POULTRY FARMING. in 



runs. Years ago, in the first lines we had ever written on 

 this subject,*" we stated that an acre was requisite for 120 

 fowls. We would rather now give that quantity to 100 

 fowls ; though it is probable that on gravelly soil, by 

 systematically leaving every run vacant for five or six 

 months annually, 200 might be managed, their manure 

 being consumed in grass or hay. 



(I)] The second is, that every poultry farmer must serve 

 a thorough practical apprenticeship in some way ; when he 

 begins at all for himself, begin quite in a small way, making 

 his first few hens pay as they go ; and only extending as 

 they do pay, and as the market opens out before him. If 

 they do not pay when few, he will find it out, with perhaps 

 the knowledge that success in this field is not for him. 

 But if he is to discover that, he had better do so before 

 sinking capital in the discovery.! 



* In the first edition of this work. Mr. Tegetmeier has never ceased to 

 deride our supposed ignorance on the ground that at that time, in 1867, 

 we treated seriously a professed account of a French farm, published 

 under the imprimatur of the French Ministry of Agriculture. He has 

 systematically omitted to state that while we did make that mistake, we 

 made the above exception and correction as regards the main essential of 

 the problem, and that we at least knew enough to condemn and refuse to 

 describe Mr. Geyelin's " small-pen " establishment at Bromley on that 

 ground ; whereas he at the same date in his " Poultry Book " published a 

 drawing and full description, his comment being that so far as it had gone 

 that experiment appeared to have been successful, though its ultimate 

 success "cannot be regarded as definitely settled until after the experience 

 of several breeding seasons." Such time was not needed, nor would such 

 a comment have been made, by anyone then a competent authority on this 

 subject ; though doubtless Mr. Tegetmeier has as we certainly have 

 learnt a great deal since then. 



t This is the key to some criticisms regarding our views which have 

 been recently published by Mr. E. Cobb. It would have been 

 better not to gather those views from a chapter in "The Illustrated 

 Book of Poultry," written so far back as 1872, and twice successively 

 superseded by later text ; time teaches much on such subjects as these. 



