OO 
a RN a 
Te eee tn _ ee 
1 Juz, 1900.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 487 
countries such as the United States of America and some Furopean countries by 
poultry than by the whole of the agricultural produce and live stock. For instance, 
the value of the wheat crop in the United States is in round numbers £48,000,000; 
of the cotton crop, £52,000,000; of the oat crop, £33,000,000; of the potato 
crop, £16,000,000; of the tobacco crop, £7,000.000; swine produce, £38,000,000. 
The poultry earnings reach £58,000,000; the eggs bringing £33,000,000 and 
the dressed poultry £25,000,000. The average value of the poultry—that is, 
roosters, hens, and chicks —is ls. 3d. each; and of turkeys, geese, ducks, &c., 
3s. 1d each. The value of the eggs is 73d. per dozen. One year’s earnings of 
the poultry are sufficient to buy up all the dairy cows iu America, with 
£5,000,000 to spare. ‘The same earnings would buy up all the gold, silver, wool, 
sheep, and tobacco produced in a year, and still leave £6,500,000 for other 
speculations. How is it done? Not by numerous immense poultry 
farms. Poultry farms where fowls are kept in great numbers rarely pay. 
‘Vherefore the results ‘must arise from the returns from thousands of 
farmers’ poultry yards. On many of our farms no care whatever is taken of 
the poultry. They are of all sorts of mixed breeds. No new blood is imported. 
Hence they are in-and-in bred, degenerate specimens. The hens lay spasmodi- 
cally, sometimes producing three eggs a week, sometimes seven, often none, and 
after laying a dozen or two of eggs they make up their minds to sit, and sit 
they will in spite of all efforts to prevent them. On some farms, the fowls are 
cared tor—that is, they are stuffed with as much corn as they will eat, and 
consequently become fat and bad layers. They have no change of diet, and at 
night are housed in a crowded fowlhouse which is rarely cleaned out. ‘There 
they also sit and become infested with vermin. Then a mysterious disease 
attacks them, and they die off to the astonishment of the owner. Now, of all 
places in the world, a farm is the place where poultry should thrive best. There 
are barns, outhouses, wheat and hay stacks, quiet nooks and corners, paddocks 
to run in, plenty of fresh water and fresh air, grain, green food, animal food 
when ploughing and harrowing are going on, caterpillars, worms, and grass- 
hoppers. What more is needed to make poultry thrive P Then hens disappear 
for a time, and one fine morning a proud mother brings home from a dozen to 
sixteen healthy little chicks, all hatched somewhere about the land. 
Now most children are fond of chickens, and on most farms there are 
children. Let every child have a hen or two for his or her “very own.” The 
youngsters will very soon find out the favourite laying spots, and bring in the 
eggs. They will soon learn when their hens should be allowed to sit, and will 
anxiously look for the coming brood when, instead. of having two hens, they will 
have two hens and two dozen chicks. They will, by-and-by, find that the 
result means plenty of pocket money with no expense and very little labour, 
and will redouble their attention to their feathered friends, and take 
the greatest pride in them. Let us try a little sum, premising, 
of course, that all calculations look very well on paper, but do not 
always pan out as they should. Let us take a well-tilled small farm whose 
owner is the fortunate father of four young girls and boys, old enough to do a 
little light work about the place. He gives each of these children two hens, 
with one rooster as common property. These will lay, say, 200 eggs each in 
the year, out of which they will bring up a couple of broods of 10 chicks each, 
leaving, say, 14 dozen eggs for sale. Supposing the hens to be all equally well 
cross-bred and equally good layers and mothers, the 8 hens will in the year 
produce 112 dozen eggs and 80 chicks. The eggs will produce an average of 
6d. per dozen—that is £2 16s.; and if 50 of the chicks are fattened and sold, 
they would bring in, if sold at a proper time, at least 1s. each, making £2 lus. 
Now the sum of the results is: ‘The children have a stock of 8 original hens 
and 1 rooster, and 80 young cocks, hens, and pullets to carry on with, besides 
having made £5 6s. in cash. Now carry the matter further. Let 100,000 
farmers’ and graziers’, timber-getters’, and bush workers’ children do the same 
thing: the cash result of their operations would amount to £530,000 in one 
year, and to over £1,000,000 in the second year. But allowance must be made 
