66 POULTBX-KEEPmO. 



placed on a more costly footing, and becomes an expensive and 

 but rarely a remunerative amusement; -whereas in merely keep- 

 ing a small stock of fowls for table use— the first and original 

 outlay of purchase and house-building- overcome— yon should,, 

 and can easily, have, with a little trouble, a small profit each 

 month after the necessary food is paid for. 



I have done both myself: kept fowls for general use — ordinary 

 common birds, mostly cross-bred — and kept purely-bred birds to 

 show, and I have no hesitation in saying that the fbrmer is the 

 best plan, unless, of course, you are a poultry fancier and have 

 money enough to allow you to indulge your mania for prize birds; 

 then,' with highly-bred stock, you may look to the sale of eggS 

 and the taking of prizes to. In a measure, recoup you for your 

 outlay. I was fairly successful with the high-class birds I 

 purchased, and got good prices for the sitting of eggs I sold, as 

 also for the birds themselves when I parted with themf but I 

 cannot honestly say I consider the keeping up of select and dis" 

 tinct sorts is worth the trouble it entails — ^that is, if you do the 

 work of looking after them yourself. Mine, I know— I 

 could not afford to keep a poultry-man — led me a sad 

 dance. I was always in trouble with them; they had separate 

 houses and runs, but unless I was near while the difierent sorts 

 •were having their outing there was sure to be some disturbance,, 

 a flght between the cocks through the bars and netting, and this 

 very likely occurred just before I wanted to show one of them, 

 when featherless heads and wounded bleeding combs would be 

 the result; and the hens too were nearly as pug^ilistic. Some one 

 will probably remark, " Mismanagement." Possibly; but I had 

 not all the proper arrangements-a, regular prize poultry-breedaf 

 would have, and even in the very best regulated poultry-yards 

 accidents wUl, we know, occur, and so these creatures were a 

 perpetual torment to me. 



