Home Production of Poultry. 353 



a SpanisTi egg counts for no more in making up a dozen than a 

 Hamburg e^^ of two-thirds the size. 



In suggesting that poultry should be made in Great Britain 

 the important and profitable branch of industry that it is in 

 France, we are always met by the affirmation that while very 

 pleasant as a " fanc}," cocks and hens will never answer com- 

 mercially. Stevens, in his ' Book of the Farm,' is quite right in 

 saying that "the usual objection against feeding fowls is that 

 they do not pay. . . . Fowls may be deemed a worthless stock, 

 as they generally are ; but they are so only on account of the 

 mode of managing them." Again, in ' Chambers' Information 

 for the People,' we are told that no hens will pay for their food 

 if it is all purchased. And the ' Journal of Horticulture ' itself, 

 one of the authorised organs of the poultry world, gives us little 

 better encouragement: the balance-sheets therein published from 

 time to time generally showing a doubtful profit when all the 

 food has been expressly bought for a comparatively few birds. 

 Of course, breeding fancy stock for fancy prices comes under 

 a different category ; and so also does poultry-raising and poultry- 

 grazing upon farms where only a small proportion of the food is 

 purchased, and where the housing and attendance are not costly 

 items in the expenditure. 



There is reason to believe, however, that poultry production 

 may be carried on in great-scale establishments employing the 

 factory system, with its economy of material, division of labour, 

 convenience of arrangement, facilities of mechanical and other 

 apparatus, and its maxima of results from a given outlay. These 

 conditions are not attained by the large poultry-men of France; 

 though, as we have seen, they are far in advance of our ordinary 

 farmers and cottagers. 



A professed example of fowl and egg production on a vast 

 scale is given in ' Eggs and Poultry as a Source of Wealth.* 

 *' Our correspondent's chicken-farm," it says, "occupies twenty- 

 five acres, with numerous buildings, well ventilated and kept 

 perfectly clean. The yard is divided by wire fences into 

 compartments, containing a given number of fowls classed 

 according to their ages. The number of birds averages ten 



thousand Young chickens are obtained by artificial 



hatching. The incubators are very simple. They consist 

 of boxes like nests placed in rooms heated by steam kept at 

 a regular temperature. The eggs are kept covered up from 

 light. As soon as the chick escapes from its cell it is removed 

 to another room and put under the care of women nurses. All 



the other work is performed by men He feeds them 



principally ujion boiled horse-flesh, diminishing the quantity 

 gradually as the time for fattening approaches, and leaving off 



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