416 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



POULTRY KEEPING AS A PRINCIPAL FEATURE OF 

 DIVERSIFIED FARMING. 



BY JOHN H. ROBINSON, EDITOR OF "FARM POULTRY," BOSTON, MASS. 



In the issue of the crop report for August, 1900, Dr. A. 

 A. Brigham very concisely and plainly presented the ele- 

 mentary facts in regard to poultry keeping on the farm. 



When I was asked to prepare an article for this issue on 

 some supplementary line, two good reasons for discussing 

 the relations of poultry keeping and other branches of 

 agricultural work at once presented themselves to my mind. 

 In the first place, the need of such discussion — the advan- 

 tage to farm poultry keepers of a proper presentation of 

 the facts in the case — has been very forcibly impressed 

 upon me by what I have seen in the course of a series of 

 visits to poultry farms, extending over some four years' 

 time, and including farms in many sections of the country, 

 but mostly in eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island. In 

 the second place, I had recently given a great deal of 

 thought to this subject, and therefore felt better able to 

 present it at short notice. Whether my judgment on this 

 last point was good, or the reverse of good, the reader must 

 determine. 



POULTRYMAN OR FARMER PoULTRYMAN. 



It has been a serious and too common error of poultry 

 farmers in recent years that they have made themselves 

 poultrymen, and nothing more. Many have gone even 

 further in the wrong way, and have tried to make of them- 

 selves specialists in a single branch of poultry keeping. 

 With a few notable exceptions, those who have limited their 

 effort to narrow special lines have not made their opera- 

 tions with poultry financially successful. Single, separate 



