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CO-OPERATIVE POULTRY SOCIETIES IN 

 IRELAND. 



In Ireland we all keep poultry. The cottager, be he labourer 

 or artisan, keeps a few fowls on his half-acre plot, or, if he has 

 not a plot, he keeps them on the roadside. The farmer of 

 300 acres, as well as the small holder of three to ten acres, is a 

 poultry-keeper, and fowls are kept in the towns, the villages, the 

 cities and the suburbs, by shopkeepers, artisans, professional 

 men and, indeed, by all manner of men or their wives. 



Perhaps this is the reason why so many public bodies are 

 engaged in helping forward the poultry industry, but another 

 equally good reason is to be found in the great demand which 

 there is for poultry and eggs in Great Britain and Ireland. 

 However this may be, it is certain that strenuous efforts have 

 been made for some years past to develop the poultry business, 

 and to establish the marketing of poultry and eggs on a sound 

 commercial basis. The public bodies which have been, and still 

 are, engaged in this useful work, are the Congested Districts 

 Board, the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, and the County Councils. 



In this article I propose to deal only with the work done by 

 the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, with which I have 

 for many years been intimately connected as poultry expert 

 and organiser, and of which I can speak with some authority. 



A description of the functions of the Irish Agricultural 

 Organisation Society would require a special article, and I 

 cannot in this short article say more than this — that the 

 I.A.O.S., which is the familiar title in Ireland of the Irish Agri- 

 cultural Organisation Society, is a body which was founded ten 

 years ago by Sir Horace Plunkett and the Rev. T. A. Finlay, S J., 

 assisted by a committee of noblemen, business men, professional 



