

 land, keeps fowls in small houses about the 

 farm in lots of ten to twenty-five, preferably of 

 seventeen to twenty, which are kept in houses 

 5x5 and 6 feet high, made of J^-inch tongued 

 boards, with roofs of corrugated iron lined 

 beneath with carbolised straw, renewed and 

 replaced once a year ; the houses have mov- 

 able perches and two glass slides (to cover 

 ventilators if required), and there is for cold 

 weather a shutter 2 feet square, which when 

 removed leaves an open netted space for free 

 ventilation in summer. He prefers to keep 

 one lot of birds in the same house for life, 

 without removing them. In l8g8 he thus kept 

 280 laying hens, which in 1899 were increased 

 to 380. He has kept fowls on the same ground 

 for six years, and his predecessor had kept a 

 considerable number on one field of four acres 

 for years previously ; and his largest egg-pro- 

 duction per hen lately had been from a pen of 

 Silver Wyandottes in that very field. In 1899 

 his birds had the use of about ninety acres, and 

 he was preparing to stock another ten acres 

 with poultry, only increasing his stock as it 

 pays its way, and buying fresh houses, etc., out 

 of current profits. In 189S he marketed no 

 eggs per hen, and in 1899 120 per hen, besides 

 what were used in the house and for setting. 

 In 1899 he reared 575 birds, out of which he 



