No. 4.] POULTRY KEEPING. 427 



of telling how to keep out than how to get out of such 

 difficulties. The key to the problem is found in the right 

 combination of common farm methods and intensive methods 

 of poultry keeping. By the farm method, the hens come 

 very near taking care of themselves; by the intensive 

 method, the liens do almost nothing for themselves, — all 

 depends upon the keeper. By striking the golden mean 

 between the two extreme methods, a farmer is able to handle 

 a flock of poultry large enough to consume and profitably 

 convert into eggs and meat a considerable part of his farm 

 produce, and to handle such a flock without allowing that 

 work and farming proper to interfere. Three things will be 

 found of prime importance in bringing about this result : 

 the hens must be kept in larger flocks than is usual Avith the 

 intensive method, they must be given more yard room, and 

 the system of feeding must be such that feeding will take 

 as little time as possible. 



It has long been taught by authorities on intensive 

 methods of poultry culture that the best results in eggs 

 were obtained from small flocks, and that, for some unknown 

 reason, hens would not lay well when kept together in large 

 numbers. As a result of this kind of teaching, it has been 

 and still is the practice, almost general among those who 

 make special efforts to make poultry profitable, to divide 

 the stock into small lots, containing from 12 to 25 or 30 

 hens each, the smaller number being regarded as more 

 desirable for actual results, though, because of the increased 

 cost of housing and yarding, a little larger flock is said to 

 be, on the whole, more profitable. I cannot, within the 

 limits allowed this article, present a mass of facts bearing 

 on this subject, which facts would show positively, bj^ the 

 experience of many different poultry keepers, that the keep- 

 ing of hens in large flocks is not necessarily a bar to good 

 egg production. A little further on I will mention two 

 cases in point. For the rest of the evidence I must ask the 

 reader to take my word for it that laying hens can be kept 

 in large flocks and yet lay as well, so far as can be ascer- 

 tained, as they would lay under any circumstances. There 

 are particular reasons for not keeping breeding stock in 



