HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 275 



just one of the morning and evening chores, 

 and soon over with. While the hatches were 

 small, the brooders might be kept in the house- 

 yard, right under our eyes, where they could 

 have continual oversight without making us 

 realize that we were giving much time to them. 

 The hen houses we had built at the beginning 

 were roomy and comfortable enough for shel- 

 tering several times as many as we started 

 with, and the yards we had first enclosed were 

 equally roomy. Feeding cost had never been 

 a considerable item, either, when we had only 

 the domestic flock; table scraps and kitchen 

 refuse went a long way toward disposing of 

 that. 



During our five hundred-hen summer we 

 discovered the difference. We found that a 

 flock of that size could hardly be made to pay 

 because it wasn't large enough to justify either 

 of us in giving it the undivided time and at- 

 tention it must have if it were to prove a suc- 

 cess. Feeding, watering and tending became 

 vastly more than a light chore which might be 

 delegated to the children. With a barnyard 

 flock running around, the loss of a hen or two 

 now and then hadn't seemed to amount 

 to much, because we hadn't been keeping 



