i04 
The Illustrated Tool’ of Poultry. 
money I should like to try poultry-farming in earnest, as I feel sure a great deal might be 
done in that way, with a little more trouble than most farmers give. One year I cleared something 
like £60 with poultry. I used to sell to a man in the town who came regularly every week 
for them.” In further correspondence he adds, “ I had about 160 to 200 head, keeping them 
principally for eggs. At the same time I raised a large quantity of chickens annually, besides 
ducks and guinea-fowl. A man must be fond of poultry-keeping, or I know they will not pay. . . . 
Had I kept on farming I should have gone into it as a regular scheme, and had houses built on 
wheels and taken to different parts every day ; mine were all kept in one house, and never had any 
disease in five years. I used to cull a certain number of hens every year to make room for pullets, 
and make about is. 6d. each of them, and found the earlier chickens are hatched in the year the 
better.” 
Current testimony also abounds. A Chew Magna correspondent mentions in his return two 
farmers in his neighbourhood who each keep about 200 hens “ with much success,” sending their 
eggs to Bristol market. Another at Alfreton gives his own experience on ninety acres. He keeps 
about 100 hens, besides some turkeys and ducks. In answer to further inquiry, he sends his 
balance-sheet for a year, showing a profit of about A30, and says: “From my own experience 
I am satisfied they pay the best of anything kept on the farm at the present time.” He reports 
several others as keeping about the same. In his case there was little outlay, most of the stock 
roosting under one roof of the farm buildings, but some wire-netting fences off the pure breeds, and 
a few are on the other side of the farm. He repeats that “ the profits on the poultry are greater 
than anything else upon the farm for the amount of capital invested,” but considers they might be 
greater with more care in feeding, as he found at one time of year that they had been distinctly 
overfed. He points out that on some farms a “ different stock” must be kept from that which will 
pay best on others (how many farmers would even give a thought to this ?), and, reckoning the 
eggs used in his household and the manure as fair set-off for the little labour involved, reckons that 
his poultry are worth half the rent to him. He marks the ages of his fowls by putting on a wire 
ring every year, and kills off accordingly. 
Another case is of a dairy farm, of 140 acres, at Lanesley, near Gateshead, keeping twenty 
milch cows besides young stock and sheep. Half the farm is in grass. Miss Robson, in writing 
her own experience, tells us that most of the other farmers round keep only 20 or 30 common 
hens, and hardly see an egg all the winter ; and that such Minorca eggs as she disposes of 
for sitting are nearly all to cottagers — an experience parallel to much already cited. She keeps 
three pure breeds, Minorca, Plymouth Rock, and Houdan, also crosses between these. She began 
systematic poultry-breeding five years ago, when there were on the farm 30 or 40 common 
hens’. In 1886 she reared 150 chickens, 50 ducks, and 14 geese; and her stock in May, 
1887, ' consisted of 103 laying hens, 6 cocks, 7 ducks, 3 brood geese and a gander, 
12 goslings, 3 hen turkeys (sitting on eggs), and 50 chickens (100 more being due shortly). 
She gets a shilling for twelve to sixteen eggs in summer, and for six in winter, and sells an 
occasional sitting at five shillings. The profits are between £20 and £30 in a year. She manages 
herself, with the help of a servant to carry food and water and clean the houses, one of these being 
on wheels, and moved from field to field, as it suits the crops, and she writes : “ I find this is a 
capital plan, and would go in for poultry on a large scale if I had accommodation. I want our 
landlord to build me a range of hen-houses, but do not know when I will get them. Poultry is 
thought little of in this part of the country, and people laugh at me when I talk about pure-bred 
hens laying better than mongrels.” 
Irr another report, from Hatfield, a different system is mentioned. “I know one large farmer 
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