A COMMERCIAL POINT OF VIEW. 15 



soon become very sleek and healthful in appearance, 

 and that in proportion there are less disease and fewer 

 deaths in prisons than among the free population who 

 are compelled to seek a precarious living in all kinds 

 of weather, and whose homes are wretched hovels, de- 

 ficient of all sanitary requirements. 



Moreover, farmers have now for a number of years 

 carried on successfully the rearing and fattening of cattle 

 in confined spaces (which are called stall-fed cattle), 

 and which system, although nominally more expensive, 

 is yet far more profitable than the ordinary rearing of 

 cattle ; and why should the same system not be extended 

 to poultry? 



In general, the management of poultry is considered 

 of too little importance, and is left pretty well to chance : 

 it is true that of late years the poultry exhibitions have 

 created a taste for poultry breeding ; but this is confined 

 solely to amateurs and what may be called fancy poultry 

 breeding. Yet, amongst all domestic animals, the fowl 

 is in proportion to its cost or keep the most profitable 

 and useful ; and hereafter I will prove by figures ob- 

 tained by actual experience that poultry can be reared 

 and sold at the rate of four pence per pound, and leave 

 a handsome profit. Now, such results particularly 

 when butchers' meat is at ten pence and one shilling 

 per pound, and moreover daily rising in price on ac- 

 count of the increase of population and the decrease of 

 pasturage ought to prove a sufficient stimulant to the 

 public at large to give a little more attention and con- 

 sideration to an increased production of such valuable 

 animal food, which, by proper management, would, 



