PROFIT OF POULTRY. 41 



as a real matter of business. If more than three or four 

 hens are kept, buy the food by the bushel or hundred- 

 weight, or in still larger quantities. Let a fair and strict 

 account be kept of the whole concern. The scraps of the 

 house may be thrown in, and the cost of the original stock, 

 and of their habitation, may be kept separate and reckoned 

 as capital invested ; but let everything afterwards for which 

 cash is paid be rigorously set down, and on the other side, 

 with equal strictness, let every egg or chicken eaten or sold 

 be also valued and recorded. This is of great importance. 

 The beginner may perhaps manage his laying-stock well, 

 but succeed badly with his chickens (though not, we hope, 

 if he be a reader of this book), or vice versa; and it is no 

 small matter in poultry-keeping, as in any other mercantile 

 concern, to be able to see from recorded facts where has 

 been the profit or where the loss. The discovery will lead 

 to reflection ; and the waste, neglect, or other defective 

 management being amended, the hitherto faulty depart- 

 ment may contribute its quota to the general weal. 



It has been a great gratification to us to observe the 

 immense increase of this kind of domestic poultry-keeping 

 during the last twenty years, as seen especially from any 

 railway, in the small London suburban gardens. Since 

 sound practical teaching has become more widely dis- 

 seminated, we seldom hear the old sneer about " every egg 

 costing sixpence," and in proof that this is not so we will 

 conclude this chapter with one practical example. The 

 actual figures were personally given us by the proprietor, 

 who started his small establishment with no knowledge and 

 no guide except an earlier edition of this work (on account 

 of which fact the result was communicated). A small house 

 and yard were put up at a cash cost of i 73. iojd., 

 nothing being reckoned for labour and a little waste 

 material such as is generally to be found in a house, but 



