54 



AX EGG FARM. 



pigeon authority, says: "Nature designed the pigeon 

 for exercise, and when it is deprived of it entirely it 

 rarely lives many years and never breeds well for any 

 considerable length of time," and adds: "In visiting 

 lofts where the pigeons have flying privileges, we may 

 expect to see young-looking old birds, but if we go where 

 the aviary affords but little exercise we shall see old- 

 looking young birds." 



The exercise that fowls get on a free range is worth 

 more than what they find there to eat. As for exercise, 



I in the ordinary poultry yard it is bet- 

 ter than nothing, but it amounts to 

 but little because the yard affords no 

 ', vegetation and no insects for them to 

 hunt. But poultry in confinement, 

 even in a very small house and a very 

 small yard, by means of the apparatus 

 we are about to describe and which is 

 attached to the yards for breeders, 

 take more exercise year out and year 

 in than they get on the best range in 

 the world, and they are exceedingly 

 contented and happy. Their feeding 

 time is all the time. It is prolonged 

 through the whole day. 

 FiGriV.'^iovABLE Take two breeding flocks that are 

 FENCE. exactly alike as regards breed, age, 



size, thrift, vigor, and everything else. Give both 

 flocks the same shelter, and food of the same sort 

 and quantity exactly. Yard one flock in the usual 

 manner, providing no incentives to exercise other than 

 the yard affords, it being, as -is usual, as bare as the 

 middle of the street. Furnish the other flock with exer- 

 cising apparatus and you will get eggs for hatching pur- 

 poses entirely different in character from the eggs of the 

 other flock. The vitality of eggs under different cir- 



