ioS 
The Illustrated Book of Poultry. 
can be kept at one set of premises, but when this number is exceeded, feeding at once becomes 
difficult and expensive. I think you may take it that it is not so much a question of heads per 
acre, as the number of different sets of premises on a farm. Say, for instance, that a farm of 400 
acres has two sets of premises, double the number could be kept to what could be if there is but 
one set.” Other correspondents point out the same fact, and one further remarks, that many of 
the older farmsteads having been placed as near the church as possible, are rather on the edge of 
the holding than in its centre, which cramps operations, besides being liable to cause trespassing 
and ill-feeling with neighbours. This is all true ; but it never seems to have been perceived that 
such considerations are the very reason for pointing out what number the limited portion of land 
near the premises will bear, and were in fact our main reason for doing so. 
It is fencing rather than roofed buildings which, however, constitutes the real difficulty. Could 
fencing only be put up cheaply enough, one central block of buildings could easily be made to 
accommodate various sets of fowls on the principle shown in Fig. 47 ; and where existing hedges 
and other fencing lend themselves to anything of the kind, with a little help from cheap wire, much 
could often be done in that way. When a well-known writer in The Field states that “ the largest 
farm cannot accommodate more than another the tenth of its size,” because “ any attempt to rear 
a large number of fowls in one place is certain to be followed by disease,” he does not represent at 
all what is intended to be done, for it is a sinequd non on this system, that the fowls be fairly scattered 
over the ground allotted them. The limit of “ premises ” will, however, make itself felt, as pointed 
out by Mr. Wilson ; but it needs no proof that, were every farm of 700 acres to keep even such a 
head of poultry as that described in the interesting example just now cited from Northumberland, 
the increase in home production of eggs would be enormous, and put an entirely different face on 
the egg trade of this country. 
Much can be done in many places to scatter the stock, by the use of detached houses about 
the farm. Some successful farmers use them portable, moving them as convenient, the fowls 
readily following them from field to field. Several cases of this kind are reported to us, and this 
plan allows of free use of the natural fences or hedges, with perhaps a few feet of netting here and 
