176 MY POULTRY DAY BY DAY 
reach, There are doubtless other health-giving properties in 
vegetables and minerals that the fowl at liberty will pick up which 
is denied to the bird behind the barrier. 
This being the case, it costs more to feed the intensive bird ; 
just how much more has never been properly worked out, but it 
will probably amount to a halfpenny per bird per week. So, what 
with double labour and an increased cost of feeding of about one- 
fourth, the intensive system will have to show largely increased 
egg results to justify its existence. It is not claimed that breeding 
can be carried on under the intensive system, and that, of course, 
is a defect that means a supplementary stock that has access to 
the land and the open air. 
While it is no doubt true that there are several commercial egg 
farms on the intensive system, there are none on a large scale, a 
fact which is significant enough. I know of one small intensive 
poultry farm that paid moderately well in pre-war days. The 
owner went to serve his country and he has since told me that 
nothing would induce him to start again on the same system with 
wheat at 70s. per quarter and middlings at 18s. per cwt. Every 
increase in the price of food hits the intensivist more than it hits 
anyone else, since he has to provide the hen with the whole of her 
food, including grass and other vegetables. In the only instance 
of which I have had any first-hand knowledge of an egg farm on 
the intensive system the production of eggs did not exceed that 
of the same class of farm on the semi-intensive plan. 
The intensivist, I know, claims a larger egg-production and 
especially a winter egg-production. If he did not, what would be 
the use of his more elaborate houses and his greater expenditure 
in labour and food? His claims of more eggs are based largely 
on theory, but so far I have seen no public or private declaration 
of profits. No comparative results have been made public of the 
intensive and semi-intensive methods. And I am afraid it is 
the intensivist who is shy. Certainly balance-sheets have been 
published by large egg-farmers working on semi-intensive lines, 
but so far no intensive farmer has been equally frank with the 
public. 
