224 How THE FARM PAYS. 



REARING AND KEEPING POULTRY. 



Poultry, like hogs, are one of the items on the farm of which, if many 

 are kept, the cost usually overruns the profit; but the farmer cannot 

 afford to be without eggs or chickens, and if he had to buy I fear the good- 

 wife would come short sometimes, eggs being used in so many ways 

 about the kitchen, and a plump fowl is so handy for a meal. In the 

 winter time, when eggs bring fifty cents per dozen, there is a profit in 

 fowls, but when they run down to twelve and fifteen cents, as they do 

 for the greater part of the year, fowls do not pay for their keep, unless 

 the farmer has a large run near his manure yard. Under special cir- 

 cumstances poultry may be made quite profitable. A farmer in my 

 neighborhood keeps from six to seven hundred hens for their eggs, 

 and although he has 300 acres of land, this is the only way in which 

 he pays his taxes and other expenses. He plows in the woods among 

 the trees several times from April until the end of November, and 

 here the hens make out their living, feeding on worms and larvae of 

 insects. But fowls in my opinion do not often pay where grain has to 

 be bought or produced to feed them, and they get no other food. A hen 

 can be kept for the sum of one dollar a year for grain, where it has a 

 good run, and where the eggs and chickens are worth two dollars per hen 

 and the hens can be kept free from disease there will be a good profit. 

 Where poultry raising on a large scale is practiced the incubator is 

 used at times with success, but there are few farmers who have had 

 any experience with it, and to such as are interested in poultry raising 

 as a business, we would refer them to special works on the subject. 

 I have kept the English "White Dorking, but the gray variety I have 

 never had much success with, as they seem to be more tender than 

 the white breed. I also imported the Black Spanish, and the White 

 Leghorn, but only kept them one season. Two years ago I got fifty 

 Plymouth Rocks. I built a small poultry house in the fall and put 

 them into it. They were fed morning and night with warm feed, and 

 we had eggs all winter through, and early spring chickens large enough 

 for broilers in May; but if I had had three times as many hens with 

 no greater accommodations, I would doubtless not have had as many 

 eggs, and therefore I think that every farmer should select a few of 

 the best breed and keep only that few and tend them well, or his 

 profit in poultry will be apt to be very light indeed. 



The Plymouth Kocks I find are very satisfactory, as they are quiet 

 and do not disturb the garden much, and mature very early, and 

 sometimes will dress at six months old five to six Ibs. and when, 

 full grown seven to eight Ibs. In winter, chickens should be kept in 



