FAILURES IN POULTRY-FARMING. 



i5i 



collapse ; not at all the mere " bye-product " 

 so constantly asserted. With education of a 

 wider purchasing public, and the opening up 

 thereby of fresh urban markets, it may be 

 hoped that there is room for the extension 

 of the Sussex system in other districts near 

 the larger provincial towns. 



Whether still more exclusive devotion of 

 land to poultry products will be profitable, is 

 a question of more difficulty and uncertainty, 

 and depending far more upon personal quali- 

 ties. Absolutely " exclusive " poultry-farming, 

 we have already seen, is impossible, since it 

 is absolutely necessary that something should 

 consume the manure, to keep the land sweet 

 and to pay the rent while it is sweetening; but 

 it may be broadly admitted that in " poultry- 

 farming " more technically so-called, there 

 would not be much more of other products 

 than assisted in this, or to keep cows whose 

 milk was wanted for the chickens. So much, 

 however, would be essential, and must there- 

 fore be taken into the scheme. It would also 

 generally be the case, that such farming would 

 partake more of the character of egg-production 

 than of chicken -rearing, the m.arket being 

 steadier and better for new-laid eggs, in pro- 

 portion to the vast mass of inferior imported 

 eggs, than it is for chickens. Can such a 

 farm be made to pay } 



We are constantly told that it cannot. A 

 writer in 1899 stated that "it is utterly im- 

 possible for a poultry-farm to compete with 

 the cottager, who has neither land, rent of 

 buildings, labour, nor cost of conveyance to 

 market to pay for," because a farm must -jay 

 for all these things. The argument itself 

 shows the folly and ignorance of such dogma- 

 tism ; for Heathfield is cited in the article as the 

 type of the cottager system, and we have just 

 seen already how in that district the " farms," 

 which have to pay rent and all the rest, do 

 "compete," and that more and more eery 

 year, with the cottagers who are said to pay 

 none. Thus real knowledge, and practice, and 

 figures, are rather conspicuously at variance on 

 the very threshold, with this particular a priori 

 theory, and we have found it much the same 

 in regard to other theories which have been 

 put forward in the same confident manner. It 

 is further to be remembered that in America the 

 question of poultry-farming has long ago been 

 solved in the affirmative ; but not even there 

 without many failures, and where success has 

 been achieved it has been by hard work and 

 marked ability ; and though this does not prove 

 that it would be so in England, it does prove 

 that the matter is one of figures and circum- 



stances, which in regard to cost of land, and 

 food-stuffs, and incubation, have changed mate- 

 rially in favour of poultry during recent years. 



Failures have been numerous, however, and 

 especially amongst such as have rashly "em- 

 barked " all at once in considerable 

 Failures. o.perations, without preparation, or 



knowledge, or apprenticeship. In 

 their case it is hard to see what else could be 

 expected. No other business would ever be 

 attempted in that way. Some of the alleged 

 failures have, however, taught much to those 

 able to learn their lessons. In 1879 we met 

 personally, on one of the Clyde steamers, a 

 gentleman who was introduced to us as having 

 taken up egg-farming in Scotland, failed, and 

 given it up. He told us that if he could have 

 averaged twenty eggs more per annum from 

 each bird it would have paid him, and he 

 should have kept on ; anything over that would 

 have paid very well. He got about no each. 

 It is absolutely certain now that 150 to 170 

 can be secured, and such an average would 

 have put an entirely different face upon that 

 particular attempt. 



Another case, much paraded as a failure at 

 the time, was that of Mr. Carrington, reported 

 by Mr. Druce to the Royal Commission on 

 Agriculture in 1882. He gave up a large farm 

 owing to the depression, and tried a large stock 

 of poultry on 100 acres, at Kimbolton ; his 

 stock in October 18S1 being 1,800, soon to be 

 reduced to 1,500. A man and boy v\ere engaged 

 and charged, with iJ'38 for rent, £\% los. depre- 

 ciation, £\<^ interest on ^^300 sunk in capital, 

 and the food. The receipts summarised were, 

 £/^6\ IIS. for birds and eggs, £1 for feathers, 

 and £2^ for manure ; and the profit was onl)- 

 £2^, which was rightly pronounced " not very 

 satisfactory." On the other side it is to be 

 said, that in the first place, and even with the 

 mistakes to be mentioned, the fowls did pay 

 this beside the interest and the rent, and in point 

 of fact paid better than any other branch of the 

 farming: that surely is a startling fact. But 

 the practical mistakes were serious. The num- 

 ber of eighteen per acre is not nearly enough 

 to work land to advantage in poultry-farming, 

 while too much for such poultry merely increased 

 on a farm, as we were just now discussing. 

 The fowls, again, were all light Brahmas, and 

 were fed three times a day ; a most wasteful 

 system in evcrv way, and a bad selection of 

 stock, such as uould most of all suffer from 

 such feed. And the bulk of the birds were kept 

 in flocks of 150 each, a number far too large. 

 Any practical breeder, or even farmer, will see 

 that mere common-sense applied to these details 



