MANAGEMENT AND PROFIT OF FOWLS. 335 
the range of the garden. They produced in January 92 eggs; in Feb- 
ruary, 214; March, 251; April, 280; May, 216; June, 237; total, 1,290; 
which at market prices were worth $40 49. There were also thirty-two 
March chickens, worth, July 1, $8; making the value of the product 
$48 49. .The cost of feed was $19 45, of which nearly $10 were for 
corn. Net profit for six months, $29 04, or $1 45 per fowl. It will be 
noted, however, that this account is for the best portion of the year. 
G. T. S. reports to Hearth and Home the account of six months, com- 
mencing with January, 1870, with twenty-two hens and three cocks of 
the common sort. The number of eggs produced was 1,711, of which 
48 were used for sitting, leaving 1,663, which at market prices were 
worth $41 57; the twenty-one chickens hatched were worth $10 50; 
making a total value of $52 07. Deducting $12 71, the cost of feed, 
the net profit is $39 36—over $1 57 for each fowl; or, as the report 
states, a net profit of $39 36 on a capital of $25 for six months. This 
statement, also, covers the best portion of the year ior eggs. 
Mr. Benjamin W. Palmer, of New London, Connecticut, who has made 
a business of poultry-keeping for many years, commenced and closed the 
year with one hundred and twenty fowls, and produced eggs which 
were sold each week as follows: In January, 408; February, 888; 
March, 1,428; April, 2,112 ; May, 2,172; June, 1,722; July, 1,770; August, 
1,824; September,.1,044 ; October, 744; November, 252; December, 120; 
total, with 630 used in his family, 15,114—$361 80. The cost of feed, 
consisting of corn, rye, oats, buckwheat, meat, bones, &c., was $200, 
leaving a clear profit of $161 80—nearly $1 35 trom each fowl—the ma- 
nure, about fifty bushels, more than paying for marketing, care, and in- 
terest on investment. Mr. Palmer’s stock consisted of the Brahma, 
White and Gray Leghorn, Black Spanish, and crossbreeds. Hefeedslib- . 
erally, keeps clean quarters, and gives his hens their liberty, at least dur- 
ing afternoons in the summer, and for an hour or more at noon in winter. 
Mr. A. F. Hitchcock, of Willink, New York, kept, in 1868, eight, and 
half of the time nine, hens and one cock, which produced 1,277 eggs, for 
which he received $26 81. The cost of food was $10 93, which leaves 
$15 88 profit: He fed coarse meal, dry in cold weather and wet with 
milk in summer; boiled potatoes, and occasionally meat in winter. 
Wood ashes and pounded bones were also given. The fowls were a 
mixed breed, Brahma blood predominating. 
X. Y. Z., of Rochester, New York, states, in the Rural New Yorker, 
that he keeps an average of sixty-five fowls to supply his family with 
eggs and poultry; that in February, 1864, he commenced to keep an 
account of the number of eggs produced and fowls consumed and sold, 
and that in five years he gathered 34,859 eggs, nearly 7,000 annually, 
and 107 per annum for each fowl. He computes the food furnished as 
equal to one bushel of corn per fowl each year. If, however, the fowls 
used or solid, and the manure, whicli he utilized in his garden, paid for 
the keeping and other expenses—a reasonable supposition—the eggs 
were clear profit; and, at 30 cents per dozen, the product during the five 
_ years was $871 47, or $174 29 per annum, or $2 68 per year for each 
fowl. The varieties kept until 1867 were the Black Spanish, White 
Leghorn, and common mixed breeds, and after that time principally the 
light Brahma. 
Another correspondent says that in December, January, and Febru- 
ary, of 1866~67, from twenty-two light Brahma pullets he got an average 
of sixteen eggs per day, and the net profit for the three months was $32. 
Mr. Jonas Sawyer, of Berlin, Massachusetts, reported to the Farmers 
Club of that town his suecess with thirty-three fowls during the year 
