No. t.] POULTRY KEEPING. 57 



lUilletiu Xo. 1-2-2 of the Massachusetts Experiment Sta- 

 tion, giving- the results of a series of experiments covering 

 a period of thirteen years, states that the average cost of 

 eggs produced on a narrow nutritive ration has been 12.6 

 cents ]ier dozen; on a wide nutritive ration, O.J)G cents. The 

 annual feed cost per heu on the narrow ration amounted to 

 $1.10; on the wide ration, 98 cents. 



A comparison of the experiment station figures with my 

 own shows a wide variation in the cost of feeding fowls and 

 producing eggs in the same locality. This is undoubtedly 

 to he accounted for in part by the lower price at which feed 

 has been bought in large quantities by the station, and by 

 the much lower prices that prevailed for grain previous to 

 1907. 



Taking even the higher figures that apply to my own 

 flock, they certainly show that poultry keeping in Massachu- 

 setts may be expected to return as large an income for the 

 expenditure and labor and a net profit equal to that to be 

 derived from any of the lines of farm operations carried 

 out on the general New England farm. 



Whether considered as a national or State enterprise for 

 the past decade, we are bound to conclude that the limit of 

 profitable poultry and egg production has not been reached, 

 and that it offers at the present time, all things considered, 

 as fruitful a field for labor and capital as any of the usual 

 lines of agriculture that are open to the average farmer. 



Erom a decade's experience in poultry keeping in a small 

 way on a village lot, engaging at different times to a limited 

 extent in various branches of the business, such as use of 

 different kinds of incubators and brooders in comparison 

 with the natural methods of hatching and rearing, feeding, 

 mating, buying, selling, advertising, fitting, shomng, capon- 

 izing and studying diseases, etc., I am convinced that there 

 are three principal factors that should enter into a further 

 discussion of this poultry-keeping proposition : they are, the 

 man, the fowl, and tlu^ methods. A fourth factor would be 

 capital, if we were to discuss the subject from the point of 

 view of its being engaged in as a sole occupation. I shall 

 not enter into a discussion of this phase of the subject. 



