94 The Illustrated Book of Poultry. >• ' 



vigilant supervision, to see that the produce is really brought into the farm receipts, and not lost 

 or stolen. The chickens especially, in this case, should be carefully tended, a low rough shed 

 being provided for them in some favourable spot which has been selected for the year, on the edge 

 of a field if possible, with a strip of grass to which they can resort for grazing. Or still another 

 plan may be followed, of keeping the stock fowls in permanent but fenced yards of extent enough 

 to remain green, and rearing from these as many chickens as are desired, which, after harvest, can 

 be sent to the fields in travelling wooden houses mounted on wheels, where they will get fat with 

 very little extra food or expense, and clear the ground of slugs and insects at an amazing rate. 

 In any case, the chief things wanted arc system and attaitioit. Granted these two, with any 

 account fairly kept, and the farmer will soon find it his interest to go into this department of 

 stock-raising more and more. 



When there is a good town market within reach, early chickens pay best, as at some seasons 

 they will readily realise four guineas per dozen for the London market. The surprise many 

 persons will feel at this statement is simply a proof of the gross ignorance which prevails regarding 

 all the facts of poultry culture. Such chickens must be really fine ones, and they require to be fed 

 at daybreak, however early that may be ; but we need hardly attempt to prove that such prices 

 will give a handsome profit. We are not advocating the glutting of the market with the skinny 

 chickens we so often see ; but for fowls good enough the demand is practically inexhaustible. To 

 say that careful and liberal feeding is required is only to stipulate for what the farmer has to give 

 to his other stock — the object in both cases is to make meat, and meat cannot be made without it. 

 IJut the difference is, that while the stock often get all this ungrudgingly, merely for the sake of 

 the manure they make, poultry make more manure — value for value — and a clear cash profit of 

 fifty to a hundred per cent, besides. Let a farmer once get to " understand the business," and he 

 will never after leave it to his wife (unless she makes a business of it, in which case he can have no 

 better manager), or allow such a source of revenue to slip through his fingers. Let the fact we 

 have quoted, that many of the smaller French farmers make by poultry ";^3 tO;^S per acre of 

 their occupation," and the further fact that they can afford to sell large numbers of fowls as 

 well as eggs at such prices as will pay carriage to England, and a large commission to the 

 wholesale merchant — let these things be remembered, and we may hope that such a source of 

 profit will arouse more attention than it does now. There are signs of improvement already, 

 and so late as April 24, 1872, TIic Times mentioned the British farmer as one who " used to 

 think of nothing but wheat, and turned with contempt from poultry, eggs, and butter ! " but 

 even yet the subject has not met one-tenth the attention we think we have fairly shown that 

 it deserves. 



In many other cases — perhaps the majority — it will be best to give attention, either chiefly or 

 entirely, to the production of eggs, only killing for the market surplus chickens or old fowls. And 

 here, while we have spoken already of that general care and system upon which all success would 

 necessarily depend, one very important consideration arises in v.'hich that care would more 

 especially need to be exercised, and which demands more than a passing word. The amount of 

 profit would very obviously depend in a great degree upon the number of eggs laid annually by 

 each fowl ; and this is found in practice to vary enormously. We have known one Brahma pullet 

 lay rather over 250 eggs within twelve months, and others which did not reach 100. The fact 

 that by careful selection of stock for a few generations any desired quality can be prodigiousl}' 

 developed is well known, and forms the foundation of all those rules and descriptions which form 

 the larger part of this work ; but for reasons we shall point out in our next chapter, it happens 

 that the " fancier" of poultry, in whose hands the cultivation of pure varieties has chiefly lain, has 



