136 COMMON SENSE 
food; some hens would get more than their share, others would get 
less. I was astonished to see the difference between fowls in this 
respect. ‘lake any two dozen fowls, throw down a pint of corn, 
and after it has disappeared examine the crops of the birds and you 
will find that half of it has been picked up by half a dozen fowls— 
the remaining half being divided amongst the other eighteen, Still 
worse is this in cases where the birds are called off the perch by 
throwing down food. Some wide awake, early risers will get all 
they can eat, while others will remain on the perch and get nothing, 
or they will come down in such sleepy fashion that breakfast is over 
before they are reddy. 
After a good deal of. observation I found that the more widely the 
food was scattered the better was the chance of each individual 
bird. I therefore arranged it so that when grain was fed it was 
sown broadcast over a considerable space, and when the food was 
soft it was placed in a great many smull dishes or troughs, so that 
weak birds were never in danger of being crowded away by the 
stronger ones. 
It is very evident that if there were no objection to giving every 
bird a that it would eat, the matter could be arranged very sim- 
ply. All that we would have to do would be to keep food con- 
stantly accessible to the fowls in well-protected feed boxes and the 
work would be done. And this, indeed, is the method adopted by 
many. One book on poultry, now before me, has. page after page. 
devoted to the description of self-acting feeding hoppers, and dozens 
of amateurs that we have met have pointed with pride to feed boxes 
of marvellous ingenuity and utter worthlessness—* made. with ther 
own hands,” and supposed to be a convincing proof of their tith 
to the honor of being considered skilful poultry keepers. Observ 
ant poultrymen have long since found out that hens may be alto. 
gether, too fat to lay; that they must be kept on suchi a scale of 
diet as will maintain them in constant activity—always, ready for 
more, like Oliver Twist. In fact, one of the secrets of successful 
poultry keeping consists in striking this golden mean between ex- 
cessive fatness and starvation. A very excellent system, one which 
has been in vogue for many years, though frequently described by 
