HOW FOWLS DIGEST FOOD. 155 



produced. To do this, the keeping of poultry 

 must be conducted on business lines. What is so 

 essential is, that there should be a regular house- 

 to-house collection of eggs arid poultry, by some 

 central store, worked by the people who supply 

 it, and where the supplies could be graded, pro- 

 perly prepared, and packed for market. 



Extensive buyers of agricultural produce re- 

 quire large quantities of produce of a uniform 

 quality that they can depend upon, and this want 

 can be best met by co-operation amongst the 

 producers themselves. 



Many a careful cottager who has taken the 

 trouble to rear the best sort of poultry, that lay 

 when eggs are scarce, or that fatten readily, 

 or those that combine numerous egg production 

 and early flesh production, and who has taken the 

 trouble to keep no hen that does not pay for the 

 food she eats, has, with a few hens that have been 

 reared on a very narrow strip of garden, more 

 than paid the rent of his cottage and garden. 



The cottage hen and the cottage pig has, times 

 without number, made the difference between 

 living in comfort and living in poverty. 



