4 o 



OUR DOMESTIC BIRDS 



and the outbuildings, the number that could be tolerated, even 

 on a large farm, was limited. As a rule the fowls were expected 

 to get their living as they could, but in this they were not so 

 much worse off than other live stock, or than their owners. But, 

 while this was the ordinary state of the family flock of fowls, 

 there were frequent exceptions. The housewife who is thrifty 



always manages affairs 

 about the house better 

 than the majority of her 

 neighbors, and in older 

 poultry literature there 

 are occasional state- 

 ments of the methods 

 of those who were most 

 successful with their 

 fowls, which we may 

 well suppose were meth- 

 ods that had been used 

 for centuries. 



Modern conditions and 

 methods. About a hun- 

 dred years ago people in 

 England and America 

 began to give more at- 

 tention to poultry keep- 

 ing, and to study how to 



FIG. 22. Black Langshan cock. (Photograph 

 from Urban Farms, Buffalo, New York) 



make poultry (especially fowls) more profitable. This interest in 

 poultry arose partly because of the increasing interest in agricul- 

 tural matters and partly because eggs and poultry were becoming 

 more important articles of food. Those who studied the situation 

 found that there were two ways of making poultry more profit- 

 able. One way, which was open to all, was to give the birds bet- 

 ter care ; the other was to replace the ordinary fowls with fowls 

 of an improved breed. So those who were much interested 



