36 THE COMPLETE POULTRY BOOK. 



Among the bona, fide attempts to carry on poultry management in this coun- 

 try on a large scale one Of the most widely noticed has been that of Warren 

 Leland, proprietor of the Metropolitan Hotel, New York City. Mr. Leland, 

 having in his hotel a constant market at the best prices for all the surplus prod- 

 ucts of his poultry-yard, and also as constant a source of cheap and suitable 

 food, maintained for a number of years a flock of hens reaching into the thou- 

 sands in number. These, however, were not kept in close confinement, but had a 

 free range of at least an acre for every hundred fowls, over a piece of rocky, 

 brush-covered land, not fit for cultivation. 



In 1877 Mr. W. C. Baker, of Cresskill, N. J., started an establishment in which 

 it was proposed to hatch by artificial incjibation and fatten by the French "cram- 

 ming" process from a quarter to half a million chickens annually. Seventy-five 

 thousand dollars were invested in buildings and apparatus, and the PovUry 

 World published, in May of that year, a glowing account of the establish- 

 ment and its prospects. By December, 1881, however, this establishment had 

 changed hands no less than three times, having soon been abandoned by its 

 originator. 



In the number of the PovJiry World for January, 1880, an account is given 

 of another large establishment, managed after a similar plan to the above, be- 

 ing known as the "Crystal Spring" farm, and located at Medfield, Mass., In 

 which five thousand fowls were kept, the product being taken by the Parker 

 House, of Boston, at high prices. 



In May, 1881, the same journal described an establishment belonging to A. 

 C. Hawkins, of Lancaster, Mass., in which several thousand fowls were kept, 

 being managed after the old-fashioned plan of natural incubation and feeding. 

 In this establishment more space is given to the fowls than in any of the others 

 described, the hens having the range of a pasture field of several acres, in ad- 

 dition to that afibrded by the "yards. 



These, and other similar establishments that have been started within the 

 past two or three yearshavenotyethad time to demonstrate the practicability of 

 wholesale poultry management. Disease is the great bane of such a business, 

 and ii is liable to break out at any time, as it has done in others which we have 

 not named, causing the loss of thousands of dollars. Further than ihis, it has 

 been demonstrated that hens will not geherally yield so" many eggs in confine- 

 iflfent as when at liberty, while, as before said, their food will cost more. 



With regard to the yield of eggs which may be expected from hens kept in 

 large flocks, Mr. T. B. Miner, of Linden, N. J., a retired editor, and an ex- 

 perienced ponltryman, estimates that one hundred eggs per annum will be as 

 many as can be reasonably expected from each hen.* Mr. J. W. Brooks, 

 proprietor of "Wayside Farm," near Milton, Mass., realized 112 eggs each from 

 800 hens kept in 1879.t Mr. A. C. Hawkins, before referred to, gives the 

 average product of his 2000 hens "about ten dozen eggs each."t 



With regard to the cost of keeping the fowls Mr. Miner estimates, from actual 

 experiment, that each fowl wiU require from a bushel and a quarter to a bushel 

 and a half of grain per annum, with at least one hundred dollars worth of ani- 



*'Poultry World, Vol. 3, p. 187. f Lpc. at., Vol. 9, p. 269. JLoc. Clt., Vol. 10, p, 146. 



