THE POULTRY AND TOO INDUSTRY IX EUROPE O 
extent, in certain parts of northern Europe, as the British Isles, 
Denmark, northern Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium. In 
Great Britain the fields are carefully hedged. Denmark has both 
hedges and fences. In these countries the people live on the land 
they work. 
In southern and central Europe, on the other hand, the system of 
agriculture is often such as to limit the amount of poultry that can 
be raised per farmer. Here the farmers live together in villages. 
Each farm home consists usually of a hollow square, one side of 
which opens on the village street. The walls of this hollow square 
are formed by stables for the horses, cows, and pigs, by sheds for 
implements, and by the dwelling quarters of the farmer and hi- 
family, and his labor, if any is hired. (See figs. 2 and 3.) The 
courtyard itself contains the well, farm machinery, and that signifi- 
cant evidence of prosperity, the manure pile. The size of the manure 
pile indicates the number of livestock kept and the acreage that can 
he fertilized, and therefore the approximate wealth of the individual 
farmer. 
The walls along the village street often form a continuous barrier 
perforated only by gateways that open into the courtyards. Rough- 
ly speaking, the people of Europe seern to live inside out as com- 
pared with American ways. The European house, built as it usu- 
ally is facing a courtyard, presents a blank wall to the outside. The 
courtyard is the center of activities. 
As the farmers usually live in villages, the farm lands may be 
several miles away. The acreages of the farms are much smaller 
than in the United States and one man's holdings may be widely 
-cattered. It is not uncommon for a farmer to own six or more 
pieces of land situated in various directions from the village, the 
whole area totaling only 15 acres. These pieces of land are usually 
long and narrow. In some cases they may be from 50 to 100 feet 
wide and from 600 to 1.000 feet long. There are no fences or hedges 
to separate them from adjacent fields. Ordinarily the only notice- 
able line of demarcation between lands of different tenure is a ditch, 
a furrow, or the change from one kind of crop to another. Such 
countries as Czechoslovakia. Poland. Austria. France, and northern 
Italy have a variegated country landscape full of alternating fields 
of grain, alfalfa, beets, potatoes, vineyard-, or other crop combina- 
tions. (See fig. 4. ) 
Back of concentrated holdings by one owner, distance of the fields 
from villages, and absence of fences prevent the raising of any 
animals that can not be herded or tied while on pasture or main- 
tained within the confines of the farm buildings. Therefore in these 
sections of Europe where this "strip" farming prevails the only 
poultry that can be kept outside of the villages is geese. Geese may 
be herded. The ^ee>e of an entire village are pastured under the 
care of children or old women on the commons and along the water- 
courses adjacent to the village, or on the stubble land of the owners 
in proportion to their part of the community Mock. It is an inter- 
esting sight to see the gooseherds gather up the flocks from the 
■ral courtyards in the village, drive them to the pastures, and 
return with them at night. The various geese know their own 
courtyards, and as the procession passes through the village each 
