178 MY POULTRY DAY BY DAY 
weather. When the day is fine the birds are allowed to go out 
to enjoy the freedom that fresh air, sunshine and a search for 
tit-bits of food invariably bring. Indoors during the wildest of 
the weather and out of doors on all reasonably fine days. The 
morning may be wet and cold and the birds are confined. By 
noon the sky may clear and the sunshine dry up the land, when 
the birds are liberated to enjoy the better conditions outside. 
The rush they make for the door when it is opened is a proof of 
their appreciation of the fresh air and boundless horizon. 
It is claimed for the intensive bird that it is like the hot-house 
plant and will bloom and give forth its increase quickly and 
easily. The simile may be easily overstrained. A hen is not a 
plant, and its demand for oxygen and suitable minerals can only 
be suitably met with outside. Besides, a laying hen requires 
much more vigour and stamina than a flowering plant, which has 
a fixed base. A hen is a roaming animal; to whom exercise and 
freedom mean much. All the good points that are claimed for 
the intensive system, it appears to me, can be found when birds 
are kept semi-intensively. On a small scale; such as in towns; where 
space is limited; the intensive system is excellent, and answers well 
with half-a-dozen or a dozen birds, but where space is unlimited, 
and crisp, clean grass beckons the bird, it seems like banging the 
door in the face of Providence to shut the fowl up during its 
lifetime. 
The intensive system is still on its trial so far as this country is 
concerned, and in spite of the balance of probabilities being against 
it I personally keep my mind open to report on it when more is 
known. If the day ever arrives when it is conclusively proved 
to be superior to any other method, on that day I will become a 
convert. But not till then. 
