io6 
The 1 LLUSTRA7 ED Book OF POULTRY. 
ui gently necessary if the produce of any district is to be increased, or even fairly utilised. This 
want offers a field for very useful effort on the part of some who desire to benefit their country 
neighbours, and whose local influence enables them to move in such matters with hope of success. 
It is not mere collection, however, that is needed ; it must be of a kind that enables produce to be 
quickly forwarded at very short intervals, well sorted in sizes and colours, and with fair regularity 
all the year round. Producers also require to be taught that winter production of eggs and spring 
production of chickens are entirely matters of method and management, and are the main factors 
in profit ; and further, that proper methods of dressing and preparation make all the difference in 
price as regards table fowls. This question of dressed poultry will, however, be specially discussed 
in the las-t chapter of this volume, and is not, therefore, further referred to here. 
Much may be done for the poorer class of our rural population in connection with the allot- 
ment movement now so rapidly extending. In the Allotments Act of 1887 it is specially provided 
that “ poultry-houses ” may be erected thereon and removed by the tenant ; and what we would 
desire here to point out is the fact that, since the recent revolution in agricultural prices, in many 
cases much better return may be realised by keeping poultry than by raising crops ; while, even 
if a good market cannot be secured, a certain number of poultry would at least give the tenant’s 
children nourishing food, and add interest to the occupier’s life. We say “ in many cases ” it 
would be so, because the capacity to understand and carry out sound methods of management is 
by no means universal, but is essential to success. This being granted, however, several advan- 
tages of thus employing an allotment may be pointed out. In the first place, valuable manure 
will be provided for other allotments, or for parts of the same still reserved for growing vegetables. 
Again, the growing and caring for live stock both demands and creates a higher kind of intelligence 
than the cultivation of ground, and would tend to encourage feelings of more humanity towards 
the lower animals than notoriously exist at present amongst the labouring class. And finally, while 
digging in a garden is exhausting toil, which, being of the same character as the long day’s work 
already over, tends to exhaust that strength which should be given to the regular employment on 
the following day, the attending to poultry would be both work of a light character, and a pleasant 
change, beneficial alike to the mind and body of the labourer. The much greater disposition of 
cottagers than of farmers to develop poultry culture, is one of the most curious facts which have 
been brought out in the course of our recent inquiry. 
In the cultivation of poultry upon such village or country allotments, the system may differ 
in several particulars from other management, on account of the special circumstances. It may be 
best to overstock the ground, as it would be called, keeping the fowls in small yards, say of about 
fifty square feet to each large bird, or thirty feet for smaller. The reasons are several, and will be 
seen as soon as stated. It is labour which in this case is sought to be utilised ; and by daily 
taking up as much as possible of the manure perfect health may be maintained. Sufficient green 
food can also be readily obtained from the refuse of neighbouring allotments, without the necessity 
of having pens large enough to keep in grass. Most important of all, making the wooden houses 
on sills, so as to be movable, every two or three years the whole should be removed to and 
exchanged with a portion of the allotment which has been cultivated, thus giving rich ground to the 
cultivator in exchange for fresh for the fowls. Or the allotment may be so divided that one-third 
in regular rotation be cultivated with the spade : in this way the largest possible return will be got 
from the ground. The other management will be as before stated, and friendly oversight will be 
needed at first to insure the three grand points of early hatching of the pullets, judicious feeding, 
and regular killing of the stock before getting old ; but by degrees knowledge of these essentials 
would spread, and self-interest would quickly find out their importance. As a rule, egg-production 
