PRACTICAL EGG FARMS. 
scourges, for example. We have been told of a 
case in Hammonton, N. J., where a broiler-man 
lost three thousand chickens in one season from 
roup, which he claimed was brought from a 
neighbor’s brooder house, either in the clothing 
or in the dirt adhering to the shoes of a visitor. 
With our present hazy knowledge of roup we 
will not say such a case is not possible; we would 
rather say that it is barely possible, but highly 
improbable. If, however, the contagion was so 
carried to the Hammonton man’s brooder 
house, it could be similarly carried from one 
house to all the others of a colony farm, provid¬ 
ed, as is usually the case, the one attendant 
went to all in turn. In “ Hens by the Acre,” in 
the Rural New Yorker, Mr. Collingwood tells us 
about a colony-plan farm in Orange county, 
New York, where one thousand hens are kept, 
and says:—“The reason why we have not 
heard from the place is that a scourge of roup 
swept through the flocks last year, and Mr. 
Mapes has been so busy clearing it out that he 
has had no time to talk. Now that the disease 
has been about wiped out, he is going to tell us 
how he did it.” As these fowls were kept in 
flocks of forty, in colony-plan houses scattered 
over a rocky pasture, and the “ scourge of roup 
swept through them.” it would look as though 
the complete isolation was more apparent than 
real. 
The other advantage we have to consider is 
free range,—and we have strong doubts about 
this being an advantage. Mr. Josiah Quincy tells 
us in his excellent little book on “Soiling,” that 
the most profitable method of conducting a 
milk-farm is to keep the cows confined in the 
stable constantly, excepting (say) a couple of 
hours in mid forenoon and a couple of hours in 
mid afternoon for healthful exercise; just 
sufficient exercise to promote digestion and 
keep the cows in good health. He tells us that 
the largest possible milk flow will be promoted 
by this method, and no food energy wasted in 
“ranging.” Just so with fowls, if kept for 
profit. Just enough exercise in the open air to 
promote digestion and the turning of the food 
energy into eggs, is the best method; and we 
firmly believe the semi-confinement plan is that 
method. By semi-confinement we mean hav¬ 
ing a roosting-laying room, adjoining it an open- 
front scratching shed, and, extending south 
(preferably) from this pen and shed a yard 
sufficiently large to give each fowl from seventy- 
five to one hundred square feet of yard room. 
By this plan the energies of the fowl are conserv¬ 
ed and turned into egg production—i. e. into 
profit, instead of being dissipated in wide rang¬ 
ing. If the object is “ long life,” we say unhesi¬ 
tatingly that the free range plan is the better— 
but we don’t keep fowls to see how long we can 
make them live. On our farm we intend to get 
the best possible egg yield for ten or eleven 
months after the fowls reach laying maturity , and 
then turn them off to market, to make room for 
another generation of eager layers. It is well 
known that pullets are far the best egg pro¬ 
ducers. It is true year-old hens lay well, but 
no one denies that pullets lay better; hence, we 
argue, it is better to get the hens out of the way, 
even if they are still laying, and give their places 
to well matured pullets. Then keep these 
pullets on the semi-confinement plan, get the 
best possible egg yield from them till the rccrn 
is again wanted for the incoming layers, and so 
on year after year. We believe there is a much 
better profit in fowls kept in this manner than 
in fowls kept by the colony plan. j>- 
—Farm Poultry. 
93 
