86 POULTRY CULTURE 



numbers were given small, bare yards. Houses were of the same 

 style and the sections generally of the same dimensions, though to 

 provide for large numbers the space requirements per bird might 

 be figured on a smaller allowance and the estimated capacity of 

 each section thus increased. 



Seeing no occasion for separating houses, and a distinct advan- 

 tage in joining them, intensive poultry keepers developed first 

 houses several times as long as those used for a single flock, and 

 finally houses ten, twenty, and even fifty times as long, making 



Fig. 89. View of part of poultry plant at Pennsylvania State College, where 

 both systems are in use 



the common lengths from 100 to over 200 feet, and in extreme 

 cases 500 and (approximately) 600 feet. 



The intensive system has been in general use for about fifty 

 or sixty years, but has never been long successful when the 

 plant was larger than the owner could care for personally, and 

 not often permanent when on such a scale that all of one man's 

 time was required.^ It is still widely used, though attempts to es- 

 tablish large plants of that type are less numerous than formerly. 

 It is likely to be used for a long time, perhaps always, in many 

 instances where it should be at least considerably modified, simply 

 because of the common human tendency to undertake more than 

 resources warrant. 



^ The writer has not known more than two or three poultrymen who have 

 made a living on an intensive plant who would advise others to use the system 

 on a large scale, or would continue to use it themselves if they could afford the 

 cost and loss of making a change. 



