ESSAYS. 



ESSAY ON POULTRY FARMING. 



BY M. SUMNER PERKINS, OF DANVERS. 



In those times when frequently the markets of the country 

 for agricultural produce became overstocked through excessive 

 production, and when certain crops are not worth the expense 

 of marketing, to say nothing of the cost of raising, (as was the 

 case with the cabbage and onion crop last year,) it behooves 

 the farmers of Essex county to make an investigation of rural 

 industry, whose votaries are less numerous, and whose products 

 as a natural sequence in point of quantity fall far short of local 

 consumption. 



A careful survey of the field seems to show that nothing in 

 this line is more neglected than poultry farming. As long as 

 there are over sixteen millions dozens of eggs imported annual- 

 ly, there can certainly be no fear of an overproduction. From 

 whence does all this immense influx of eggs come ? It comes 

 from France, Germany, Scotland and Ireland, countries, all of 

 them overrun with population, making land scarce and dear. 

 Contrast the surroundings of the inhabitants of those nations 

 with our own. 



We have acres upon acres of cheap land highly suited to 

 poultry raising that can be bought at a merely nominal price, 

 land, that having been used for poultry a few years, will double, 

 triple, yea, quadruple in value, and become of great agricultural 

 worth. Is it not a reproach upon us, living in country possess- 

 ing every advantage and opportunity for stock-breeding in all 

 its branches, that we do not produce all the eggs and poultry we 

 oonsume, to say the very least, but that the poor peasant of the 



