6 Introduction. 



require the entire attention of one or more persons. Thus 

 the point is soon- reached when it will be easy to see there is 

 no hundred per cent, profit in the business. 



Parallel cases are numerous. Twenty or thirty hives of bees 

 may use all the bee-pasturage within the radius of the usual 

 flight of the honey-gatherers, and, where this is the fact, the 

 addition of a dozen hives would result in more labor to the 

 bee-keeper and in the harvesting of a good deal less honey. 



Thus it is every poultry keeper's province to study care- 

 fully his own resources and make the most of them ; and 

 while Mr. Beale has carefully avoided advising the keeping of 

 poultry on a large scale, and in fact discourages* it, the person 

 desirous of making the experiment will find the book replete 

 with sound views and practical hints in regard to its success- 

 ful accomplishment. 



Mr. Beale can hardly be as familiar as I am with the 

 wretched manner in which a great part of our poultry is sent 

 to market, and the shocking condition in which it arrives. 

 New York receives thousands of tons of poultry which must 

 be closed out in wholesale lots at ruinously low prices, and 

 which is then sold at a small advance at retail, to secure a 

 quick sale and prevent total loss. If a reform could be insti- 

 tuted by which the common farmers of the interior and West- 

 ern States would properly fatten, pluck, dress, and ship their 

 poultry, somewhat after the system advised in this book, it 

 would add almost inconceivably to the profits of poultry 

 keeping to these people as well as to the general wealth of the 

 country. I sincerely hope that this may be one of the results 

 of its publication. 



MASON 0. WELD. 



Closter, N. J. , March, 1884. 



