10 INTRODUCTORY 
I had a letter from a lady who told me that she had bought a 
few fowls and kept them for several months, with the result that 
they had laid less than half-a-dozen of eggs between them. Her 
husband, who is an accountant, blandly informed her that the 
eggs cost 10s. 6d. each ! 
I suppose there are people who will bungle anything and 
everything they touch. And yet there are those who do quite 
well in the business they are trained in who fail to see that 
poultry-keeping is also a business that requires learning. It is 
one of the primitive industries, I grant, but so is sheep-grazing, 
and so is cattle-breeding. yet, strange to say, no one ever suggests 
that a sheep farm or a cattle ranch can be made a success by those 
who know nothing of the ways of sheep and cattle. 
It is only when we come to poultry that a blank mind is pre- 
sented to the subject. We have all seen hens picking up food in 
farmyards, and we, some of us, think that all a fowl needs is a 
few handfuls of grain—when we remember to feed it. 
“Has anyone fed the fowls?” is not an uncommen question 
when the master of the house is putting out the lights preparatory 
to going to bed. ‘Oh, gracious, no,” is often the answer, “ but 
I will give them an extra handful in the morning.” Just so. 
And these people expect their fowls to thrive and lay eggs. All 
of us have a certain amount of intelligence, and why does the 
fowl, of all animals, not get the benefit of it ? Well cared for and 
properly treated, it will pay all our attention tenfold. After all, 
there are few animals, not even the domestic cat, that will respond 
so promptly to the right kind of treatment. Like the dog and the 
cat, a hen has a stomach that ought to be well filled at least 
twice a day. It is true a fowl under certain conditions may 
pick up part of its food, but a hen kept in a small, close run 
will rarely capture anything of greater feeding value than a stray 
earwig. 
If, on the contrary, fowls are kept in cold neglect they will 
make no return for the little you do give them. I think it is 
John Stuart Mill who says: “Small causes not only do not pro- 
duce small effects; they produce no effect at all.” How very 
