236 ECHOES OF OLD COUNTY LIFE. 



I know of no single instance in which a large poultry 

 farm has been successful. To begin with, poultry are 

 very sensitive to variations of climate and the character 

 of the soil on which they are raised. But granted that 

 the conditions needful for a great poultry farm are all 

 that could be desired or expected in this country, there 

 are other difficulties. One of these, easily overlooked 

 except by those having technical knowledge, is that, 

 where many head of poultry are kept, of finding suffi- 

 cient animal food on any given area. A fowl is not 

 only a graminivorous, but a carnivorous or insectivorous 

 creature, and requires a certain quantity of animal food, 

 such as the larvae of insects, which it pursues and hunts 

 for with extraordinary avidity. Now, even admitting 

 that the area of the poultry run is in the beginning wide 

 enough to supply sufficient insect-food, the demand 

 increases as its square year by year, but the tendency 

 of a poultry farm is to exterminate the insects. So 

 soon as you have to go out and buy food you are no 

 longer likely to make a profit. As many pigs as can be 

 fed on the refuse of a farm, with a little grain, meal, or 

 " toppings," and a few beans occasionally bought, will 

 return a profit, and so will the poultry, which can be 

 maintained out of odds and ends ; but I would not 

 recommend any person to buy food by the ton to feed 

 poultry. It would not pay, inasmuch as it would be 

 impossible to compete against the price of Russian or 

 of French fowls. To raise poultry largely the population 

 also requires education, just as to grow fruit. The pick- 

 ing and packing of fruit and the dressing of fowls for 

 the market do not come by instinct, like driving a gig 



