414 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



ence between cost of feed and value of eggs or poultry pro- 

 duced, and to make comparisons of the work of different 

 flocks on this basis, no figures being furnished for and no 

 account made of the time spent in caring for the fowls and 

 of difl^erences in value or cost of labor. It has generally 

 been taken for granted that the man or woman who could 

 get the largest individual egg yield or the highest average 

 was the most successful poultry keeper. However that may 

 appear at first glance, it is easily discovered, by any one in 

 a position to investigate, that the large ogg yield is often 

 obtained at such cost of care and food that, while the average 

 profit per hen figures large, the poultry keeper's pay for his 

 time figures small. It is a general fact, easily verified, that 

 the poultry keepers who get the most satisfactory net results 

 in money in most cases get only very ordinary egg yields. 

 Their results are satisfactory, their work is workmanlike, and 

 their venture stands on a business basis, because their 

 modest results give good pay for time and elibrt required to 

 produce them. 



The man who has only a little land and can use it all for 

 poultry and could use none of it for anything else will find 

 intensive methods of jtoultry keeping the best for him ; but 

 I am convinced, from what I have seen of such plants, that 

 as a rule the proprietors work harder for what they get, and 

 are more tied to their work by the inevitable dail}^ routine, 

 than if they had more room and could use an easier system ; 

 and I rarely find one of these poultry keepers who would not 

 gladly change to a location where he could have more room 

 and an easier system. But, having once adopted the inten- 

 sive system, a man whose land does not furnish room for a 

 change cannot often make a change of systems except by 

 changing location and making sacrifices he cannot afford to 

 make. So he goes on with the intensive S3^stem, keeping 

 many fowls on a small plot of ground, and doing for the 

 fowls or working to compel them to do many of the things 

 they do for themselves under more natural conditions. It 

 is only so that in his circumstances and by his methods he 

 can make a day's wages by a day's work. 



By the colony S3'stem the owner of a large farm will dis- 



