AN EGG FARM. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTORY, 



During the last thirty years, farming has been divided 

 into specialties. The history of modern industry shows 

 that it is only through division of labor that the preci- 

 sion and skill can be attained that become necessary as 

 competition constantly grows keener. Improvements 

 in methods, and the invention of labor-saving machinery, 

 are sure to follow the establishment of an industry as a 

 specialty. Sheep farms, farms for milk, others for but- 

 ter or cheese, small fruits, vegetable truck, etc., are not 

 only common, but there is a further division a gardener 

 raising as a principal crop nothing but onions or celery, 

 an orchardist nothing but peaches, and so on. 



Eggs and poultry for the great cities are now produced 

 in part by extensive establishments systematically con- 

 ducted, instead of there being an entire dependence 

 upon the old, haphazard way of a few on each farm. 

 The production of eggs, rather than poultry meat, must 

 always be the key to the poultry interest, because raising 

 pullets for layers brings so many supernumerary cocks, 

 that these, with the fowls past their prime, always keep 

 the dressed poultry side of the market better supplied 

 than the egg department, and therefore special estab- 

 lishments for raising table poultry, winter chickens and 

 ducks in the northern states excepted, will not, in the 

 long run, be demanded. 



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