FARM MANAGEMENT. C'J 



cleaning of the houses and belongings of the breeding- pens. 

 Indeed, any fair number of chickens will furnish ample occupa- 

 tion all day for any spare time. A mid-dav collection of eggs is 

 desirable where practicable, but will not always be so. 

 Towards evening another round must be taken to feed the 

 laying stock, at the same time gathering the rest of the day's 

 eggs ; the chickens having their last feed afterwards, the very 

 last thing, and being then made snug for the night. 



All through some watch must be kept, in order to have a 

 good idea towards the end of the season as to which are the 

 best layers, with a view to draft these, so far as wanted, into 

 next year's breeding-pens. It will be seen that the only 

 possible way of getting all this done is to do it systematically. 



Kept in this manner, poultry have never failed to " pay " 

 upon a farm. The only rent chargeable to them, as they 

 actually benefit the land, is interest upon houses, fence, and 

 utensils; where corn is grown they get the tailings at the 

 lowest possible cost ; and the manure finds its full value. Eggs 

 will in the main pay best ; but a proportionate number of birds 

 will of course be sent to market from the surplus cockerels, and 

 the slaughter in the yearly renewal of the stock. The 

 conditions laid down are not hard ones, nor difficult to under- 

 stand. But more than the dozen fowls per acre should not be 

 attempted, and cannot be, without leaving the ground of 

 " poultry on the farm, :j for the far more doubtful speculation of 

 "poultry-farming," the result of which may be a very different 

 matter. 



The case of vermin and thieves we have not felt called upon 

 to consider. In some places one or the other literally make 

 the profitable keeping of poultry upon a farm impossible. We 

 have known it to be so, and for such cases are unable tc 

 suggest any remedy. 



