1 8 Profitable Poultry Keeping. 



CHAPTER II. 



WHO SHOULD KEEP POULTfiY ? 



Who may Keep Poultry — Value of Eggs for Children and Invalids — Who should 

 not Keep Poultry — Pleasure in Pursuit — Suburban Residents — Size of Rung 

 — Cottagers and Poultry Keeping — Does Poultry Keeping Pay ? 



It may be questioned whether the title which we have placed 

 at the head of this chapter is rightly worded, and probably 

 there are many who will suggest that it should read, " Who 

 may keep poultry?" This would not, however, give as 

 much latitude as we require, for, although it is our intention 

 to show who may, we go a little further and say that all 

 who have the opportunity of doing so should keep fowls, 

 whether the number kept be great or small. It is a direct 

 benefit to the individual to have fresh eggs to place upon 

 the table, and what is good for the individual must be good 

 also for the nation, and where there are children in a house- 

 hold nothing can be better than eggs for them. The 

 natural object for which eggs are laid is not to provide food 

 for human beings, but to multiply the race, and the egg 

 contains within itself all the material necessary for the 

 formation of the bird and for its support during the process. 

 Thus, there can be no question that eggs are, in the same 

 way as milk is, most suitable for children's food, and it is 

 impossible to find in any other substance of equal bulk 

 nutriment so equably mixed. We indirectly intimated in 

 the first chapter that as the egg gets older decomposition 



