248 AK EGG FARM. 



trivances, and the day is never long enough, from ear- 

 liest dawn till work by lantern light has been prolonged 

 till bedtime, to attend to the hundreds of little details. 

 On poultry farming as a business there is no one bet- 

 ter qualified to speak than that luminous and volumi- 

 nous writer for the poultry press, intelligent and careful 

 observer, and practical poultry keeper, W. H. Rudd, 

 who, moreover, lives in Massachusetts, where poultry 

 farms run on a more or less extensive scale are most 

 numerous, and besides, his market and provision trade 

 in Boston has, for thirty years past, given him an excel- 

 lent opportunity to keep track of the progress in raising 

 poultry products for the table as a business. He says: 



" Where competent help is a necessity we are very dou-btf nl whether 

 it can be employed at a profit; at any rate, We have never known of 

 an, instance where it has been done." 



Since his utterance, quoted above, there have, how- 

 ever, been some very noticeable advances in poultry cul- 

 ture. "With the aid of the new labor-saving machinery, 

 skilled labor can be employed, in connection, of course, 

 with a proper number of cheap hands, at a profit in 

 poultry raising. There is much light work and routine 

 work that can be done by low priced labor when 

 machines are the central and governing feature. With- 

 out such machinery poultry will not be raised on a large 

 scale in the future, any more than grain will be sown by 

 hand, reaped with a sickle and threshed with a flail at a 

 profit. It will be found cheaper to use comparatively 

 small buildings with machinery, than large buildings 

 without it. If help cannot be hired in a business, it is 

 no business at all, and it is "not business" to be in such 

 a business. 



What would be thought of another industry where no 

 employes could be hired at a profit ? The truth is, 

 that in cases where a poultry raising establishment 

 depending on yards has been run on a moderate scale 



