1904.] 



Farm Land for Poultry Keepers. 



407 



increase the food production of the country, and would afford 

 opportunity for a considerable expansion in rural enterprise. 

 The system about to be described is no mere theory, but a 

 practical fact, and one that has been proved over a series of years 

 and in many places, with manifest benefit to farmers and 

 poultry-keepers alike. 



For the adoption of this system of poultry-keeping it is 

 necessary to find, first, farmers whose land is suitable and 

 who are willing to allow access to their fields, to someone not 

 employed by them, with permission to place thereon poultry- 

 houses and their inmates ; and, second, the present or would-be 

 poultry-keepers who are ready to pay for the privilege of plac- 

 ing out their fowls in this way and arc sufficiently responsible 

 to be trusted for the fulfilment of their obligations. Of the 

 second class there is no lack, but of the first the number is 

 much smaller, for many farmers have either failed to see 

 the advantages they would obtain or have a rooted objection 

 to seeing other than their own men treading the land. Instances 

 are known, however, of farmers who have found that the improve- 

 ment of their land has been so great that had they paid a trifle 

 for the birds to run over their land instead of being paid, they 

 would have been justified in the expenditure. With wider 

 experience of the system its extension may be anticipated, but 

 where farmers themselves intend to take up poultry- keeping on 

 a fairly large scale they are less likely to agree to others occu- 

 pying their land, unless they have a much greater acreage than 

 they can hope to stock. 



In the districts where the system here referred to has found 

 acceptance the land is chiefly pasture, used for the feeding of 

 horses or of milk cows, and the poultry-keepers are usually 

 operatives, without land of their own, or with only a small plot. 

 It is finding acceptance, however, among poultry-breeders who 

 have a few acres of land, but who desire to extend their opera- 

 tions. Such extension becomes possible where they are able to 

 make arrangements with farmers for their birds to run over fields 

 either all the year or for fixed periods. On pasture land and in 

 orchards there need be no limitation of time ; where meadows 

 are cropped for hay the fowls need only be removed ten weeks 

 before cutting. But in corn- or root-growing areas it may be 



