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sate for this lack, the keeper must provide something. Whatever 

 he provides costs something in time or money, — often in both. 



Then, as to exercise : Fowls at liberty naturally and voluntarily 

 take sufficient exercise to keep them in good condition. They may 

 take more exercise than is consistent with economy of food con- 

 sumed, but the error is on the right side when looked at from the 

 point of view of one who is trying to save labor. Fowls in confine- 

 ment usually have to be compelled to take exercise. The grain fed 

 them is buried in litter, and to get it they must scratch it out. Va- 

 rious other expedients to assure the keeper that the fowls will get 

 needed exercise are in vogue. When the fowls are confined, com- 

 pulsory exercise seems to be needed to keep them in good condi- 

 tion, — some experiments made to determine comparative merits 

 of exercise and no-exercise systems to the contrary notwithstand- 

 ing. Volume of egg production for a short period is not the only 

 standard to be applied in making such tests. In matters of this 

 kind the consensus of opinion of many intelligent and observant 

 poultrymen, noting for themselves the general differences in re- 

 sults by the two systems, is apt to be more nearly correct than the 

 conclusions of experimenters. Experiments have generally indi- 

 cated no noteworthy advantage from exercise, when comparison 

 was made of results of keeping similar lots of fowls under such 

 conditions that one lot got its food without exercise, and, being 

 confined, took no exercise worth speaking of, and another lot 

 worked busily all day long for what food the fowls in it got. But 

 in some of these experiments it would appear that perhaps the ex- 

 ercised hens had to take too much exercise for their good. Expe- 

 rience has roughly demonstrated that exercise (compulsory, when 

 it would not otherwise be taken) is a practical if not an absolute 

 necessity. I know a poultry farmer who keeps fowls through the 

 winter without exercise enough to keep them in good condition. 

 He almost always has eggs in fair supply in early winter and in 

 abundance through mid-winter, but his hens are very apt toward 

 spring to get too fat, to their detriment both as layers and breeders ; 

 and, though that is not the only cause of his troubles in growing 

 chickens, it is one reason why he is less successful in that branch 

 of his work than in getting eggs, and finds it harder to produce 

 layers than to get eggs after he has got the layers. 



To keep hens in good productive condition throughout their 

 natural lives of usefulness, which in the laying hen should be two 

 seasons and in the breeding hen three or four, regular easy exer- 

 cise is essential. To give it to hens in confinement, the keeper 

 must provide litter of suitable material, leaves, straw and coarse 

 bay being most commonly used ; and, removing the worn-out and 



