66 LESSONS IN POULTRY KEEPING SLCOND 5LRILS. 



Jong as he had money or credit to buy eggs, and soon luck changed. They got enough out of 

 the first season's work to encourage them to go ahead. Slowly but surely they did go ahead until 

 they had a plant to which both gave their full time during most of the year, (their special line 

 giving them a month or two off in the summer if they chose to take it), and were making 

 more clear money for each every year than the average professional or business man makes. 



'Two young men, brothers-in-law, employed in a factory, together built up a poultry busi- 

 ness to the stage where one of them, whose health was not good, and to whom constant 

 indoor work was injurious, could give all the time that he was able to work to it, the other 

 helping him out in emergencies. The plant was at the home of the invalid proprietor. They 

 would have continued to develop it until large enough to make a living for both, but then 1 

 was not land enough, nor was it possible to buy adjoining land. At length an opportunity 

 came to buy a piece of woodland a short distance away. It could be bought for $150. I do 

 not remember the acreage, but it was not large, only enough for a small farm. It was pur- 

 chased by the second man. He cleared it, and made enough on the sale of the wood to pay 

 for the place, so that he started with the land clear, and what small capita] he had of his own 

 could be put into a dwelling, poultry buildings, and equipment. The house erected was small 

 and plain, only sufficient for the actual needs of the family, costing probably not to exceed $500. 

 The outbuildings also were built as economically as possible. 



The two men, though not now in partnership, worked on a cooperative plan. The original 

 plant had been run as an egg farm. It had a capacity of about nine hundred hens. By the 

 arrangement made, the owner of this plant furnished the other at market pi-ice all the eggs he 

 wanted for incubation, carrying the account until fall, when he took his pay in pullets, at 

 market prices for poultry at the time they were delivered. As the man who grew the chick- 

 ens hatched both winter and summer chickens, and grew many more than required to furni-h 

 the other what pullets he needed, the value of the eggs he took would each year run clo:<e to 

 the value of the pullets he delivered. The plan worked very satisfactorily until with the con- 

 tinued ill health of the invalid poultryman, a change of climate became necessary for him. 

 Both farms were sold, and both families moved to a milder climate. 



On a Maine farm devoted to general farming I found a flock of between 400 and 500 hens 

 kept in houses built to accommodate 50 to 100 fowls each, these houses being distributed within 

 a radius of the dwelling which made it not too hard a task for the farmer's wife and mother to 

 attend to them during the summer when the men were engaged in the fields, the men taking 

 care of the fowls at other seasons, and also in rough weather. There were too many hens 

 close to the house to admit of keeping the place as we like to seethe surroundings of a dwell- 

 ing; but the farmer said his hens were the best paying stock on the place, and as his method of 

 hand ling them was adapted to his situation and circumstances, and they were thrifty and pro- 

 ductive, -he 'did not feel disposed to make any sacrifice of profit to appearances at present. 

 This flock had been built up very slowly. lie had been seven or eight years in getting to the 

 number he had when I saw him. He said the usual increase had been about fifty hens a year, 

 as he had found that he could add that number each year and make the necessary provision for 

 them without taking more of his income for the purpose than he conveniently could. 



On many farms in Rhode Island hens are kept by the "colony system." I presume that on 

 mo>t of these farms the beginnings of the system date back for over a generation, and on many 

 much further back than that. I spent parts of two days at different times, going about as he 

 cured for his poultry with a young man whose father and grandfather before him had for years 

 kept poultry on this same farm, by the same methods and with the same kinds of stock. With- 

 out going into a full account of these methods here, I will say that with such a small poultry 

 bouse as might beused anywhere on farm or town lot as a unit, ar.yone who has room to 

 spread his fowls out, locating houses far enough apart so that the flocks will mingle little, can 

 apply this system. The limits of it come with the limits of his land. All that he has to do is put 

 a small new house in a suitable place whenever he is ready to do so. He may use two or three 

 houses, or he may use a hundred ; the system is the same, and the conditions the same for all. 



