A COMMERCIAL POINT OF VIEW. 83 



EXTRACTS 



FROM THE "JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND 

 COTTAGE GARDENER." 



Home Supply of Poultry and Eggs. 



How long does it take for a question to go through all 

 its phases, to settle down as a recognized fact before the 

 public, with the certainty that it will only be disturbed now 

 and then, at stated periods, to be ventilated according to 

 some, or to have the accumulated dust of years rubbed off 

 according to others ? Fourteen years ago, the public one 

 day recognized the fact, that poultry was a pursuit, that it 

 was deserving of encouragement, and then some thought 

 it was a mania. The pursuit of the trade of a " poulter " 

 is not one of yesterday. Its Guild or Company ranks 

 among the ancient ones of the city of London. It has in 

 its day lent money to the Sovereign of the United King- 

 dom. It still exists, and has its chartered rights ; and its 

 bequests and benefactions go back to the sixteenth cen- 

 tury. It seems now as if its claim to a share in providing 

 food for the vast populations in the metropolis and large 

 towns were about to be properly considered. We are no 

 longer self-supporting in the way of food. Many of us 

 can recollect in one of the old Anti-Gallican songs it was 



said, — 



They want to get our flesh and blood, 



Our beef and beer. 



