POULTKY-KEEPING AS A BUSINESS. 99 



pound, and where cheap food in the shape of various 

 kinds of offal can be procured. A want of knowledge 

 how to seize upon all the advantages that may offer, or 

 to avoid the difficulties presented, will be fatal to suc- 

 cess. Upon the character of the ground will depend 

 greatly the kind of buildings needed. Buildings suit- 

 able for flocks of poultry kept for business and profit, 

 where the available ground is of small extent, are shown 

 in other chapters. The crops must be raised for food 

 or shelter for the chickens, and to encourage the presence 

 of insects, upon which the young chicks may feed. 

 Sheltered by the rows of corn-stalks, or the stalks of rye 

 or potatoes, the chicks are safe from hawks, which will 

 not swoop down upon them except in clear ground. 

 The coops are kept in or near this plot, being moved 

 daily to fresh ground. The chickens are kept busy 

 scratching in the loose ground, and there are few 

 potatoes raised but what are scratched out and eaten 

 by them. This furnishes them with employment and 

 with some wholesome food, and it is for this purpose 

 alone they are planted. If "the owner of such a chicken 

 farm is a gardener or florist, and his wife manages the 

 poultry part of the business, producing every year two 

 or three hundred pairs of chickens for market, besides 

 eggs and old fowls, success may be deemed reasonably 

 certain. 



MONEY MADE BY POULTRY KEEPING. 



It seems that the interest in poultry is increasing, and 

 that more poultry keepers, instead of being absorbed by 

 the insane idea that every one is going to get rich by 

 selling fancy eggs at $3 a dozen, or poultry ready to lay 

 at $3 to $5 a piece, are giving attention to raising eggs 

 in winter, broilers in spring and summer, fat pullets in 

 autumn, and capons in winter. In these products there 



