10 BRIGGS' SYSTE^il OF 



CHAPTER II. 

 Location. 



First of all, we must have a suitable location. 

 This is a vcr}- important thing if you are going in 

 the poultry business as a business. If you do not own 

 a farm, by all means spend some time and get one 

 suitable for the business. I advise not less than fifty 

 to seventy-five acres. One with a nice big orchard 

 on it is most desirable. And by all means, get a 

 place with one or more streams of water running 

 through it; and if these streams are fed by springs, 

 so much the better. Under no circumstances buy a 

 place for the poultry business unless it is well watered, 

 for this is where the sa^•ing of labor comes in, and 

 the poultry will do much better — this is nature. 



Get a place sloping to the South with gravelly 

 or sand}- soil if possible. Si.xty acres will carry five 

 thousand layers nicely and leave room enough to 

 raise six thousand }Oungsters if it is laid out right, 

 besides pasturing your horses, cows and various other 

 things you will want on a farm. An ideal poultry 

 farm should be inclosed \\ ith a fi^•e foot fence of wire 

 netting and t\vo barb wires over this. It should also 

 have a base board of rough hemlock sunk tv\'o inches 

 or more in the ground. This makes a fence proof 

 against all kinds of animals, and there is nothing that 

 has more enemies than chickens. This is all the fence 

 you will need on your plant as a rule, unless you go in 

 the fancy line, or in dividing your old stock from 

 your young ; also in dividing your cockerels and 

 pullets. In these cases, you should fence in the fields. 

 Your hens mu,st have free range, if you want results. 

 And you must remember the profit lies in eggs. 

 Therefore, an egg plant is what you must have to 

 make money,* and a plant of this kind laid out right 

 ■p.nd handled properly can be run by the labor of one 

 man most of the time, as under my .system, labor is a 

 very small item — and labor has put more poultry 

 plants out of l)usiness than anv other one thing-. 



