240 AN" EGG FARM. 



out exercise so many will die that there will be no 

 profits. In a nutshell, without exercise there cannot be 

 thrift, and exercise in bad weather cannot be secured 

 except at pecuniary loss, unless there are labor-saving 

 contrivances. The large establishments will either raise 

 chickens in moderate weather under an out-of-door sys- 

 tem with plenty of range, and preferably in about the 

 latitude of North Carolina and Arkansas, where the 

 winters are short and mild, or adopt machinery, or 

 allow large and, of course, expensive apartments for 

 each flock, or shut up shop. The writer dislikes the 



FIG. 132. GROUND PLAN OF HOUSE FOB LAYEKS. (SEE PAGE 132). 



role of dark prophet, and calls attention to the sombre 

 truth only in order to show a way out of the difficulties. 

 The trouble with large rooms for each flock is the great 

 cost. Already cases are appearing where $50,000, and 

 even $100,000, is spent on one set of poultry buildings. 

 Scores of large poultry farms have been abandoned 

 because their owners did not, at the outset, correctly 

 estimate the amount of labor needed to run them, which 

 is, unless machinery is used, so enormous as to absorb 

 the profits, or, more properly, to prevent all profits. 

 There are ten thousand steps necessary on poultry farms 

 as ordinarily conducted, possessing no labor-saving con- 



