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farmers who have adopted intensive methods and found them for 

 a while profitable have neglected other lines of farm work ; while 

 others, unwilling to give time to poultry to the neglect of other 

 farm work, have reluctantly given up the idea of increasing their 

 stock of fowls. The best solution of the problem of the small 

 farmer who wants to keep a few hundred hens, and still give most 

 of his time to and use most of his land for other things, will be 

 found, I think, in the adoption of methods intermediate between 

 the intensive methods of the town lot poultry keeper and the free 

 and easy methods which work well on large farms. 



For more than a decade now the interest of poultry keepers has 

 been almost monopolized by intensive methods. Periodically the 

 colony system has been illustrated and described, and has attracted 

 some attention ; but outside of localities where it was developed it 

 has as yet made little impression, though within the last two years 

 interest in the colony plan seems to be rather more general and 

 more persistent. Intermediate methods have been used in isolated 

 instances quite numerous collectively, yet few in comparison with 

 the number of poultry keepers ; and I suppose any one who would 

 take the trouble to look the matter up would find that intermediate 

 methods had not been as much neglected by writers on poultry 

 matters as the failure of readers generally to become interested in 

 them would be presumed to indicate. 



Just why more people have not been interested in the methods 

 theoretically best adapted to their circumstances is to me some- 

 thing of a puzzle. Perhaps it is because most of us are imitative, 

 and prone to do things the way we see most of those about us 

 doing them, or as those who seem to be successful tell us they 

 do them. For some years now poultry men have been keenly inter- 

 ested in the development of great egg producers, and in making 

 records of large average egg production. Intensive methods are 

 required to secure high averages, as well as to enable one to 

 closely watch individual performance of laying hens. It has been 

 customary to estimate profits in poultry keeping on the average 

 difference 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 differences 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 

 egg yield is often obtained at such cost of care and food that, 



