92 Tjie Illustrated Book of Poultry. 



Here is the ical kernel of the whole matter. In France these farmers — large and small — 

 understand ilie business; in England even the farmers' wives hardly ever do, and their husbands 

 look upon the whole with contempt. Cattle and sheep would never "pay" if the mating 

 and breeding were left to chance, half the milk lost, and the animals left to whatever they could 

 " pick up." But farm poultry, as a rule, are left to breed indiscriminately ; are fed in the way 

 alluded to ; the hens suffered to lay away, where a third of the eggs are lost and another third 

 stolen; and because they do not "pay" under such circumstances, are grudged any food at all; 

 when merely as consumers of worms, slugs, and other creatures which prey upon the crops, they 

 would be well worth all they ought to cost upon a large farm. Mr. Mechi affirms of them in this 

 capacity, " It is a well-admitted fact by all my labourers that my best and thickest crops are in 

 immediate proximity to the fowl-house, commencing at only ten yards' distance. No doubt 

 there are times when you should protect your shallow-sown seeds, and in my case I sometimes 

 employ a boy for a fortnight immediately after drilling, close to the fowl-house ; but even if I have 

 not done so I have rarely been inconvenienced if the grain was properly deposited by the drill. 

 There is no surer sign of imperfect tillage than when you hear of birds or game getting out the 

 seed," With regard to damage to green crops, such as young turnip plants, such will usually be 

 the result of not " understanding the business." A friend of our own, for instance, convinced by 

 Mr. Mechi, let all his fowls run loose, and complained that a field of young Swede plants near was 

 nearly stripped by them. Mr. Mechi would have told him why, and how to prevent it. " Poultry," 

 says he, " graze equally as do sheep or cattle, and it is essential that a piece of paslure should be near 

 the fowl-house ; otherwise they will and must appropriate j'our young cabbage, turnip, and mangel 

 plants." This was forgotten, and hence the mischief. 



What we have said in our earlier chapters as to selecting stock, is alone sufficient to account 

 for half of the unsatisfactory results of farm poultry. At a meeting of the Whitby Chamber of 

 Agriculture, in the summer of 1S70, during the discussion which followed a paper on this subject, Mr. 

 S. Burn said that " lately he had superintended the poultry department of a farmer who thought he 

 was not receiving so much from his eggs as he was spending in corn. He found that this individual 

 had on his farm many of the same fowls that were there when he entered, and some of them he 

 thought must have been part of the original birds introduced into the neighbourhood. They had a 

 general slaughter among them,, some fresh birds were introduced, and the effect was so beneficial 

 that the owner was astonished to find the improved system made about £^0 a year difference; 

 he brought about three hundred eggs to market every week, and had a fine stock of poultry." 

 This difference in cash value, be it remembered, was upon an ordinary farm stock, no attempt 

 being made at regular poultry-farming ; and we quote these things to show that the statements we 

 make, after years of studying this subject in every way, are not mere theory, but arc borne out 

 by actual facts on every hand. 



But we have not yet done with France : let us now go back to it, and see what understanding 

 the business means there. We have already shown to what a perfect system the operations 

 of fattening and killing have there been brought, and need not enter further into that ; neither will 

 we more than allude to the very different way in which poultry is recognised by the agricultural 

 authorities — competition here being limited to the shows held by fanciers ; whilst at a show of dead 

 and fatted poultry held at Paris in 1S64, £160 was offered in prizes, and 2,000 head were 

 exhibited. The great good such exhibitions would effect in this country cannot be doubted ; 

 but our present purpose is rather to remark how poultry really is considered in France as part of 

 the general economy of the farm. This is shown in various ways, but chiefly by the manner 

 in which poultr\'-food enters into the farmer's rotation of crops. In a paper by M. de Lavergne, 



