CHAPTER XXXIII 
PROFITS FROM POULTRY 
LSEWHERE I have given proofs of profits from egg- 
farming on a modest scale—profits which put ordinary 
business profits to the blush. Such results are readily 
admitted because they are on a small scale, but, argue the critics, 
what may pay well on a modest basis may not show anything like 
equal profits when carried out as a commercial undertaking. It 
may be so with some businesses, that they do not show the same 
ratio of profits as the business grows, but in poultry-farming I 
have yet to learn that there is any falling off as the industry 
increases. If it were possible, the profits from poultry increase 
proportionately as the business grows. One may, for instance, 
keep 100 or 300 fowls on an acre of Jand. The rent and fixed 
charges are approximately the same for the smaller number as 
for the larger. The only thing that does increase is the profit. 
Much the same holds with numbers running from 1000 to 3000 
head of stock. Fixed charges are almost always the same, and the 
only differences are in cost of labour and, of course, feeding. But 
even the labour costs considerably less per head. It will take one 
man all his time to look after 1000 birds, but two men can attend 
easily enough on 8000, just as two men working together invariably 
do as much as three men working as units. Under the best modern 
management it is simply astonishing to see how many fowls can be 
worked satisfactorily by a small staff. Under the old system of 
wet feeding and small houses the labour on a large poultry farm 
was out of all proportion to its results. Hence the saying that 
poultry-farming did not pay. 
Put into the concrete of pounds, shillings and pence, it required 
an expenditure of £4 per week to look after 1000 birds. To-day 
with large flocks in one house and dry-mash feeding the cost of 
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