272 MY POULTRY DAY BY DAY 
17,000 eggs works out at about £17, 10s, extra for one month. 
These little things are all worth considering. The small farmer 
with a local market or a retail clientele could increase these prices 
considerably, but it does not pay the man dealing in thousands of 
dozens to occupy his time with small packages. The big man must 
get rid of his produce in a big way, even if he take a little less for 
it. In addition to all the eggs accounted for in the balance-sheet 
there were, of course, numerous others, broken, chipped, and too 
small to be marketable in the usual way, so that the results are 
even better than they are made to appear. But for all practicable 
purposes the balance-sheet is a model for all to follow—if they 
can. 
It goes without saying that no balance-sheet equal to the above 
has ever been presented with other fowls than White Leghorns. 
The Leghorn is the fowl par excellence for the large-scale egg- 
farmer. It matures at six months and thus requires less capital 
than a heavy breed to bring to the productive stage. It requires 
rather less housing accommodation, being a smaller bird, and 
it probably eats a little less than a heavy breed. Other light 
breeds may be capable of making like records, but so far none 
have done so. The only possible challenger for supremacy is the 
White Wyandotte, that grand layer, though this bird never 
has produced an egg average of 167 per annum in very large 
flocks. 
The Leghorn is, then, the bird for the egg-farmer, pure 
and simple, and while I may claim to be one myself, my 
sympathies are wide enough to include White Wyandottes, 
Rhode Island Reds and a few first crosses among my lot. 
If in consequence I lose a few shillings per annum, I gain 
not a little in return. There is more than gold to be got out of 
poultry-farming ! 
Let it not be overlooked that a vast experience is not necessary 
to achieve such results as are given above. Few industries are so 
essentially simple as egg-farming. All the elements of hatching, 
rearing, housing and feeding can be acquired by anyone of in- 
telligence in a round of twelve months, and one is just as likely 
