418 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



good methods for the farmer, and I do not think they are the 

 best methods of poultry keeping. And, while it is true that 

 many special poultry growers have succeeded with poultry, 

 while neglecting the crop-producing possibilities of their 

 farms and buying practically all food for their fowls, the 

 experience of those who grow a part or all of their food 

 convinces me that such a combination is to be the favorite 

 combination including poultry keeping. I find, too, that a 

 majority of the progressive poultry farmers of my acquaint- 

 ance are working toward this combination. 



The possibilities in this combination will, perhaps, come 

 out more clearly if we review briefly the conditions of poul- 

 try culture in that wide area of the central west which pro- 

 duces a large surplus of poultry products, and indicate some 

 of the most striking points of contrast between western farm 

 methods and the intensive methods which obtain in towns 

 everywhere and on many eastern poultry farms. There are 

 many other eastern farms where distinctively farm methods 

 are in vogue, but in the west we find them more nearly uni- 

 versal, and find almost nothing of the intensive method out- 

 side of the towns. 



The farm flock of laying hens ranges in numbers from 50 

 or 60 to 250 or 300, 100 to 150 being perhaps the usual 

 numbers for average farms. The annual crop of chickens 

 will range from 100 to 150, up to 400 or 500, 200 to 300 

 being perhaps a fair average. 



The points of present interest in regard to the handling 

 of these flocks are : That the labor of caring for them rarely 

 interferes to any serious extent with the other work of the 

 farm, being performed either by women, in the intervals 

 taken from housework, by children, or by the men as a part 

 of the "chores" (the stock is not allowed to become so numer- 

 ous that the care of it becomes burdensome) ; and that 

 the fowls, both old and young, pick the greater part of their 

 living, subsisting mainly on food obtained by foraging, and 

 which would otherwise be wasted. What salable food is fed 

 them is not expensive, the actual cost of it being only the 

 cost of production. 



Under such conditions the receipts from poultry products 



