POULTRY 209 



ticing poultry judging, gather iii a number of birds and add 

 to the interest of the work by scoring. Scoring is easily 

 taught. Almost any good poultry text now gives the score- 

 card and full descriptions which are easily understood. 



The poultry business. The experiment stations advise 

 farmers who are at all interested in poultry keeping to 

 organize the poultry just as the dairyman does his cows into 

 a unit large enough to keep one person busy all the time. 

 A unit of not less than 500, and as many multiples of this 

 as possible, is advisable. An elderly person or an invalid 

 could take care of 500 chickens, except for occasional heavy 

 work. 



There is no line of agricultural work that promises so 

 large a profit as poultry raising. All our large poultry 

 industries are showing that it is a conservative estimate to 

 expect a hen to lay twelve dozen eggs in a year ; a few record 

 hens have laid 300 eggs. It costs about a dollar to feed 

 a hen a year. At twenty-five cents a dozen as the selling 

 price, there would be three dollars return for the egg prod- 

 ucts, or two dollars profit above the cost of feed. When you 

 have a unit of 500 chickens making a profit of two dollars 

 or even one dollar each per year, you have a pretty good 

 income from that branch of your farming. Then, too, poul- 

 try combines readily with many other forms of agriculture. 

 Poultry with fruit, poultry with truck gardening, poultry 

 with dairying, all these are excellent combinations. 



