POULTRY KEEPING AND KEEPERS 
worms and insects, while the poultry droppings 
have a very beneficial effect upon the fruit yield, 
because no manure is richer or more valuable than 
hen manure. The gardener and dairyman have 
many waste products which come in very handy 
for feeding to a flock of ‘hens, while the prod- 
uct from the poultry can be marketed along with 
their other goods at no extra expense, but at con- 
siderable increase in price over that paid in the 
open market. 
It is very probable that the greater part of this 
country’s poultry supply comes from flocks cared 
Poultry for principally by women. On farms 
Keeping for the care of the fowls is usually left to 
Women; for the farmer’s wife or daughter, because 
tnwvalids the men are too busy with the regular 
routine of farm work to “ bother ’’ with the hens; 
while in towns the absence of the men from the 
home during working hours leaves the care of the 
poultry mostly to the women, even when the men 
take an interest in the work. Women can raise 
poultry just as successfully as men, on a small 
scale; but, as a rule, poultry keeping on a scale to 
make a living for a family is beyond a woman’s 
strength, unless she can press into service some 
male member of the family or has hired help. 
Many invalids are attracted to poultry keeping 
as an occupation, because the work is not confining 
and it is outdoors for the most part, and because 
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