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such a predicament how to handle the crops to get as much as pos- 

 sible out of them with the least possible expenditure of labor ; but I 

 can point out some ways for lightening the burden of poultry work. 

 "What I have to say will not, perhaps, be of much immediate value 

 to one involved in a tangle of overwork. It is more in the way 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 com- 

 mon farm methods and intensive methods of poultry keeping. By 

 the farm method, the hens come very near taking care of them- 

 selves ; by the intensive method, the hens 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 impor- 

 tance in bringing about this result : the hens must be kept in 

 larger flocks than is usual with 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, by the experience of many different poultry keepers, 

 that the keeping 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 ascertained, as they would lay 

 under any circumstances. There are particular reasons for not 

 keeping breeding stock in large flocks, but these have nothing to 

 do with the number of eggs produced. It is true that the greater 

 number of poultry keepers get better egg yields from small flocks 

 than from larger ones ; it is also true that some poultrymen get as 

 good egg yields from large flocks as are obtained from small ones, 



