AMERICAN POULTRY FARMS. \2\ 



Is this a fair specimen, and can such success be repeated ? 

 Yes ; and no. Yes ; because what man has done, man may 

 do ; and there are other examples of great poultry businesses, 

 such as those of Messrs. Abbott, W. Cook of Orpington, 

 J. W. Cook of Lincoln, and others, also built up on more or 

 less similar lines. No ; because success is not easy, or 

 common. Such success never can be so. It has come not 

 from poultry only, but from untiring industry, personal 

 knowledge, practical skill, and business management of a 

 high order, combined with systematic and judicious adver- 

 tising. These qualities are by no means common anywhere, 

 but especially in poultry farming ; and without them the 

 results would have been very different. 



We will now cross the Atlantic. For most of the details 

 that follow we are indebted to articles describing various 

 American poultry farms which have appeared in Farm 

 Poultry, Boston, and have been collected and sent us by the 

 editor, Mr. A. F. Hunter ; but some of them are from 

 details which he has kindly sent us direct. One or two 

 details only are gathered from some other journals. 



As an example of a small American farm, we may take 

 that of Mr. R. S. Norton, of Falmouth Foreside, Maine. 

 It is small, only about seven or eight acres, half an acre 

 being in fruit ; besides which there is a garden, and a cow is 

 kept. His gross annual sales are about 2,000 dollars, of 

 which about 200 dollars are eggs bought from neighbours 

 when he is short for orders. His old mother always kept 

 about 75 hens, and "made them pay" ; when she died he 

 bought the other children's shares, and began to extend. 

 It always paid, but the results of some improvements in 

 management are interesting. In 1894 he put up another 

 house, 50 feet long, in four pens, and spread his birds out 

 more ; next year his egg-yield went up a third, from 29,726 

 to 39J55 1 - He therefore put up another house and further 



