418 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



as the scale of operations requires, apply ordinary farm 

 methods to a large stock of fowls, because it is desirable 

 tliat, before explaining tlie intermediate methods which suit 

 intermediate conditions, we should have clearly before us the 

 leading contrasts of the systems l)etween which we wish to 

 strike the happy medium. 



What we are seeking — what I suppose four out of every 

 five small farmers who become especially interested in poul- 

 try want, even when they don't fully appreciate what it is 

 they want — is a method by which the farmer can keep as* 

 much poultry as possible without giving the poultry the 

 detailed attention which must be given when the land occu- 

 pied is stocked to the limit of its capacity. 



The problem is neither a deep nor a ditiicult one. That it 

 has been so seldom solved, and that statements of the solu- 

 tions have attracted so little attention, seems to me to be due 

 to the preoccupation of poultry keepers with other methods. 

 However that may be, it is a fact more self-evident in south- 

 ern New England than in any other section of the country 

 that small farmers undertaking to specialize in poultry have 

 almost invariably adopted intensive methods, and almost in- 

 variably to their own detriment, handicapping their efforts 

 to make poultry pay, and frequenth' also handicapping them- 

 selves heavih' in their general work. 



I have seen farms by the score on which were poultry 

 buildings and yards unused, except as a few fowls went 

 through or stayed in at will, and ra})idly going to decay ; and 

 I have seen other farms by the score where it was plain that 

 the effort to make poultry pay was being persisted in 

 almost hopelessly, and at the expense of some or all other 

 opportunities of the farm ; and this in the section of the 

 United States, which, in my judgment, is favored above all 

 others in the all-important matters of climate and soil for 

 poultry culture, and good markets for poultry products. 

 When there is so much of this to be seen, what wonder is 

 it that people are continually asking, "Is there money in 

 poultry?" and, when told that there most certainly is, ask, 

 "Then why are there so many poultry plants standing idle, 

 and so many for sale?" 



