The Old Hen in a New Environment 127 



the advantage of all available knowledge. With this 

 purpose in view, he turned his back on the city, going 

 first to Indiana. He soon decided, however, that Cali- 

 fornia was the better field, and it was there, after a hard 

 struggle covering a period of a dozen years, that he 

 finally evolved into a thoroughly successful egg-farmer 

 and expert authority on the subject. 



Mr. Weeks tried many different methods. His hous- 

 ing and feeding plans were never precisely alike for any 

 two successive years, until he evolved his present system 

 in 191G. When he began, he thought ten acres a small 

 farm for his purpose. When he ended his experiments 

 he had demonstrated that one acre was ample for an 

 average family, and two or three acres about all that 

 should be undertaken under any circumstances. He had 

 satisfied himself that he could subsist on even less than 

 one acre — possibly so little as one-half or one-quarter 

 of an acre; but he would not like to do so, nor would he 

 advise any one else to undertake it with a view of getting 

 their entire living, and a really good living, from the 

 land. I mention these lower figures only as a means of 

 emphasizing the very intensive character of the system 

 worked out by him, and widely adopted throughout the 

 length and breadth of the Pacific Coast. 



The Weeks poultry system is ideal for the home-in-a- 

 garden because it occupies so little space. The unit he 

 arrived at after years of experimenting with the segre- 

 gation principle is twenty hens and no rooster — that 

 is, for house and market eggs. These twenty hens 

 are confined in a house 8x8 feet, or G4< square-feet ; 5 

 feet high at the rear; TVj feet in front — (open wire 

 front) ; and 3-foot roof projection, to shut out the rain 



