MEMORIAL POULTRY LIBRARY 
 
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 ALBERT R. MANN LIBRARY 
 New York State Colleges 
 
 OF 
 
 Agriculture and Home Economics 
 
 AT 
 
 Cornell University 
 
Cornell university Library 
 SF 488.G7R65 
 poultry farmin9,so|ne;actsa^^^^^^^^^ 
 
 3 1924 003 108 044 »«- 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924003108044 
 
no ■ 
 
 POULTRY FARMING 
 
[Front ' Tlic CoHiitu Urnfleman. ami Laml aivl Water ' 
 A CHAMPION LAYER. 
 The White Wyandotte which in tho 1:I02-S Laying Competition produced TS eggs in ll3 (winter) weeks. 
 
 lF^•oiltlspicc^:. 
 
POULTRY FARMING 
 
 SOME FACTS AND SOME 
 CONCLUSIONS 
 
 BY 'HOME COUNTIES' 
 
 J^C)WA«scrn *X0^> JOTiTt UiifiJiflW^j \<jLi»- 
 
 NEW YORK 
 E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY 
 
 1905 
 
Printed in Great Britain 
 
MY MOTHER, 
 
 TO WHOSE BLACK SPANISH 
 I OWE MY INTEREST IN POULTRY KEEPING. 
 
 i 
 
' Now as Jannea and Jambres withstoodj so do these 
 also resist. Ever learning, and never able to come to 
 a knowledge of truth. But they shall proceed no 
 further : for their folly shall be manifest unto all 
 men.'— Tim. iii. 7, 8, 9. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 FAOB 
 
 INTBOJJDCTION - - . - ix 
 
 I. THE ORIGIN OF THE POULTBY FARM MYTH - 1 
 
 II. THE POtTLTEY FARMS WHICH SEEM TO PAY - 8 
 
 III. DO FINE FEATHERS MAKE FINE BIRDS ? - 20 
 
 IV. THE FINANCE OF FANCY POULTRY KEEPING - 29 
 V. THE MESSAGE OF THE RECORDING NEST- 39 
 
 VI. HOW farmers' fowls are MADE TO PAY 45 
 VII. THE BOGEY OF FOREIGN COMPETITION, AND HOW 
 
 IT MAY BE LAID 58 
 VIII. OF 'POULTRY plants' 3,000 MILES OFF AND 
 
 '300-EGG hens' - 73 
 
 IX. the facts about several WELL-KNOWN POULTRY 
 
 FARMS - . . 90 
 
 X. THE CONFLICT OF AUTHORITY 101 
 
 XI. POULTRY FARM BALANCE-SHEETS SCRUTINIZED - 118 
 
 XII. POULTRY PAPER PUFFERY OF POULTRY FARMING - 133 
 
 XIII. WHY EGG COLLECTING AND POULTRY FATTENING PAY 140 
 
 XIV. 'direct TO THE CONSUMER' THEORIES EXAMINED 146 
 XV. WISDOM FROM THE SHIRES - 152 
 
 XVI. 'FOR THE SNARK WAS A BOOJUM, YOU SEE !' - 158 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 I. THE SECRETARY OF THE NATIONAL POULTRY 
 
 ORGANIZATION SOCIETY CROSS-EXAMINED 168 
 
 II. A POULTRY farmer's CONFESSION - 175 
 
 INDEX - - 182 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 A CHAMPION LAYER - - Frontispiece 
 
 AN ACHIEVEMENT OF ' THE FANCY' - fiici^ P- 20 
 
 ANOTHER TRIUMPH OF THE POULTRY SHOWS „ 22 
 
 A COCHIN COCKEREL OF 1853 - „ 26 
 
 A MODERN COCHIN COCKEREL - „ 28 
 
 A TRAP NEST - - - „ 42 
 
 A farmer's POULTRY HOUSE „ 56 
 
 A ' SCRATCHING-SHED ' HOUSE „ 64 
 IRISH CHICKENS DETRAINING AT UCKFIELD, 
 
 SUSSEX - - „ 140 
 
 FATTENING COOPS AT A SUSSEX FATT'ENEr's „ 144 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Unless the poultry enthusiast is willing to 
 abandon some of his cherished beliefs, this 
 book is not for him. To the would-be poultry 
 farmer who is open to conviction it does address 
 itself. 
 
 These pages are written largely in the interests 
 of the townsman whose eyes are turned to the 
 country. But their appeal is also to the farmer, 
 the land-owner, and the public man interested in 
 the personal, local, and national possibilities of 
 poultry keeping, and too often the unconscious 
 victims of amazing illusions, not only as to the 
 real bearing of foreign competition in table 
 poultry and eggs, but as to the circumstances in 
 which hens can be made to yield the most profit 
 in Great Britain. 
 
 The book is further designed for the perusal 
 of over-sea readers of English publications, who 
 may have influence among the large numbers of 
 
X INTRODUCTION 
 
 enterprising people, on the Continent and in the 
 Colonies, now so assiduously importing English 
 stock-birds of quite the wrong type for the pur- 
 pose for which they are bought. It is desirable 
 that the reputation which the United Kingdom 
 has deservedly enjoyed as the breeder of high- 
 class farm-stock of all sorts should not be im- 
 perilled by the sending abroad of poultry which, 
 however fine in feathering, can have only a 
 trivial commercial value on the farm or in the 
 paddock. 
 
 ' Poultry Farming ' diflFers from most poultry 
 books that are written in that it does not court 
 the goodwill of some of the poultry papers. 
 Light on this matter is afforded by the instruc- 
 tive data — now published for the first time — 
 in Chapter XII. and elsewhere. 
 
 It also differs from a large number of poultry 
 books in that, as already hinted, it is not in the 
 least likely, directly or indirectly, to inspire the 
 reader with dreams of poultry farming as popu- 
 larly understood, or, in the latest phrase, ' running 
 a poultry plant.' It ventures to suggest, after 
 pursuing with no little labour the complicated 
 and highly technical subject in its many twists 
 and turns through no fewer than sixteen chapters 
 and an appendix, that poultry farming suffers 
 from the drawback of not yet having been proved 
 
INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 to pay. ' Not yet,' for the poultry farmer never 
 is but always to be blest: he is two single gentle- 
 men — Mr. Micawber and Mark Tapley — rolled 
 into one. For a quarter of a century the 
 apologists for poultry farming have been crying 
 eagerly, ' Lo, here I' and ' Lo, there I' but though 
 they have no difficulty in describing many hew 
 poultry farms (or old ones under new owners or 
 managers), never have they had the happy fortune 
 to point to balance-sheets. 
 
 It may perhaps be suggested that it ought not 
 to have needed a book of this size to say this. 
 We can only ask humbly whether, in its intricacy. 
 Fiscal Reform does or does not yield the pre- 
 eminence to poultry farming ? We are in no 
 doubt, however, as to our being able to reckon on 
 the sympathy of those who have had to cope at 
 any time with the fallacies which are as the very 
 milk of the word to the poultry enthusiast ; who 
 reahze how deep-rooted, and overlaid, and inter- 
 twined these misconceptions are ; who know how 
 the victims of -the poultry farming delusion are 
 steadily lured on by a great mass of foohsh, irre- 
 sponsible, and often by no means disinterested 
 writing; who have frequently found that even 
 the victims who seem cognisant of most failures, 
 are still almost persuaded that ' there must be 
 something in it, after all.' To those who have 
 
xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 once been caught by it, the fascination of the 
 problem of making a poultry farm pay is extra- 
 ordinary. Certainly, if anyone should be disposed 
 to call poultry farming, in its commercial aspect, 
 the Stock Exchange gambling, and, in its pseudo- 
 recreative aspect, the bridge of rural ' industries,' 
 we shall not quarrel with him. 
 
 This book cannot be expected to carry con- 
 viction to those who are stiU under the peculiar 
 spell of poultry arithmetic, who see poultry 
 establishments through the eyes of imagination 
 and the magnifying-glass of egg and stock 
 vendors' advertisements, who take all poultry 
 ' authorities ' at their own valuation, and regard 
 every contributor to the poultry press whose 
 name seems familiar as a counsellor uniting to 
 the selflessness of the philanthropist the zeal 
 of the missionary. They do not know that, 
 though the poultry world numbers many good 
 and pubhc-spirited men and women, it is also 
 the hunting-ground of people with axes to 
 grind, humbugs, failures, and plunderers, who 
 can only remain in it vdth advantage by not 
 being too hard on one another — ' hawks do not 
 pick out hawks' eyes ' — and keeping an unblush- 
 ing front to the novice and the general public. 
 If by the agency of this volume only a few 
 reasonable and well-intentioned folk are saved 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 time, money, and strength, it will have been 
 written to good purpose. 
 
 And however much certain methods of poultry 
 management may be condemned in its pages as 
 impractical and uneconomical, it is surely obvious 
 that it is the author's desire to give to poultry 
 keeping on the lines indicated by experience and 
 common-sense, and to the pleasant hobby of 
 domestic fowl-owning for its own sake, nothing 
 but the warmest support. 
 
 Although the book is not primarily intended 
 to offer detailed instruction on poultry manage- 
 ment, it is believed that the large mass of 
 practical data in its pages will prove of consider- 
 able value. 
 
 As far as can be seen at present, the future of 
 poultry keeping is chiefly to the intelligent 
 farmer's intelligent daughter. Whatever would- 
 be poultry farmers, with other people's money, 
 may be able to show on paper to their relatives 
 or to confiding capitahsts ; whatever experiments 
 they may have the courage to point to as ' un- 
 questionably promising,' as likely to be more 
 successful than all the others which have gone 
 before them, and have come one by one to 
 disaster ; whatever measure of success— if, for the 
 sake of argument, the indulgent phrase may be 
 pardoned — whatever measure of success the future 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 may show, the fact at least remains that no com- 
 petent authority, who is experienced in the con- 
 ditions in which land of any sort is successfully 
 worked in this country, will come forward at 
 present to argue that farming enterprises in 
 which poultry are to be the prime consideration, 
 or in which everything is to be an adjunct to the 
 poultry, let the areas be of 3 or 30 or 300 acres, 
 can hope to compete economically with the pro- 
 duction of table poultry or eggs on farms, on 
 which the skilful management of the troublesome 
 small stock which yields these products goes hand 
 in hand with the other operations of agriculture. 
 In this connection is it not a Httle significant that 
 poultry farming schemes emanate almost invari- 
 ably, not from men practically acquainted with 
 the management of arable and grass land and 
 stock, but from townsmen ? 
 
 Neither the author nor the publisher expects 
 that the financial return from this book wiU be 
 remarkable. The labour involved in its prepara- 
 tion has been cheerfully undertaken because it is 
 felt that the information now brought together 
 in its pages may prove of public service in spread- 
 mg a sounder knowledge of what may be called 
 the basic facts of poultry keeping, a pursuit 
 which has a part of importance to play in that 
 revival of rural industry to which no one inter- 
 
INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 ested in the welfare of his country can be 
 indijfferent. For their circulation, these pages 
 on 'Poultry Farming' must largely depend on 
 the good offices of the daily press, public speakers, 
 and writers on rural topics, and on the interest 
 which the intelligent reader may be kind enough 
 to take in the work. 
 
 It is a pleasure to acknowledge the kind help 
 of two fellow-members of the UtUity Poultry 
 Club, one of whom in particular made many 
 useful suggestions while the various chapters 
 were being written. Some of the chapters are 
 based, by the permission of the editor and the 
 proprietor of the Quarterly Review, on an article 
 of the author's in that periodical, entitled 'Poultry 
 Keeping as a Business.' The chapters of the 
 Appendix were contributed to the County Gentle- 
 man and Land and Water, to which paper 
 obUgations are due. To the almost nonogenarian 
 Mr. W. B. Tegetmeier, F.Z.S., author of 'Poultry 
 for Table and Market,' who has for so many years 
 thrown the influence of a naturalist on the side 
 of common-sense poultry keeping ; to the pro- 
 prietors of the Field; to Messrs. Hutchinson and 
 Co., publishers of ' Our Poultry '; to the veteran 
 Mr. Harrison Weir, whose drawings of domestic 
 poultry were the first pictures of hens with 
 which many of us were famihar as children ; to 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 Messrs. W. H. and L. Collingridge, publishers of 
 ' Poultry for Profit,' and to Mr. Randolph Meech, 
 of Poole, indebtedness has also to be expressed 
 for the loan of blocks of illustrative drawings 
 and photographs by which this book could not 
 have benefited but for their courtesy. 
 
 It need hardly be said that corrections, new 
 data, or records of personal experience, likely to 
 be of service in a second edition, willbe greatly 
 valued. 
 
 Shap, 
 August, 1906. 
 
THE TRUTH ABOUT POULTRY 
 FARMING 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE POULTRY FARM MYTH 
 
 It is difficult to think of any subject upon which 
 more nonsense has been talked and written than 
 poultry keeping. 
 
 Public men in their speeches, and public bodies 
 and responsible newspapers in their equally 
 well-meant attempts to encourage an ' infant 
 industry,' have united to prove it true once more 
 that a little learning is a dangerous thing. 
 
 The object of this book is to repeat the old 
 advice : 
 
 ' Drink deep, or touch not the Pierian spring : 
 Its shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, 
 And drinking largely sobers us again.' 
 
 Undoubtedly, what might be called the 
 poultry farm myth owes its origin largely to the 
 
 1 
 
2 THE POULTRY FARM MYTH 
 
 impression made by the printed word. Even 
 in regard to poultry books, among the large 
 numbers which exist, there are not many which 
 can be held to be entirely guiltless of the offence 
 of suggesting, directly or indirectly, that there is 
 money in methods of poultry keeping which, as 
 a matter of fact, are absolutely impracticable. 
 
 The result is weU known. Not only trades- 
 men, pensioners, clerks, maiden ladies, and Avidows 
 of the ' lower middle class,' but numbers of men 
 and women of ' recognised social position,' have 
 lost sums of money which they could Ul afford. 
 In addition to losing money, they have brought 
 no little discredit on poultry keeping. 
 
 The inexperienced who turn their attention to 
 the subject probably go wrong at the start by 
 failing to grasp how it is that, though six hens 
 at the bottom of a kitchen-garden may yield a 
 profit, 600 on an estabhshment wholly devoted 
 to them do not produce a hundred times as 
 much money. To the novice it usually seems 
 incredible that half a dozen birds may answer 
 admirably, and 600 prove ruinous. 
 
 The management of poultry looks simple 
 enough. Everybody has taken notice of the 
 way in which hens look after themselves on 
 farms, and has watched the seemingly easy work 
 of feeding chicks. The rations needed by 
 
THE EASILY MANAGED HEN 3 
 
 poultry are well known, and scientifically calcu- 
 lated in cheap books. The necessary houses are 
 supplied by a number of respectable firms. The 
 methods of hatching, rearing, fattening, and 
 preparing for market, can be learnt. The stock 
 is small in size, conveniently handled, comes 
 quickly to maturity, and soon reproduces itself.* 
 If the cost of feeding a hen need be no more 
 than l|d. a week, and she may lay in a year 150 
 eggs, some of which within twelve months may 
 be turned into 'record layers,' 'prime chickens,' 
 capons, or ' pedigree cockerels ' — how can a 
 poultry farm fail ? 
 
 Money, it is argued, is being made out of 
 poultry by cottagers and farmers' wives who 
 know nothing of scientific methods, and still 
 believe that eggs set on a Sunday or after sun- 
 
 * A chick is only three weeks in the egg. Chickens are 
 ready for market when three months old. Ducklings can 
 be marketed at nine weeks. In a recent experiment by the 
 Reading University College poultry department, chickens 
 averaged when marketed at 12 weeks ^ pounds apiece. 
 'Good Aylesbury-Pekin ducklings,' says the author of 
 ' Poultry for Profit,' ought to weigh at 8 weeks 4 pounds 
 to 5 pounds ; at 9 weeks, 5 pounds to 6 pounds ; at 10 
 weeks, 6 pounds to 7 pounds, if well treated from beginning 
 to end.' Some pullets will lay when they have been only 
 six months in the world, and the whole profitable life of a 
 hen is not more than twenty-six months. 
 
 1—2 
 
Missing Page 
 
Missing Page 
 
6 THE POULTRY FARM MYTH 
 
 — a large proportion from the other end of 
 Europe, from Canada, and from Morocco and 
 Egypt— to say nothing of £1,000,000 worth of 
 dead poultry, shows that there is an opening for 
 people in this country who have the advantage 
 of keeping hens on the spot. 
 
 That there is a future before poultry keeping 
 in this country cannot be doubted. The pro- 
 duction of eggs and table poultry — light foods 
 of which our people are disposed, happily, to eat 
 a larger proportion every year — can be immensely 
 extended. 
 
 But this extension of commercial poultry 
 keeping is possible on certain lines only. It is 
 a satisfaction to know that the facts of the case 
 are being increasingly appreciated by the agri- 
 cultural press and by poultry keepers themselves. 
 Nevertheless, the ignorance that still prevails is 
 so great, the losses which are being made m 
 poultry farming are so pitiful — some £9,000 of 
 savings have lately been dissipated by men and 
 women whose names are known to us — the 
 patronage of poultry keeping by agricultural 
 
 The 1904 figures are : Foreign eggs, d£'6,730,574 ; foreign 
 poultry, .f 1,089,044. Consumption of poultry and eggs 
 in Great Britain : foreign produce, dP7,819,618 ; Irish 
 produce, J'2,400,000 ; British produce, ^,450,000. Total, 
 ^17,669,618. 
 
ILL-ADVISED SHOW COMMITTEES 7 
 
 societies' shows is so largely bestowed in the 
 wrong way, and most of the poultry shows have 
 so little relation to commercial poultry keeping, 
 that it is worth while to set out for the benefit 
 of would-be poultry farmers who are ready to 
 ' take a telling '— most of them are not 1 — and 
 those in a position to advise would-be poultry 
 farmers or agriculturists desirous of giving more 
 attention to egg and table bird production, what 
 are the conditions in which poultry is capable of 
 yielding the most satisfactory financial return. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE POULTRY FARMS WHICH SEEM TO PAY 
 
 The most profitable hens in this country are 
 often the half-dozen kept by a cottager who has 
 at his door a common or field where he is at 
 liberty to let them run. The birds are in robust 
 health, and pick up much of their own living. 
 What food is given them consists chiefly of 
 house-scraps and garden-waste, supplemented 
 sometimes by gleanings. The individual per- 
 formances of the birds as layers are weU known 
 (or ought to be), and the best can be bred from. 
 The house in which the poultry roost is a 
 roughly-contrived structure of no great size, on 
 which the owner may not have spent more than 
 half a crown in cash ; and the manure is put to 
 good use in the garden. However Uttle the 
 man or his wife may get for eggs and for the 
 brood or two of chickens which they raise in a 
 year, there must be a profit. 
 
PROFITABLE POULTRY KEEPING 9 
 
 The next most profitable hens are usually to 
 be found in one of three classes : 
 
 There are, first, the many cases in which half 
 a dozen well-cared-for birds are kept in a reason- 
 ably large pen at the bottom of a suburban 
 kitchen-garden. Like the cottager's hens, they 
 are under close observation, are largely fed — but 
 not overfed — on house-scraps and garden-waste, 
 and produce manure of great value for vegetable 
 and fruit growing. Balance-sheets showing how 
 profitable good birds living under these conditions 
 may be are published almost weekly. 
 
 To the second class belong three or four times 
 as many hens allowed their liberty in the pad- 
 dock or fields attached to a house in the country, 
 and managed with even greater economy owing 
 to their not being penned. It is upon the 
 highly-satisfactory balance-sheets of many owners 
 of poultry kept in such circumstances that not a 
 few wild plans for poultry farming have been based. 
 
 In the third class is the much larger head of 
 poultry skilfully kept by a farmer. The birds 
 subsist on what they can pick up in the fields, 
 supplemented by cheap 'off' or ' tail ' corn, with 
 soft food, principally composed of meals ground 
 on the premises or bought under the favourable 
 conditions in which an agriculturist is able to 
 make such purchases. Rent, labour, straw. 
 
10 FARMS WHICH SEEM TO PAY 
 
 carriage of eggs and poultry to the station, and 
 
 incidentals cost nothing, and the manure is 
 
 utilized.* The amount of revenue which these 
 
 farm hens wUl bring in depends on the way in 
 
 which they have been selected, the time which 
 
 an interested member of the farmer's family 
 
 gives to them, the skill and business knowledge 
 
 brought to their management, the nature of the 
 
 husbandry on the holding, and the egg and 
 
 poultry prices ruling in the district — obviously, a 
 
 farm near Brighton or Cromer might do better 
 
 than one in the Fens. 
 
 * A friend in London who is connected with a large 
 estate in Scotland lately told me that, of the forty farm 
 tenants, one was undoubtedly making poultry pay. There 
 could be little doubt as to the means by which financial 
 success was obtained by the farmer in question, but it 
 seemed worth while to write to the agriculturist in 
 question for particulars. Here is his reply : -' I received 
 your letter to-day regarding poultry keeping, and I now 
 write to give you my idea about it. I have an ordinary 
 cattle feeding farm here, and not a poultry farm. The 
 poultry are kept as an extra and are running at large, and 
 are fed on the light grain, etc., grown on the farm. The 
 poultry here gather a quantity of their food that would be 
 lost, and when this is used up, and no light grain available, 
 we grudge their feeding very much. Farmers'' wives here- 
 about keep the poultry and feed them, and this allows 
 them to keep a purse of their own, an arrangement that 
 suits all parties. I am quite in sympathy with it that 
 poultry farming does not pay.' 
 
WHAT IS A POULTRY FARM? 11 
 
 The least profitable poultry in this country — if, 
 indeed, they are profitable at all — are the birds 
 on what is popularly understood by a poultry 
 farm. 
 
 When novices speak of a poultry farm, they 
 usually have in mind a grass field, most of which 
 is divided up into wire-netting pens, in which a 
 large quantity of poultry is kept.* The owner is 
 supposed by townsmen — but not by his friends 
 or neighbouring farmers, both of whom know 
 better — to make a living by producing and 
 selhng eggs, dead table poultry, stock-birds, and 
 sittings. 
 
 However much one poultry farm may differ 
 from another in magnitude — in some the acreage 
 is large euough for the birds to be put out in 
 ' colony ' houses instead of in pens— there are, in 
 the case of a large number of them, certain 
 common features. The birds are practically 
 hand-fed— that is to say, they are not sufficiently 
 at liberty to gather many seeds or insects, or 
 
 * The following illustration is from an advertisement in 
 a poultry paper : 
 
 'For Sale, or to Let, well-arranged Poultry Farm 
 of 2J acres, containing 3,300 feet of 6 ft. 6 in. Netting, 
 Posts, Stakes, Houses, Rearers, and all accessories; also 
 about 500 head- of High-Class Utility Stock, the whole 
 in excellent condition,' etc. 
 
12 FARMS WHICH SEEM TO PAY 
 
 much variety of green-stuflf, and therefore most 
 of their food, except a Uttle grass, and even their 
 grit, have to be bought. 
 
 The keepiag of such hens involves heavy 
 expenditure, not only on food, but on labour, 
 rent, wire-netting, scratching - sheds, shelters, 
 straw, carriage to and from the station, adver- 
 tising, correspondence, etc, ; while the return 
 from manure is usually largely lost, for the grass 
 of the pens is stimulated to a degree far beyond 
 what is necessary, and there is Uttle or no profit- 
 able return from the droppings in the houses. 
 
 ' But,' says many a would-be poultry farmer, 
 ' I am content to give my labour.' 
 
 All the other items of expenditure, however, 
 still confront him, and they are aU items in 
 respect of which his neighbour, the farmer's 
 wife, son, or daughter, who is his competitor in 
 the market for eggs and table-poultry, and 
 probably for sitting and stock-birds, has an 
 advantage over him. 
 
 So far as is known, no trustworthy balance- 
 sheet of a farm of this class, however hea^dly 
 capitalized, however written up and photo- 
 graphed — and some of the astonishing achieve- 
 ments in this line collected from poultry papers 
 and poultry farm and poultry appliance cata- 
 logues are calculated to impress even the ex- 
 
SHORT-LIVED POULTRY FARMS 13 
 
 perienced — has ever been published which has 
 shown profitable working in its fourth or fifth 
 year. 
 
 It may be suggested that the existence of the 
 poultry farms which are advertising in the poultry 
 press and exhibiting at the shows tends to prove 
 that poultry farming pays, and that, as a matter of 
 fact, some poultry farms do pay. 
 
 There is reason to believe that a careful 
 analysis of a list of these establishments would 
 show, to begin with, that the proportion of them 
 which has been in existence for five years, under 
 the same management, is surprisingly small — very 
 much smaller, that is, than would-be poultry 
 farmers, or most poultry keepers even, imagine 
 to be the case. Readers can easily make some 
 confirmatory inquiries for themselves. But one 
 has only to compare the advertisements in an old 
 number of a poultry paper with those in a recent 
 issue, or to have noted the names of exhibitors at 
 the shows for several years, to realize how rapidly 
 poultry farms and poultry farmers come and go. 
 
 In the second place, a close examination will 
 make it clear that, of those few farms which pass 
 the test of five years under the same manage- 
 ment, the larger number are certainly not what 
 the general public understands by poultry farms. 
 
 Some establishments merely constitute a de- 
 
14 FARMS WHICH SEEM TO PAY 
 
 partment of work on an ordinary farm. The 
 farm is called a 'poultry farm, though it would 
 be equally correct to describe a grocer's shop as 
 a candle-shop. The fact that the grocer keeps 
 the best candles and manages the purchase, the 
 keeping, and the sale of them on commercial and 
 scientific hues does not alter the fact that the 
 shop is a grocer's shop. Similarly, the poultry 
 belonging to the enterprises referred to are 
 living on ordinary farms, not on poultry farms. 
 
 In Berkshire people, no doubt, spoke of the 
 up-to-date poultry farm of Sir Walter Palmer, 
 M.P., for it possessed incubators, brooding-houses, 
 chicken-cramming arrangements, etc. ; but, as 
 will be seen from the title of Sir Walter's book, 
 he writes, sensibly and correctly, not of poultry 
 farming, but of ' Poultry Management on a 
 Farm.' Sir Walter Palmer had a poultry 
 manager, as many land-owners have ; but, in the 
 same way, he no doubt possessed a dairy manager, 
 a stock manager, and a general farm manager, 
 only they were probably not called by such grand 
 names. 
 
 A large number of poultry farms are, as has 
 been said, only departments of the work on 
 ordinary farms, although the scale may be less 
 than in the case of Sir Walter Palmer's enter- 
 prise. 
 
POULTRY FARMING MADE EASY 15 
 
 Another form of poultry farm is that which 
 has the advantage of being run in connection 
 with an Agricultural College or a County 
 Council instruction scheme. It has exceptional 
 facilities for disposing of sittings of eggs and 
 stock-birds at favourable rates ; there are the 
 students' fees ; the supervision is already paid for, 
 and the students provide some of the labour. 
 
 There are also philanthropic organizations 
 which have poultry farms. In these cases there 
 is much kitchen and garden refuse for food, and 
 also unlimited unpaid or cheap labour ; while 
 supporters of the institution may take, at re- 
 munerative prices, a part of the eggs and poultry 
 which are not consumed on the premises. 
 
 In many instances poultry farms are in the 
 hands of men or women who live vsdth relatives 
 who are farmers, and keep their birds on farm 
 land on favourable conditions. Food is obtained 
 at cost price, in many cases practically for 
 nothing ; the work is the poultry farmer's hobby, 
 and incidentals like carriage to and from the 
 station are never debited, while no difficulty is 
 experienced in getting the loan of farm labour. 
 
 Sometimes a poultry farm is an adjunct of an 
 egg-merchant's, higgler's or fattener's business, 
 or of a manufactory of poultry appliances. There 
 is always a profit in the middleman's work 
 
16 FARMS WHICH SEEM TO PAY 
 
 between producer and consumer, while the 
 business - hke timber - merchants and carpenters 
 who launch out as makers of poultry-houses 
 and incubators, and have pens of poultry for pro- 
 ducing sittings and stock-birds for sale to their 
 customers, are also on sure ground. 
 
 Another class of poultry farm belongs to 
 poultry show judges and lecturers, who have 
 opportunities of introducing business, usually in 
 a perfectly legitimate way, with profitable results, 
 before returning home after their platform 
 addresses. These gentlemen sometimes earn 
 money, too, by buying fowls on commission and 
 by taking pupils. 
 
 Then, again, there is the farm which is managed 
 on genteel lines by ladies who, owing to their 
 social connections, are able to dispose of eggs and 
 dead poultry (produced and purchased) at quite 
 exceptional rates. 
 
 Mention should also be made of the poultry 
 farm where milk, fruit, and honey are as much 
 the object sought by the hard-working owner as 
 eggs or table birds. Here * one hand washes the 
 other.' 
 
 Again, there is a very large number of poultry 
 farms belonging to persons who like to have a 
 pleasant house in the country and a field or two 
 of their own, who regard the birds as an interest- 
 
THE DAY-OLD CHICK TRADE 17 
 
 ing distraction, and keep no real accounts for any 
 considerable period, and certainly do not debit 
 the poultry with either rent or labour. 
 
 Finally, we have people who, while managing 
 their poultry on business lines, and anxious to 
 make every penny out of them and their garden 
 that unremitting attention and hard work will 
 yield, have the advantage of an income suffici- 
 ently large to meet their household expenses 
 and the rent of their house and land. Provided 
 the number of birds is kept within limits, and 
 the stock intelligently managed, this is the kind 
 of poultry keeping which often answers very 
 well and deserves encouragement. 
 
 ' The New Book of Poultry ' naively advises 
 the poultry farmer to 'find products of some 
 kind which shall find purchasers at more than 
 market rates.' For example : 
 
 'Eggs or stock from really proved layers can be sold 
 with advertising and management, and if the birds are 
 true to points they will be worth still more. During 
 recent years quite a demand has grown up for newly - 
 hatched chickens, sent off within twenty-four or thirty-six 
 hours of being hatched in incubators, with no further risk 
 or cost of food or liability.' 
 
 It is doubtful, however, whether the remunera- 
 tive day-old chick trade has not now, or may 
 not soon, reach the limits of profitable expan- 
 
 2 
 
18 FARMS THAT SEEM TO PAY 
 
 sion. Day-old chicks are no use to people 
 without a rearer or well-managed broodies. As 
 for the * eggs or stock from really proved layers,' 
 whatever was the demand recently, it would be 
 well worth while for a competent person to 
 analyze the pages of advertisements of such 
 goods from ingenuous and struggling poultry 
 farmers in half a dozen weekly papers which 
 could be mentioned, and to discuss frankly their 
 chances of effecting business. 
 
 After all, notwithstanding the enormous in- 
 crease in poultry keeping on commercial Mnes, and 
 the thousands of people, from peers to pubhcans, 
 who keep poultry because it interests them, the 
 demand for stock - birds, day-old chicks, and 
 sittings of eggs must be limited. 
 
 By steady circularizing and advertising, and 
 then calhng this and similar expenses ' buying 
 experience,' and dropping it out of the accounts, 
 it is no doubt possible to attract business and 
 make a certain number of sales ; but it is some- 
 times forgotten that stock-birds, day-old chicks, 
 and sittings of eggs are not like groceries. A 
 satisfied customer does not necessarily come 
 again. When he has made his purchases, his 
 requirements have commonly been filled, so far 
 as one particular vendor can fill them. At the 
 next purchase he wants 'a change of blood.' 
 
THE FABLED ISLANDERS 19 
 
 To meet this state of things the simple-minded 
 poultry farmer tries to keep a dozen or a score 
 of different breeds at once, and soon makes the 
 confusion of his enterprise worsd confounded. 
 
 Poultry farmers are able, of course, to sell 
 stock, chicks, and eggs to one another to a 
 certain extent, and those who are in the favour- 
 able position of some of the special classes of 
 poultry farmers to whom reference has been 
 made earlier in this chapter may find the transac- 
 tions eventually profitable ; but owners of the 
 ordinary poultry farms of popular imagination, 
 who are said to be 'making a living' by such 
 trade, bring to mind those extraordinary islanders 
 of whom it was fabled that they gained a liveli- 
 hood by taking in each other's washing ! 
 
 In a sentence, the folk who prosper greatly by 
 poultry farming will be found, on investigation, 
 to enjoy, as has been suggested, exceptional 
 advantages of one sort or another. 
 
 But some of the points which have just been 
 discussed will be more fully dealt with in a later 
 chapter. 
 
 2—2 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 DO FINE FEATHERS MAKE FINE BIRDS ? 
 
 To understand how it is that a few people, who 
 are not farmers, or cottagers, or the favourably 
 situated persons whose methods have been out- 
 lined in the previous chapter, contrive to make 
 money out of poultry keeping, and how it is that 
 other folk, who are equally anxious to make it, 
 have many obstacles in their way, it is necessary, 
 in the first place, to recaU what has happened 
 since the new breeds of poultry began to be 
 introduced into this country. 
 
 The owners of these birds, like the owners of 
 the new breeds of goats which are now being 
 kept in England, began to hold Exhibitions. 
 Unfortunately, however, they placed a value on 
 'fideUty to type' rather than on utility. The 
 birds thought worthy of prizes were those which, 
 in their feathering, in the size of their combs, 
 in the tint of their beaks and their toes, and so 
 
 20 
 
o 
 
 >5 
 
BLACK HENS AND WHITE HENS 21 
 
 forth, most nearly approximated to what was 
 regarded as the ideal standard of their breeds — 
 and the ideal standards were constantly changing. 
 The result was that what was bred for by poultry 
 keepers was ' perfection in markings.' 
 
 These are, of course, wholly surface matters, 
 and have nothing whatever to do with laying 
 powers and edible qualities. 
 
 During the simultaneous progress of the last 
 New South Wales and English Laying Com- 
 petitions, it could hardly escape attention 
 that, while the birds in the leading pens 
 in the contest at the Antipodes were black, 
 the layers in the eight foremost pens in our 
 home Competitions were white ! Again, we 
 once had a pen of birds — sisters — of a breed 
 which has a rose comb (like the bird in the 
 frontispiece). One of the pullets was 'mis- 
 marked ' to the extent of possessing a ' single ' 
 comb, and was consequently declined by the 
 neighbour who bought them from us— a man, 
 too, who was keeping poultry for egg production 
 only. The recording nest had proved her to be, 
 however, the best layer of the little company 1 
 
 The early poultry keepers, or the majority of 
 them, were no more enlightened than this neigh- 
 bour. The more perfect the birds could be got 
 in appearance, the better poultry they were 
 
22 DO FINE FEATHERS MAKE FINE BIRDS? 
 
 supposed to be ! Handsome was as handsome 
 seemed ; fine feathers made fine birds I 
 
 What might have been expected happened. 
 Prizes were won by birds which were indifferent 
 layers ; from them more prize-winners were bred, 
 often by deplorable interbreeding of related 
 birds ; and few keepers of hens inquired if the 
 successful birds were exceptionally good layers or 
 really useful poultry. 
 
 With the rise of this new hobby and the 
 passion for perfection in feathering, ' the fancy,' 
 which found poultiy keeping on its lines profit- 
 able, began to invent new breeds. 
 
 Three-quarters of the breeds of poultry now 
 in existence are dehberately invented varieties. 
 For example, the inventor of the Black Orping- 
 ton called into being Buff Orpingtons, White 
 Orpingtons, and Spangled or Jubilee Orpingtons.* 
 Among other varieties there are now of Leghorns, 
 Brown, White, Black, Buff, Cuckoo, Duckwing, 
 and Pile Leghorns ; and of Wyandottes, Silver 
 
 * The so-called Buff Orpington fowls were bi-ed from 
 the ordinary Lincolnshire farmyard fowl, being Cochins 
 crossed with the common fowls and carefully bred until 
 the type was fixed. The different coloured birds that are 
 called Orpingtons were produced from totally different 
 races, as any new breed of fowl can be readily developed 
 by about three years' careful breeding. — FicM, October 22, 
 1904. 
 
IFrom ' Poultry for Table and Market' {Cox). 
 ANOTHER TRIUMPH OF THE POULTRY SHOWS ! 
 
 THE SPANISH COCK AS HE WAS, 
 
 THE SPANISH COCK WITH HIS EAR-LOBES 
 AND COMB AS 'THE FANCV ' HAS EN- 
 LARGED THEM. 
 
 [To face -p. 22. 
 
THE DELUDED FARMER 23 
 
 (that is, speckled), BufF, BuiF-laced, Partridge, 
 Silver-pencilled, Blue-laced, and White Wyan- 
 dottes; and so on. At the last Dairy Show 
 from fifty to sixty ' different breeds ' were repre- 
 sented. 
 
 As a hobby there could be no objection to this 
 fancy poultry breeding. It furnished, and con- 
 tinues to furnish, thousands of working men and 
 suburban and country residents with harmless 
 and instructive recreation. 
 
 But when the public was invited to believe 
 that these Show strains provided the best poultry 
 for the farmer and the cottager, immense damage 
 was done to the interests of poultry and poultry 
 keeping in this country. One constantly finds 
 farmers and others, who keep poultry for use, so 
 impressed by the pretensions of prize-winning 
 strains as to buy purely ornamental cockerels at 
 a guinea apiece under the impression that such 
 birds will improve the profitable quahties of their 
 stock. 
 
 Indeed, since this paragraph was written a case 
 has come under notice in which a young country 
 squire had actually bought some particular Show 
 variety of Brahmas for egg production. On 
 venturing to suggest to the investor that a 
 mistake had been made, the reply was: 'But 
 they were expensive pedigree birds ' ! At the 
 
24 DO FINE FEATHERS MAKE FINE BIRDS? 
 
 time of writing (March) they have not yet 
 laid! 
 
 Happily, it is being increasingly realized that 
 it is not to Show types we must look for the 
 poultry of most intrinsic worth. Although the 
 Shows are no doubt entitled to credit for in- 
 creasing public interest, not only in poultry 
 keeping, but in natural history and quiet hobbies, 
 and for giving invaluable lessons to the intelligent 
 poultry keeper in how not to breed and manage 
 his birds, and for keeping the poultry papers 
 going, they have almost ruined — as is now, 
 indeed, generally admitted by candid writers — 
 some exceedingly useful old breeds.* 
 
 The Langshan, the layer of an egg of a deeper 
 brown than any other variety, was a plump, 
 cobby bird when first brought from Chma. It 
 is now, through being bred to the arbitrary 
 
 * ' Old books. Middle Age inventories, and other sources 
 make it perfectly plain that whatever may have been told 
 to the contrary, for many centuries our poultry was not 
 merely one of the neglected appendages of the villa tind 
 farm, but was chosen and bred with much care, atten- 
 tion, and discretion; and that before any Poultry Shows 
 existed, the table fowls of Kent were noted in history, 
 and with those of Sussex and Surrey were truthfully pro- 
 nounced by competent judges to be as "table fowls the 
 very finest and best in the world."' — Mr. Harhison Weir, 
 in ' Our Poultry,'' 
 
' THE FANCY'S ' ACHIEVEMENT 25 
 
 standard of 'the fancy,' so long in the leg — 
 fanciers are great believers in ' bone,' as if bone 
 could be eaten or could be grown out of nothing 
 — that it finds the Show cages almost too small 
 for it. 
 
 The Old English Game, compact, enormously 
 strong, and laden with breast and leg meat, has 
 degenerated, in the Modern Show Game, into 
 a weedy, long-necked spindle-shanks, with a 
 head and beak more like the head and beak of 
 a pigeon than of the valiant bird which, more 
 than any other domestic fowl, perhaps, showed 
 us the unmistakable survival of the fittest. 
 
 The Brahma and Cochin, which once were 
 relatively clean-legged and useful birds, are now 
 unprofitable creatures, covered from head to toe 
 vdth an embarrassing mass of feathers that 
 makes existence a misery for them outside a 
 Show pen. 
 
 The valuable, lively, bare-faced Houdan has 
 had its top-knot of feathers so increased that the 
 creature has become a piteous object, hardly able 
 to see, and, of course, no longer of use to a 
 farmer, whose cattle would be constantly tramp- 
 ling on birds so encumbered. 
 
 The ear-lobes of the Spanish have been actually 
 doubled in size, and the fine laying powers of the 
 breed extinguished in the process. 
 
26 DO FINE FEATHERS MAKE FINE BIRDS? 
 
 The comb of the Minorca now hes over one 
 side of its head to such a degree that * cradles ' 
 have been invented to sustain it ! 
 
 It was stated in a poultry paper (February, 
 1905) that, 'if the Spanish had been knocked 
 out, a grand substitute in the shape of the 
 Minorca, or red-faced Black Spanish, had been 
 brought forward by the fancier.' The fact that 
 the report of the Laying Competition, issued the 
 same month, showed that not a single pen of 
 Minorcas figured among the thirty-six pens sent 
 in speaks for itself. It is a striking illustration 
 of the value of ' the fancy ' to the cause of utihty 
 poultry, that, of the 4,193 entries at the Grand 
 International Show at Sheffield, no fewer than 
 1,133 were — bantams ! 
 
 It is needless to say that, in the breeding for 
 feathers solely, stamina has been as much lost 
 sight of as useful quahties. Not a few Show 
 birds, which have httle value as layers and are by 
 no means the best eating, would probably die if 
 left in the open for a winter's night. It is certainly 
 not with them as with the sturdy fowls of old 
 time, who made nothing of ' sleeping out ' : 
 
 ' I heard no more, for chanticleer 
 Shook off the powcPry snow. 
 And hailed the morning with a cheer, 
 A cottage-rousing crow.' 
 
^^ JM 
 
 K ,/ 
 
 J^^ 
 
 
 {From ' Our Poultry ' (Hutchinson). 
 A COCHIN COCKEREL OF 1853. 
 
 An active and. useful bird, in striking contrast with the modern development 
 illustrated on a later page. 
 
 [To face p. 26. 
 
'FLUFF' VERSUS EGGS 
 
 n 
 
 Readers in any doubt on the subject have only 
 to order a sitting or two from pens of Show birds. 
 The small proportion of eggs which hatch, or 
 hatch out vigorous chicks, will demonstrate the 
 physical ineflBciency of the birds from which the 
 sittings came. 
 
 But the following specimen of the standards 
 in ' The New Book of Poultry,' the standard for 
 ' Buff-laced Wyandottes,' will perhaps make it 
 plain that we do not exaggerate in empha- 
 sizing the absurdity of the Show idea of 'per- 
 fection ' : 
 
 Scale fob Reckoning Defects. 
 
 Head and comb 
 
 8 points 
 
 Ear-lobes and wattles 
 
 ... 6 „ 
 
 Breast 
 
 ... 20 „ 
 
 Back 
 
 ... 15 „ 
 
 Tail 
 
 ... 15 „ 
 
 Wings 
 
 ... 10 „ 
 
 Fluff 
 
 ... 10 „ 
 
 Legs 
 
 ... 5 „ 
 
 Size and condition ... 
 
 ... 11 » 
 
 A perfect bird 
 
 ... 100 „ 
 
 In other words, while fluff counts 10, tail 15, and 
 ear-lobes and wattles 6, health and physique 
 together are given only 11 points out of the 100, 
 and laying powers are not even mentioned ! In 
 
28 DO FINE FEATHERS MAKE FINE BIRDS? 
 
 point of fact, a ' perfect bird ' may be a creature 
 which has never laid and never will lay.* 
 
 And no wonder, for we might as well hope 
 to find good milkers among cows bred for years 
 for length of horn and tail, and tiat of hoof, and 
 for these points only, as to expect many eggs 
 from hens which have been bred and interbred 
 for absurd and unnatural 'fancy' points, and 
 physicked and coddled like so many Show 
 specimens. 
 
 * 'The late Mr. Nichols maintained that I had over- 
 stated the case about the present race of Spanish fowls, 
 and the prize-winner that 1 had described as being abso- 
 lutely sterile had really laid one egg, and that the breed 
 was not as delicate as I had alleged, as he had kept high- 
 class Show birds in an open shed during the past winter, 
 and the cock had suffered no further injury than the loss of 
 part of his comb amd the ends of his toes.'' — Ma. W. B. 
 Tegetmeier, in ' Poultry for Table and Market.'' 
 
 Even in the case of ducks and at the Royal Agricultural 
 Show itself, the prizes are awarded for fancy points. 
 Writing of a recent Royal Agricultural Show, the Field 
 said : ' It is difficult to underetand why prizes should be 
 given to old ducks, ruptured, overfatted birds, that could 
 never be expected to lay again.' 
 

 :^ 
 
 
 ■^^ 
 
 lAnother drawing by Mr. Hat^ison Weir, from ' Our Poultry ' (Hutchinson). 
 A MODERN COCHIN" COCKEREL. 
 
 Comparison with ' A Cochin Cockerel of 1S53 ' on a previous page will make 
 plain the degeneracy brought about by 'the Fancy.' 
 
 [To face p. 2S. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE FINANCE OF FANCY POULTRY KEEPING 
 
 As not a few people will pay for an article of 
 luxury what they would grudge for an article of 
 necessity,* this breeding of Show birds has been, 
 as already indicated, not a little profitable to 
 many who have given attention to it. 
 
 The acrimony of the controversies carried on 
 in the Exhibition poultry press, the wilful maim- 
 ing of prize-winners at Shows by envious exhibi- 
 tors, and the ' faking ' of plumage, and other 
 
 * One year .fSOO was paid for a Game cockerel, another 
 year an Orpington was knocked down for i>150, and already 
 this season several birds have been sold for ^50 each, and 
 one for as much as £165, There are quite a number of 
 fanciers in this country — men of means and with a keen 
 interest in their hobby — who will pay these fabulous prices 
 merely for the sake of winning some coveted prize. 
 Indeed, there are plenty less fortunate who would gladly 
 do the same if they were blessed with equal means. — 
 Potdtn/, May 12, 1905. 
 
 29 
 
30 FINANCE OF FANCY POULTRY KEEPING 
 
 tricks, sharp practices, and meannesses fre- 
 quently brought to hght by judges and others, 
 give some hint of the commercial interests at 
 stake. It was only last year that a leading 
 poultry journal dwelt on ' that very unpleasant 
 subject, the growth of dishonourable practices 
 in connection with Poultry Shows.' And it is not 
 difficult to read between the hnes of writing of 
 this sort, which is continually appearing in the 
 poultry papers : 
 
 ' The poultry judge should refuse to be led astray by 
 the many efforts of the moneyed though unscrupulous 
 exhibitors . . . Judges should never supply to exhibitors 
 the identical fowls they afterwards are called upon to 
 Eidjudge. It can scarcely be expected that, at least in cases 
 of close equality, the balance will not at length " draw " 
 in favour of a bird that the present owner ordered to be 
 procured for him without the slightest limitation as to 
 price « if it could win." When J>10, £20, or even i^30, 
 are thus jeopardized by the result, and that, top, when the 
 arbitrator is himself to be the recipient, it scarcely requires 
 the foresight of a prophet to determine the probabilities.' — 
 Poultry, June 9, 1905. 
 
 The following extracts from ' The New Book 
 of Poultry ' speak for themselves : 
 
 'The upright judge must be constantly on the watch 
 against attempts at artificial faking. All he cannot 
 detect, and he is not called upon to go ruffling thi'ough 
 the plumage of all the birds to see what he can find. And 
 
POULTRY SHOW ROGUERY 31 
 
 a good judge may be too innocent to discover what others 
 can find. A case has just occurred as we write wherein a 
 judge, who had disqualified one or two failed combs, 
 passed without discovery three Buif Orpingtons most 
 beautifully dyed ! . . . Symmetrical comb is a very 
 important point, and the knife or dissecting scissors are 
 often employed to cut it into better shape. ... Several 
 cases have occurred of judges finding Hamburghs with long 
 pins or needles through the combs, in order to hold parts 
 in better position, or which may have been inserted to 
 hold cut portions together, and been forgotten. . . . 
 Dyed plumage is not so very uncommon. . . . The most 
 diflScult cases are, perhaps, those of wholesale plucking of 
 body feathers. A good Mooney will sometimes lose half a 
 basketful. . . . The greatest triumphs of the faker are, 
 perhaps, the insertion of perfect feathers instead of im- 
 perfect.' 
 
 A writer in a poultry paper, describing the 
 leading features of the Poultry Shows of 1905, 
 says : ' Quite a lot of cases of artificially coloured 
 legs came under my observation.' 
 
 Breeding for the Shows is not, however, 
 poultry farming. 
 
 Some of the most successful exhibitors have 
 never had more accommodation for their birds 
 than that available in the back-yard or back- 
 garden of a house ysdthin the five-mile radius, 
 rented at £25 or £35 a year ; nor is much more 
 room requisite. These Show breeders frequently 
 specialize in a single breed, and when this is the 
 
32 FINANCE OF FANCY POULTRY KEEPING 
 
 case the number of birds they keep is necessarily 
 limited. Few exhibitors live on what they make 
 out of their poultry. The birds are merely the 
 hobby, occasionally the paying hobby, of their 
 leisure hours. 
 
 But what the poultry farmer wants is to make 
 his poultry farm keep him. 
 
 The difficulties he would meet with in taking 
 up Show birds are obviously considerable. He 
 would have to begin operations with the best 
 stock, from a Show point of view, and such birds 
 are as costly as they are delicate. Of the 
 marvellous minutiae of Show breeding, of the 
 general management of poultry in health and 
 disease — and the ailments of the Show bird are 
 legion — and of the mysteries of preparing stock 
 for Show,* he is probably ignorant. He would 
 
 * This is the kind of thing : ' If the colour of comb and 
 face be somewhat pale, a little underdone meat, and one of 
 the before-mentioned citrate of iron and potash pills daily, 
 or 10 grains of the iron citrate and 1 drachm of the potash 
 citrate in ^ pint of drinking water, will improve matters, as 
 will sometimes a little toast soaked in old ale, or a tea- 
 spoonful daily of port-wine. ... A white lobe must on 
 no account be greased or scrubbed, but gently gone over 
 with a sponge, and when dry puffed with oxide of zinc. . . , 
 Birds are often seen in a pen in their old scales, which 
 might often have been removed.' — ' The Nezo Book of 
 . Poultry.'' 
 
THE FUTURE OF SHOW POULTRY 33 
 
 have to spend much money in sending to and 
 attending Shows, and the competition of more 
 experienced exhibitors would in most cases 
 prevent any profitable return. Confident antici- 
 pations as to gains to be made by new-comers to 
 fancy poultry keeping by selling any large number 
 of young stock-birds to other exhibitors ought 
 to be checked by a glance at the number of 
 advertisers of such commodities in the poultry 
 press. 
 
 Briefly, the probabilities are that by the time 
 our novice attained to the glory of winning his 
 ' Second Caterham, third Great Missenden, 
 reserve Nelson ' — we quote from advertisements 
 of hopeful vendors of stock-birds in a poultry 
 paper — he would begin to doubt, like Sam 
 Weller's charity boy when he got to the end of 
 the alphabet, whether it had really been worth 
 while going through so much to learn so little. 
 
 Moreover, it is at least doubtful whether 
 Exhibition poultry keeping has not seen its most 
 profitable days even for the most successful 
 practitioners. As the keeping of useful poultry 
 makes headway, the artificial and economically 
 unsound part of the business must fall behind. 
 
 Just as there are some few breeders of Show 
 poultry who have followed the hobby for many 
 years, and have made money by it, so there are 
 
 3 
 
34 FINANCE OF FANCY POULTRY KEEPING 
 
 perhaps two or three, but only two or three, 
 breeders of utUity birds who have succeeded in 
 managing poultry farms to their satisfaction. 
 One shrewd, industrious, and widely respected 
 enthusiast, who has been in business for a quarter 
 of a century, made his reputation by selling birds 
 which, while ' true to tjrpe,' were also of fair laying 
 stock. His pens are on grass-land, are each a 
 quarter of an acre in area, and are mown for hay 
 or fed off by sheep every year. That he is one of 
 the moving spirits of the Utility Poultry Club, has 
 offered a prize for the best cross-bred layers,* and 
 has consistently refused to exhibit or to judge at 
 Shows, furnishes a key to the ideas which have 
 inspired him in his enterprise. But even this 
 poultry farmer supplements his income by selling 
 incubators and taking pupils. 
 
 * It is to be regretted that the Utility Poultry Club 
 has not seen its way to devote four pens or so of the thirty 
 at its Laying Competitions to cross-bred birds, in order that 
 their laying might be tested against the laying of pure- 
 breds. Many experienced poultry keepers believe that 
 cross-breds are better layers than pure-breds, and the 
 elaborate data of the Reading College poultry farm in 
 regard to the rearing of thirty cross-breds and thirty White 
 Wyandottes, both killed and marketed at twelve weeks, 
 showed that the former weighed more than 2^ pounds 
 heavier for the same expenditure on food. While the 
 White Wyandottes made only 2s. 9d. apiece, half the 
 cross-breds fetched 3s. 6d. 
 
PAYING POULTRY FARMS' 'EXTRAS' 35 
 
 The only other successful poultry farmers, 
 who are not also general farmers, are believed to 
 have derived part of their receipts from breeding 
 specimens for Shows, from exhibiting and 
 judging, from the manufacture and sale of 
 poultry requisites, or from pupils. That there 
 is no objection in the least to these ' extras ' goes 
 without saying ; but it is necessary that they 
 should be mentioned in considering the financial 
 prospects of what the novice understands by 
 poultry farming. 
 
 The creditable success of a weU-known lady's 
 httle White Wyandotte poultry farm has probably 
 been responsible for some recent essays in poultry 
 farming. Here was a poultry keeper who had 
 the good luck to find, when she sent four of her 
 pullets to the 1903-04 Laying Competition, that 
 she owned one of the best laying strains in 
 the country. Orders for sittings and stock-birds 
 poured in on her. The next year she was again 
 represented at the Laying Competition, and was 
 again triumphant. Until her second success no 
 one had won at the Competition twice. The 
 result has been, of course, highly satisfactory. 
 But it is surely plain that similar good fortune 
 to this poultry keeper's cannot be enjoyed by an 
 indefinite number of people. It should also be 
 noted that our successful poultry farmer has 
 
 3—2 
 
36 FINANCE OF FANCY POULTRY KEEPING 
 
 adopted the sensible practice of running her 
 birds on farmers' land rather than keeping 
 several fields herself. (Some of the best-known 
 vendors of Show birds adopt the plan of getting 
 farmers to rear and run their birds.) She also 
 takes pupils. 
 
 If, in making his calculations, the would-be 
 poultry farmer would only realize that many 
 thousand head of poultry in this country are 
 kept as much for pleasure as for profit, that 
 many thousands more certainly do not pay a 
 dividend on their egg -laying, that poultry 
 keeping with many people is as much a habit 
 as an industry, and that there is the authority of 
 more than one leading factor for the statement 
 that a number of the dead fowls received at 
 Smithfield from the provinces every day are of 
 so poor a quahty that they are probably not 
 disposed of at a profit to the consigners, he would 
 be saved much disappointment and loss. 
 
 Since the merits of utiUty poultry have come 
 so much to the fore, not a few poultry breeders 
 have taken to advertising ' Utihty mth Exhibi- 
 tion type,' and similar absurdities, concerning 
 their stock. It need hardly be said that it is possible 
 to breed for Show points or for Utihty points, 
 but not, in any real sense, for both together. 
 The best bird from the point of view of utility 
 
'TRUE TO TYPE' LAYERS 37 
 
 is the bird which lays the most eggs, or will 
 produce, when killed, the largest slices off the 
 breast. Between such merits — which have no- 
 thing whatever to do with the exact shading of 
 feathers or tints of toes — and those Club standard 
 points which are held to constitute what is called 
 perfection, a gulf is fixed. No doubt in breeding 
 self-coloured birds like White Wyandottes, 
 White Leghorns, or Black Orpingtons, some 
 good layers may not be far from the Show type, 
 but even White Wyandottes get what the fancy 
 calls ' brassy.' The notion that birds of varie- 
 gated plumage hke Silver Wyandottes, for 
 instance, can always be ' true to type ' and still 
 first-class layers will be pronounced preposterous 
 by any experienced poultry keeper. The best- 
 laying Silver Wyandotte the author ever had 
 possessed almost every fault from a Show point 
 of view. 
 
 The charge that the keeper of useful poultry 
 wants to turn his fowls into mongrels is non- 
 sense. He recognises that certain new breeds 
 and a few old ones (like some surviving strains 
 of the Old English Game, Langshan, and the 
 present Kent or Sussex fowl — which, until ' the 
 fancy ' took it in hand in 1903, had come down 
 to us almost unchanged since the Roman occu- 
 pation) — have such points of excellence that it is 
 
38 FINANCE OF FANCY POULTRY KEEPING 
 
 eminently desirable that they should be kept 
 pure.* It is surely excusable, however, if he 
 should smile at the ardour in the cause of purity 
 exhibited by men who have been directly or 
 indirectly responsible for the manufacture, by 
 unlimited crossing and mongrehsing, e.g., of 
 some of the absolutely useless new ' varieties.' 
 
 * One reason from the utility point of view for main- 
 taining purity of breed is that (as the Utility Poultry 
 Club says) 'it is the foundation of the profitable first 
 cross.' 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE MESSAGE 0¥ THE RECORDING NEST 
 
 So long 'as the laying powers of different hens 
 could be estimated only by the rough-and-ready 
 test that good layers are usually close-feathered, 
 active, intelligent-looking birds, the last to roost 
 and the first to hop down in the morning, there 
 was no trustworthy body of evidence to oppose 
 to the pretensions of ' the fancy ' that laying went 
 along with ' type.' By the invention of the trap, 
 register, or recording nest, however, every egg 
 can be credited to the hen which laid it. 
 (The bird, on entering the nest, springs a trap- 
 door or other device, which prevents her egress 
 till the egg she lays can be removed and noted 
 down to her number, a duplicate of which is die- 
 printed on her leg-ring.) 
 
 How much a company of hens, beheved by 
 their experienced owners to be of equal lajdng 
 powers, really differ from one another in their 
 
 39 
 
40 MESSAGE 01' THE RECORDING NEST 
 
 rate of egg production and their commercial 
 value may be seen by the fact that, of some 
 pullets tested at an experimental station for a 
 year, 5 laid from 200 to 208 eggs, while 3 laid 
 but 36, 37, and 38 respectively ! ' The poorest 
 layers,' we are told, ' looked as promising as the 
 others,' 
 
 ' I once paid £15 for three pullets from the 
 best pen of a celebrated utility breeder,' says 
 one writer, ' and found that, whilst one hen laid 
 167 eggs during the following twelve months, 
 another only produced 32. Mated with the same 
 cockerel as an experiment, the best pullet thrown 
 by the former bird yielded 204 eggs in her first 
 year, whilst the oflfspring of the 32-egg bird only 
 averaged 41.' 
 
 The Winter Laying Competitions conducted in 
 England every year by the Utility Poultry Club* 
 prove unmistakably that egg-producing power 
 may be increased by breeding from good layers 
 mated to male birds sprung from a good laying 
 strain. At the first two Competitions (1897-98 
 and 1898-99) the winning pens — the pens consist 
 of four pullets t each, and the contests last for 
 
 * Copies of its Year-book can be had from Mr. B. W. 
 Home, 49, Gloucester Gardens, London, S.W. 
 
 t A pullet is usually employed to mean a bird in its 
 first year. Later on in its career it is a hen. A cockerel 
 
LAYING COMPETITION RESULTS 
 
 41 
 
 sixteen weeks — produced an average of only 
 157 eggs. At the last two Competitions (1903-04 
 and 1904-05) the average was 244 eggs— a sub- 
 stantial advance. 
 
 At the 1904-05 Competition the three leading 
 pens (of four pullets each) acquitted themselves 
 as follows : 
 
 Pen. 
 
 Breed. 
 
 First 
 Month. 
 
 Second 
 Month. 
 
 Third 
 Month. 
 
 Fourth 
 Month 
 
 Indi- 
 vidual 
 Scores. 
 
 Total 
 
 Scores. 
 
 WTiite Leghorns 
 
 White La Bresse - 
 
 White Wyandottes 
 
 18 
 16 
 16 
 13 
 15 
 11 
 12 
 10 
 8 
 21 
 16 
 11 
 
 13 
 19 
 21 
 19 
 18 
 20 
 20 
 18 
 14 
 22 
 19 
 20 
 
 17 
 19 
 19 
 17 
 21 
 21 
 19 
 21 
 
 6 
 23 
 
 6 
 17 
 
 66 
 62 
 69 
 49 
 60 
 67 
 66 
 57 
 37 
 73 
 62 
 64 
 
 -246 
 
 1-240 
 
 226* 
 
 It will be noticed that one bird in the third pen, 
 a drone of the type that the recording nest 
 
 is ordinarily a male bird in its first year. The Royal 
 Agricultural Show (which is held in June) defines pullets 
 and cockerels as birds hatched dui'ing the year in which 
 the Show is held. 
 
 * The prizes are awarded on a scale of points, two being 
 given for every egg weighing over If ounces, and one for 
 every egg weighing If ounces or less. Reckoning by points, 
 the pens' totals were : 245 eggs pen, 472 ; 240 eggs pen, 
 460 ; 226 eggs pen, 440. 
 
42 MESSAGE OF THE RECORDING NEST 
 
 enables a poultry keeper to weed out, laid only 
 37 eggs against a companion's 73, 
 
 The Competitions are held from October to 
 January — that is, the period of the year in which, 
 owing to weather conditions, the laying powers 
 of poultry are most severely tested. 
 
 The Club is careful to state that the object of 
 the Competitions is not to pick out the best 
 breed of poultry for laying, but the best laying 
 strains, irrespective of breed. The correctness 
 of its attitude is illustrated by the fact that only 
 one breed — White Wyandottes — has furnished 
 the Avinning pen on more than one occasion.* 
 The winning breeds since 1897-98 have been 
 in turn as follows : Black Minorcas, BuiF Leg- 
 horns, Silver Wyandottes, Plymouth Rocks, 
 Golden Wyandottes, White Wyandottes (two 
 years running), and White Leghorns. 
 
 How little laying has to do with breed, and 
 how much it depends on strain, may also be seen 
 from the fact that the last pen but one on the 
 list at the last Competition was composed of 
 White Wyandottes, the very breed which has 
 come out top at two laying Competitions ! 
 Perhaps more striking is the fact that the two 
 birds which went through the whole Competition 
 
 * On both occasions the winning birds were from the 
 stock of the same poultry keeper. 
 
& tii 
 
 ~ 
 
 < 
 
 rrtS 
 
 
 c ^ 
 
 1=. 
 
 
 id 3 
 
 ^ 
 
 M 
 
 01 O 
 
 & Q 
 
 
 m 
 
 
 
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 ■g- 
 
 K, 
 
 Ed 
 
 T1 H 
 
 ^ 
 
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 Z a 
 
 K 
 
 S5 
 
 ■" S, 
 
 to 
 
 
 
 W 
 
 F^.a 
 
 
 |x] 
 
 P< 
 
 
 tn 
 
 riJ:^ 
 
 
 H 
 
 S " 
 
 
 tf 
 
 ^ ja 
 
 
 
 
 
 te 
 
 
 
 P 
 
 ■S3 
 
 
 f, 
 
 ^ «> 
 
 
 a 
 
 3 B 
 
 
 w 
 
 
 
 m 
 
 g a 
 
 
 S5 
 
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 5 •" 
 
 
 
 ■2 rt 
 
 
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 g :^ 
 
 
 
 a a, 
 
 
 
 
 
 is 
 
 
 
 H 
 
 en 
 
 a ^ 
 
 
 !21 
 
 tg 
 
 
 CM 
 
 -P ^ 
 
 
 ■< 
 
 
 
 « 
 
 5= g 
 
 
 H 
 
 m ^ 
 
HEAVY VERSUS LIGHT BIRDS 43 
 
 without laying an egg were both White Wyan- 
 dottes ! 
 
 In the International Laying Competition in 
 New South Wales, lasting for twelve months, 
 Silver Wyandottes were the winning breed, 
 followed by Black Orpingtons, Andalusians, and 
 White Leghorns. The Colonial winning pen 
 (of six birds) produced in one year 1,308 eggs, 
 weighing 24 ounces per dozen. 
 
 The White Leghorns mentioned, though 
 coming high in the hst for number and weight 
 of eggs, were not so profitable as some Silver 
 Wyandottes, which were No. 9 on the list, with 
 forty-five eggs fewer. The reason is that the 
 White Leghorns' 1,225 eggs, weighing 27 J 
 ounces per dozen, sold for only £6 8s. Id., while 
 the Silver Wyandottes' 1,180 eggs, weighing 24^ 
 ounces per dozen, produced £7 8s. 3d. This 
 was due to the fact that the Wyandottes laid a 
 larger proportion of their eggs in the winter, the 
 dear time of the year. 
 
 The supporters of the International Competi- 
 tion hold it proved, and it is a widely-held 
 opinion in this country, that birds of the Asiatic, 
 or of the Wyandotte or Orpington type, will 
 always be better winter layers than the Medi- 
 terranean varieties, such as Leghorns, Anconas, 
 and Andalusians. 
 
44 MESSAGE OF THE RECORDING NEST 
 
 On the other hand, it nmst be borne in mind 
 that the light Mediterranean breeds do not go 
 broody, come earher to maturity, and are much 
 smaller eaters than the heavier varieties. The 
 winning Leghorn pen at the last English Laying 
 Competition weighed 14 pounds 12 ounces on 
 arrival, against the 20 pounds 12 ounces and 25 
 pounds 8 ounces of a pen of Buff Orpingtons and 
 a pen of Salmon FaveroUes. The Leghorns when 
 they left the Competition weighed 18 pounds, 
 and the Buff Orpingtons and Salmon FaveroUes 
 25 pounds and 29 pounds 8 ounces respectively. 
 If we could get the same results from keeping 
 birds averaging 3 pounds odd as from birds run- 
 ning to 6 pounds odd, it is plain that most of us 
 would not breed the bigger creatures which eat 
 so much more. 
 
 It has to be remembered, however, that the 
 hght breeds' eggs are white, and that tinted eggs 
 fetch a higher price than white eggs. Again, 
 the slim, active cockerels of the light breeds are 
 not in England considered to be as attractive for 
 the table as the plump and more sedate ' general 
 purpose ' fowls, and must be got rid of at three 
 months old, as they will not fatten later, and the 
 females, when disposed of as * old hens,' do not 
 find favour in the eyes of the higglers. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 HOW farmers' fowls are made to pay 
 
 The high price of winter eggs has made the cold 
 weather season the harvest-time of the poultry 
 keeper. But he is not now bound to take the 
 low prices which prevail in summer for eggs laid 
 at that time of the year. 
 
 ,31illions of eggs, produced at a season when they 
 would sell at twenty and twenty-two a shilling, are 
 now perfectly preserved in water-glass (silicate of 
 soda) until Christmas-time. Immense quantities 
 of low-priced eggs, as of low-priced table poultry, 
 are also kept by merchants and dealers in cold 
 storage in London and the provinces tiU the 
 dear time of the year comes round. 
 
 It is plain that by avoiding sales at unremun- 
 erative prices, no less than by keeping stock 
 bred from good layers, and so frequently tested 
 as to maintain a high laying average, there are 
 increasing opportunities of making poultry keep- 
 
 45 
 
46 HOW FARMERS' FOWLS PAY 
 
 ing profitable. The testing is clearly important, 
 for a good layer costs no more to keep than a 
 bad one. 
 
 It is true that egg preservation is likely, in 
 many cases, to lead to summer eggs being 
 palmed off in winter as fresh ; but that is a risk 
 which the consumer can only learn to avoid by 
 experience. (Unless an egg which has been 
 preserved in water-glass has been punctured 
 with a needle by the vendor, it will crack in 
 boiling, on the same principle that a hermeti- 
 cally sealed kettle of water would explode when 
 heated.) The risks run at the breakfast-table by 
 the consumer who pays for fresh eggs and 
 expects to get them are so great, indeed, that he 
 can hardly be blamed if he should worry his 
 grocer for the rose-branded eggs put on the 
 market by the various branches of the National 
 Poultry Organization Society. 
 
 It hardly needs to be said that weU-managed 
 poultry on an ordinary farm will pay well. ' The 
 New Book of Poultry ' gives the names and 
 addresses of a number of farmers in one district 
 in the Midlands who are able to report, after 
 many years' experience, that farm poultry, 
 properly handled, bring m a satisfactory return. 
 
 Every country resident, however, knows agri- 
 culturists who say that poultry do not pay 
 
MANAGEMENT OF FARM POULTRY 47 
 
 The reason they do not pay is that the birds 
 are in-bred, of the wrong tjrpes, and of bad 
 laying strains, and are managed on no system, or 
 on an unintelUgent one. 
 
 Birds in large numbers collected about the 
 farmyard are a nuisance, and are rarely profitable. 
 Farm poultry should be spread over all the area 
 of the holding in small flocks of a score or two 
 dozen,* kept in strong, easily-moved, well- ven- 
 tilated, draught-tight, broad-wheeled houses. 
 
 The careful carbonic acid experiments of 
 Messrs. Russell and Mackenzie at Wye Agri- 
 cultural College show beyond doubt that fowls 
 require at the very least 35 cubic feet of air per 
 hour, that more is desirable — the requirements 
 are practically the same as the Act of Parliament 
 provides for human beings in cotton factories — 
 and that overcrowding decreases egg production 
 and invariably leads to disease. 
 
 The virulence of some bird diseases has to be 
 witnessed to be believed. A number of years 
 ago enteritis carried off 200 birds within a 
 fortnight at the late William Cook's poultry 
 establishment ; and in 1903, on a single estate, 
 
 * These are, of course, layers only. Breeding stock 
 must be kept in much smaller companies. Male birds 
 should not be run with birds kept for laying only, as 
 infertile eggs remain good longer than fertile eggs. 
 
48 HOW FARMERS' FOWLS PAY 
 
 the same affection killed within a few days 1,200 
 pheasants. ' Absolutely •' exclusive " poultry 
 farming is impossible,' as ' The New Book of 
 Poultry ' says, if for * no other reason than that 
 it is absolutely necessary that something should 
 consume the manure to keep the land sweet — 
 and to pay rent while it is sweetening.' 
 
 As to the recommendation of reasonably Mght 
 houses, the immensely heavy houses seen on 
 many farms, made out of old waggons and 
 ' barn-works,' are of necessity far too seldom 
 moved, and when shifted are usually damaged 
 under the straining to which they must be 
 subjected in being dragged from one field to 
 another. 
 
 If, in addition to obtaining as high a laying 
 average as possible, by breeding only from a 
 small company of selected layers, and by hatch- 
 ing at the right time for laying in the late 
 summer, autumn, and winter, when eggs are 
 dearest, birds are kept of the varieties which, 
 according to the nature of the local demand, 
 produce the largest number of eggs or the best 
 table birds, or combine these powers in as large a 
 measure as possible, the farmer is on the high- 
 road to success. 
 
 There are breeds, like Anconas, which usually 
 lay plenty of eggs, but make no show as table 
 
BROWN VERSUS WHITE EGGS 49 
 
 birds. It is from others, like Game and Dork- 
 ings, that the best table birds are obtained, 
 but these breeds are bad layers. A third class, 
 including Wyandottes and Orpingtons, produce 
 a high average of eggs, and also yield a present- 
 able table bird. 
 
 Then there are to be considered conditions of 
 soil and weather favouring different breeds — 
 sometimes, even for laying purposes only, it is 
 well to keep two breeds, one to lay while the other 
 is largely broody — and the colour of the eggs 
 they lay. The public will pay more for a brown 
 egg, under the impression that it is * richer ' than 
 a white one.* These requirements can some- 
 times be satisfactorily obtained by judicious 
 crossing — which is also commonly employed for 
 producing table birds — but the plan of some 
 farmers, of introducing cockerels of a different 
 breed every year, has Httle to recommend it. 
 
 In Kent and Sussex the farmers undoubtedly 
 find that poultry keeping pays well. The 
 producer in the South-east has the great advan- 
 
 * It also demands an egg of good size. ' With regard to 
 the sale of the eggs,' writes the manager of the last Laying 
 Competition, ' I found that the If-ounce egg is not large 
 enough to satisfy the best customers, and I would suggest 
 that in future Competitions two points should be scored by 
 a heavier egg.' In Holland the public prefers a white, not 
 a brown egg. 
 
50 HOW FARMERS' FOWLS PAY 
 
 tage, however, of being served by higglers with 
 capital, who are fatteners themselves or the 
 agents of fatteners, and at stated times call at 
 the different farms and purchase eggs and Uve 
 unfattened birds at a reasonable price,* Never- 
 
 * Mr. S. C. Sharpe, in an account of the Sussex fatteners 
 in ' The Country Gentleman's Estate Book ' for 1905, says: 
 ' The higglers go many miles to get the chickens, into all 
 parts of East Sussex and Kent, generally having a light 
 van or cart loaded with empty crates when they start 
 away, and provided with a pocketful of money. I have 
 seen an old higgler, wearing the old Sussex smock-frock, 
 pull out a dirty old bag with sixty sovereigns in it ; for 
 these men always pay cash for the birds they collect, and 
 most of them have their regular places of call at given 
 dates — say, in early spring, probably every Tuesday, if the 
 breeder has forward spring chickens. Later in the season 
 when the birds have to be of greater size for the fatter, 
 they will call every alternate week. I know of several 
 higglers who travel eighty miles out and back in collecting, 
 staying on the road one night. These men thoroughly 
 understand their work, some of them having been on the 
 road over thirty years. They know directly they handle 
 the bird if it will be suitable for the fatter. In March 
 and April they will take them much smaller, as the fatters 
 have a difficulty to keep the supply up, and these birds 
 are known as " asparagus chickens." I have seen a higgler 
 take several dozen from a farm not much larger than a black- 
 bird, paying as much as 6s. 6d. per couple for them. This is 
 what the higgler pays the breeder, taken from my own 
 book of sales: January 4, 4s. per couple; Februsiry 4, 
 4s. 6d. ; February 19, 5s. ; March 4, 5s. ; March 9, 5s. 6d. ; 
 
POULTRY KEEPING IN SUSSEX 51 
 
 theless, even in Sussex, things do not wear quite 
 the rosy tints reflected in some of the poultry 
 books. Writing in the Field of March 21, 1904, 
 ' Ember ' says : 
 
 ' Most people have heard of the Sussex chicken fattening 
 industry, and many hold exaggerated ideas of the profits 
 to be made from it. Since the enormous spread of the 
 industry during the last few years the value of the produce 
 has become lower and lower. When the chickens are about 
 three months old, the higglers take them, though they are 
 inclined to want them larger season after season as the 
 industry spreads. ... It will be seen from this account 
 [" Ember " gives his balance-sheet] that, even where there 
 are fairly few losses and every care and attention are given, 
 the result is only moderate, and very different from that 
 obtainable about nine years ago when Mr. Rew wrote his 
 account of the industry for the Royal Commission.' 
 
 In less favoured districts, such as Essex, 
 where the higglers are ordinarily but a feeble 
 folk, largely concerned with the buying up of 
 ' old hens ' at cheap rates for sale alive in the 
 East End to the Jews, it will be found that 
 farmers' wives obtain less satisfactory though 
 still remunerative results by sending roughly 
 
 March 15, 6s. ; March 29, 6s. ; April 4, 6s. 6d. ; April 10, 
 6s. 6d. ; May 2, 6s. 6d. ; May 7, 6s. ; May 23, 5s. 6d. 
 June 6, 5s. ; June 26, 4s. 6d. ; July 1 1 , 4s. ; July 25, 3s. 6d. 
 August 20, 3s. 4d. ; September, 3s. 4d. ; October, 3s. 4d. 
 November, 3s. 4d. ; December, 4s.' 
 
 4—2 
 
52 HOW FARMERS' FOWLS PAY 
 
 fatted birds to local shop - keepers, private 
 customers, and London factors. 
 
 Seeing that money is actually being made by 
 many farmers out of poultry, the question arises 
 whether the industry could not be usefuUy 
 developed on many holdings side by side with 
 the ordinary work in corn, hay, and root grow- 
 ing and stock-breeding, in the directions outlined 
 in Sir Walter Palmer's book. 
 
 There is little doubt but that it could, provided 
 the agriculturist recognised that the successful 
 management of hens, Uke the successful manage- 
 ment of sheep, dairy cattle, horses, and arable 
 land, calls for knowledge, skiU, and experi- 
 ence. 
 
 The farmer has the great advantage of being 
 able to provide much of the food at smaU 
 expense. Potatoes, swedes, mangolds, and 
 clover can be made to play a larger part in the 
 profitable feeding of poultry than is generally 
 understood, and steamers are now more com- 
 monly used on farms than they used to be. 
 The farmer has also constantly small quantities 
 of second-rate or injured grain which can be 
 advantageously utilized, and sometimes, perhaps, 
 dead stock, or the opportunity of buying dead 
 stock, that can be boiled up to supply the animal 
 food which poultry need if tliey are to do their 
 
VALUE OF POULTRY MANURE 53 
 
 best. Many incidentals of poultry keeping, 
 too, cost him nothing that he need take ac- 
 count of. 
 
 The manure deposited during the day-time on 
 the fields, if the houses are frequently shifted, 
 will also balance any rent that could be fairly 
 charged against the poultry, for it is certain 
 that, on arable and grass lands alike, active hens 
 in reasonable numbers do nothing but good. 
 The manure from the poultry houses is also 
 profitable if carefully stored. Each bird will 
 drop in the night-time from a quarter to half a 
 hundredweight in a year, and this manure is 
 valued by the consulting chemist of the Royal 
 Agricultural Society at £2 a ton. 
 
 Every year, too, enough grain is left on the 
 stubbles to maintain the birds in perfect health 
 and condition for two months. 
 
 If the farmer keeps pure breeds, and, by 
 rearing his young stock at the right time and 
 giving proper attention to breeding from the 
 best layers, obtains a local reputation as a 
 producer of eggs in the season of the year when 
 they are scarce, he will probably experience httle 
 difficulty in selling a fair number of stock-birds ; 
 while some eggs, which would otherwise not be 
 worth more than a penny apiece, may fetch from 
 3s. 6d. to 5s. a dozen for sittings. 
 
54 HOW FARMERS' FOWLS PAY 
 
 By using incubators and a brooding-house, or 
 by buying broody hens and providing shelter for 
 their chickens when hatched, he can, if found 
 desirable, develop the early chicken or duckling 
 trade, which is usually profitable if the birds are 
 properly fatted, prepared, and packed, and 
 despatched to a good market at the right time 
 of the week. 
 
 This, however, obviously depends, as already 
 stated, not only on the locaUty, but on know- 
 ledge and experience. Such knowledge may be 
 got by sending a son or daughter to a farm 
 poultry farm which has been working profitably 
 for five years, to a Sussex fattener's, or to an 
 Agricultural College course on really practical 
 lines. 
 
 But, difficult though it is to produce a first- 
 rate article, it will seldom make its fuU value 
 unless the best marketing methods are closely 
 studied. Many a farmer, farmer's son, or 
 farmer's daughter, intent on improving the 
 returns fi-om the poultry department, would be 
 well advised, on the occasion of the next visit to 
 London, to go frankly into matters with a 
 responsible and experienced poultry factor. The 
 Central Market men are only too glad to advise 
 practical people who are conscious of the depths 
 of their own ignorance, and will appreciate and 
 
FARM LAYERS IN WINTER 55 
 
 follow out instructions in the technics of a 
 complicated trade. 
 
 Is it necessary to add that at the start, at any 
 rate, no large schemes should be indulged in? 
 Sir Walter Palmer in his third year valued his 
 houses and appliances at £350, and his stock at 
 almost the same amount. These are large 
 figures, and should items in accounts reach such 
 sums too quickly, it is obviously easy to get 
 beyond profitable working, and to deceive one's 
 self as to the true character of the trading. 
 Some farmer readers of Sir Walter's balance- 
 sheet wUl no doubt be struck by the fact that, of 
 the £229 worth of food consumed, only £44 
 worth was produced on the farm. 
 
 It is difficult to lay down rules applicable to 
 every farm, for egg production may be best 
 worth following on one, the rearing of table 
 poultry the most desirable course on another, 
 and a combination of the two the most profit- 
 able plan on a third. 
 
 Again, the fields of aU farms do not lie equally 
 convenient for intercommunication, or for shelter- 
 ing the layers in the winter, and while some 
 farms are sticky after wet weather, others dry 
 more quickly. In certain cases it might entail 
 unjustifiably heavy labour in feeding, etc., to 
 have the birds distributed as widely as they 
 
56 HOW FARMERS' FOWLS PAY 
 
 might well be scattered in other circumstances. 
 Where there was a great deal of shelter the 
 expense of winter housing would be less than 
 where the erection of special accommodation 
 might properly be incurred. There might be 
 instances in which some kincj of penning of part 
 of the winter flock on land changed every year 
 might prove profitable. 
 
 Obviously, birds will not lay their best if they 
 cannot keep dry, warm, and busy. The accom- 
 modation provided for the winter layers, whatever 
 form it assumes, must furnish opportunities for 
 scratching. Some forms of scratching-houses 
 now made are well worth the attention of farmers 
 badly off for buildings at the farmhouse and in the 
 fields. But men who understand the work could 
 in many cases put up field shelters of poles and 
 bracken, straw, or faggots, or other material 
 available on the spot which, in the absence of 
 foxes, would answer the purpose of more expen- 
 sive houses. 
 
 Circumstances alter cases, no doubt, but the 
 principle remains, first, that, although well-tended 
 birds, which have all the comforts of a dry and 
 draughtless home in bad weather, undoubtedly 
 lay better than birds which are less well looked 
 after, healthy poultry of the best utUity types 
 are wonderfully hardy, and, by having their 
 
03 
 O 
 
THE 'YARDING' SYSTEM 57 
 
 freedom and reasonable shelter and attention, 
 cost less to feed and maintain than penned birds ; 
 second, that it is easy, with the intention of 
 improving the egg yield, to coddle poultry, and 
 in so doing make them less efficient and less 
 profitable, and also throw away manurial advan- 
 tages. 
 
 The American ' yarding ' system can only be 
 justified by the fact of there being in the United 
 States winters much more severe than our farm 
 stock is called upon to encounter. The analogy 
 of the stall-fed cow of this country does not hold 
 in the case of yarded winter layers in England, 
 for hens and cows are widely dissimilar in 
 temperament and habits. And it must always 
 be remembered that it is possible to buy even 
 winter eggs too dear. 
 
 Let the birds, then, be bred as skilfully as 
 possible, housed as well as possible, and fed as 
 intelligently as possible ; but do not let it be 
 forgotten that the nearer the farmer approaches 
 the poultry housing plans of the poultry farmer 
 the more natural advantages he sacrifices, and 
 the greater risks he runs of substantially reducing 
 profits. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE BOGEY OF FOREIGN COMPETITION, AND HOW 
 IT MAY BE LAID 
 
 On farms where a doubt is expressed as to the 
 power of poultry to pay really well, it will 
 generally be found, as has been indicated, that 
 first-quality eggs or table birds of the best class 
 are not being produced. 
 
 The day when profitable prices could be ob- 
 tained from the Central or Leadenhall Market, 
 or any important provincial market, for second- 
 class stuff has gone with the development of the 
 Continental railway system and the establish- 
 ment of fast and cheap steamship services. 
 In the year 1903 there were imported into this 
 country from abroad 2,369,868,000 eggs, and 
 £1,208,086 worth of table poultry — in other 
 words, a large proportion of the eggs and poultry 
 in the shops is foreign. 
 
 And the goods are usually satisfactory articles 
 
 68 
 
FOREIGN EGGS A NECESSITY 59 
 
 at the price. Not a few housewives who imagine 
 that their poulterers supply them with English 
 birds are undoubtedly furnished with Russian or 
 other foreign or colonial poultry, not occasion- 
 ally but regularly. Nor is it easy to see that 
 John BuU has any great cause of complaint, 
 for this excellent food could certainly not be 
 produced here at the prices he is willing to pay 
 for it. 
 
 Is it realized that, as recently stated, ' eggs 
 can be bought at the rate of 2d. per dozen in 
 Tunis, at 4d. per dozen in Russia, and at less 
 than 6d. per dozen in many other countries in 
 the East and South of Europe ' ? One who 
 visited the Central Market a year ago found 
 that ' well-fatted Russian fowls were being sold 
 at 20s. a dozen, and scaled 2 pounds each.' 
 ' Any quantity of these,' he was told, ' could be 
 supplied.' ' Frankly,' he added, ' the British 
 poultry keeper cannot produce a fowl of a 
 similar size at this season at such a price, 
 and how the Russian producer does it is a 
 mystery.' 
 
 Speaking of eggs only, Sir Walter GUbey 
 may weU write in his 'Poultry Keeping on 
 Farms and Small Holdings ' : ' It is impossible to 
 produce in England the quantity of eggs requisite 
 to meet the demand. To check the importation 
 
60 THE BOGEY OF FOREIGN COMPETITION 
 
 from abroad would be an injustice to house- 
 holders generally.' 
 
 The following quotation from a poultry paper 
 market report for a week in February of this 
 year is significant : ' It was difficult this week to 
 obtain a reliable quotation for English new-laid 
 eggs, for the simple reason that there are so few 
 on the market.' 
 
 Many public speakers and writers who are 
 distressed by the number of foreign eggs in this 
 country are, no doubt, in ignorance of the fact 
 that an immense number of eggs is needed in 
 the processes of several trades and manufactures. 
 One firm uses at least a miUion eggs per annum. 
 The secretary of the National Poultry Organiza- 
 tion Society computed that some 216,000,000 of 
 the 4,320,000,000 eggs 'consumed' in Great 
 Britain in 1903 were utihzed for purely manu- 
 facturing purposes. 
 
 There is, however, an opportunity for the 
 British poultry keeper. To send second-rate 
 produce to market is only, as we have seen, to 
 reduce the price of foreign second-rate stuff and 
 his own. But with the geographical advantage 
 he possesses, and the foreigner is unable to take 
 from him, he can, if so minded, furnish the 
 market with the very best quality of eggs and 
 table poultry, and make a profit on them. 
 
THE FAKMER'S MONOPOLY 61 
 
 Mr. E. A. Pratt, who has made special investi- 
 gation into the way in which the trade in foreign 
 eggs is conducted, bears out the truth of this 
 statement. The British farmer, he says, in ' The 
 Organization of Agriculture,'* ' can have the 
 monopoly of new-laid eggs without fear of the 
 competition of any country but France, and his 
 great aim should be, by means of good methods 
 and effective organization, to cultivate this 
 particular branch of the trade, and be in a 
 position to make better terms with the rail- 
 ways.' One practical step in this direction is to 
 start depots of the National Poultry Organizia- 
 tion Society (Hanover Square), or at least to 
 grade and market promptly in small quantities 
 while fresh, and to the same salesman, all 
 eggs not taken by hotels, schools, and private 
 customers. 
 
 An egg is no longer a fresh egg when more 
 than three days old. It is impossible, though 
 some formers do not beheve this, to hoodwink 
 the trade on the subject. The size of the air- 
 space in an egg, as discerned when it is held 
 before a strong light — the test is called candUng 
 — is an infallible criterion of age. 
 
 Now, owing to the distance that foreign eggs 
 have to travel, they cannot be on sale in the 
 * Murray, 5s. net ; paper covers, Is. Met. 
 
62 THE BOGEY OF FOREIGN COMPETITION 
 
 grocers' shops before they are, roughly, about the 
 following ages : 
 
 French (Calais) 
 
 8 days. 
 
 Danish ... 
 
 4 or 6 „ 
 
 Italian ... 
 
 ... 7 or 8 „ 
 
 Styrian 
 
 ... 12 or 13 „ 
 
 Hungarian 
 
 ... 14 or 20 „ 
 
 Russian ... 
 
 ... 28 to 40 „ 
 
 The following table shows the National 
 Poultry Organization Society's classification of 
 eggs, and the trade's : 
 
 
 N.P.O.S. 
 
 Trade. 
 
 New-laid 
 Breakfast - 
 Fresh 
 Cooking 
 
 Not exceeding 3 days old 
 
 From 8 to 14 days old 
 Over 14 days old 
 
 7 to 12 days old 
 12 to 21 
 
 21 days to 8 weeks old 
 Exceeding 8 weeks 
 
 Nevertheless, the highest-priced eggs in the 
 London wholesale market seem on some occa- 
 sions to have been, not English, but French 
 eggs.* What is the reason ? It is that English 
 
 * 'The foreign importer by an elaborate system of 
 collection and quick transport places three-day-old eggs 
 on the London market. Our best eggs from abroad come 
 from Denmark and France, and not infrequently they sell 
 at higher prices than English. This very day a salesman 
 quoted French eggs to us at a shilling the case higher than 
 British. Moreover, the cheaper foreign eggs, the Hunga- 
 rian, and the Italian as well, are of such excellent quality 
 that they also lend themselves to a piece of sharp practice 
 in some retail shops. The latter awai-d them letters of 
 
ENGLISH VERSUS FOREIGN EGGS 63 
 
 eggs, purporting to be of the same age as these 
 best-quaUty French eggs, are not equally trust- 
 worthy — in plain English, they are of different 
 ages — and that the supply is small, irregular, 
 and ungraded. 
 
 ' I can recall the names of several firms ' (says Mr. New- 
 port in 'Paying Poultry') 'who used to work genuine 
 English eggs, but now do not do so. I will guarantee 
 that, if I went into the stores of the ten largest brokers in 
 London, I should not find an egg of English origin. 
 Why ? The answer is, " Unreliable." People think that 
 all foreign eggs are in a state of incipient rottenness, and 
 that, no matter how old an English egg may be, foreigners 
 are worse. That is decidedly not so. It has got to be 
 quite a large trade to send the best-quality foreign eggs 
 out of London to be unpacked, repacked, and returned to 
 London as new-laid. Could this be done if the foreign 
 eggs were rotten ?' 
 
 As to the small and irregular supplies of 
 English eggs, 
 
 ' Is there any man ' (asks Mr. Newport) ' who would 
 undertake to book me a supply, all the year round, of 
 10,000 genuine English new-laids per week ? And yet I 
 could to-morrow morning order ten times 10,000 in each 
 of the following — French, Austrian, Styrian, Russian, 
 Hungarian, Galician, Danish, Italian, and Moroccan ; and 
 they would be delivered the following day.' 
 
 Mr. Pratt states that ' whereas a single steamer 
 
 naturalization, and sell them as "British."' — Feathered 
 Life, June 25, 1905. 
 
64 THE BOGEY OF FOREIGN COMPETITION 
 
 arriving at a British port has been known to 
 bring any number of tons of eggs up to eighty 
 or ninety, which are carried to their destination 
 in truck or even in train loads, consignments of 
 Enghsh eggs would not average more than a 
 single hundredweight, picked up at some way- 
 side station.' 
 
 The officials of one railway company, ques- 
 tioned on the matter by the author, said they 
 had never heard of such a consignment as a case 
 of English eggs (a case representing 1,440 eggs). 
 Another company made an offer to the National 
 Poultry Organization Society to reduce its 
 English egg rate by a quarter if it could have 
 the goods from a particular district in four-ton 
 lots. ' The offer had to be declined simply be- 
 cause the production of the whole country would 
 not have sufficed to make up a four-ton lot.' 
 
 The trade in foreign eggs is, of course, most 
 carefully organised. 
 
 ' There is one firm in London that receives 20,000 cases 
 of eggs every week. The eggs come from Russia, GEilicia, 
 Roumania, and Austria. A train starts daily from a 
 station on the Russo-Roumanian frontier to take eggs and 
 other produce to Hamburg or Bremen. The train consists 
 of about thirty waggons, each holding ten tons. The 
 through rate from Italy to London for ten-tons lots is 
 £4i& 16s., the dealers guaranteeing to send 800 of such lots, 
 or a total of 8,000 tons of eggs, in the course of a year.' 
 
j-j / ■. <^je^ 
 
 f-i 
 O 
 
 n 
 
 05 
 
 o 
 
HOW WHITE EGGS BECOME BROWN 65 
 
 There is not an egg-broker doing the best 
 class of trade who would not welcome supplies 
 of really genuine English new-laids, especially 
 if the producers of them would club together 
 — as the National Poultry Organization Society 
 with its depots is trying to get them to do — - 
 so as to be in a position to despatch the goods 
 in as large consignments as possible. There is 
 hardly likely to be, either privately or in the 
 markets, any limit to the demand for years to 
 come. 
 
 It should be unnecessary to state that the 
 eggs must be clean. Farm eggs are not always 
 clean, and a soiled egg is a tainted egg, whatever 
 shopmen may say to the contrary. This stands 
 to reason, of course, for the shell of an egg is 
 porous, though the foreigner who tries, by 
 means of dye, to turn white eggs, worth 12s. per 
 gross, into brown eggs, worth 14s., forgets this, 
 and his handiwork is therefore detected with no 
 great difficulty. He is also found out if the 
 colour is put on so skilfully as not to penetrate 
 the shell, for naturally brown shells are brown 
 all through.* 
 
 * ' With reference to the tinting of eggs, it is possible 
 to colour them when cold by placing them for a quarter of 
 an hour or longer, according to the tint required, in a 
 solution of permanganate of potash, about six grains to a 
 
 5 
 
66 THE BOGEY OF FOREIGN COMPETITION 
 
 Another requirement of the wholesale trade is 
 that the eggs shall be graded as to size, as is the 
 custom in the case of foreign eggs. These are 
 sold by weight. A gross of 17 pounds to the 
 gross Italians might fetch lis. ; Itahans scaling 
 only 13 pounds to a gross might be only 7s. 3d. 
 The buyer of eggs graded in this way knows 
 exactly what he is getting. It might be added 
 that buying by weight helps quick marketing, 
 for the longer an egg is kept the lighter it 
 becomes. 
 
 At present the number of English farms 
 which set themselves to supply such a simply- 
 obtained article as the large, clean, absolutely 
 new-laid, or not more than three-days-old egg is 
 regrettably small. 
 
 As a rule, farm eggs are collected by a lad or 
 labourer, who not infrequently puts into his 
 basket any find of eggs of uncertain age pro- 
 duced by a hen that has laid away, as weU as 
 eggs in the ordinary nests to which hens desirous 
 of sitting may have had access. Now, the com- 
 position of an egg changes so rapidly under 
 incubation that, when it has been sat on for only 
 
 pint of water. One pennyworth will colour hundreds of 
 eggs. This is not only cheap, but quite harmless. It will 
 not injure the eggs, nor will they lose colour when boiled.'' 
 
 — Dailt/ Express. 
 
HOW FARMERS' EGGS ARE GIVEN AWAY 67 
 
 twelve hours, the embryo may be detected by 
 the naked eye on the egg being broken open. 
 The eggs, when collected, are sometimes kept 
 a week, or — in the hope of prices rising — a 
 fortnight, or even three weeks, before being 
 marketed. 
 
 The result is that thousands of farmers never 
 get from their grocers — who wish they had not 
 to take the eggs and pay for them in goods — or 
 the wholesale trade, at the dearest time of year, 
 more than a shilling for eight, while in the 
 summer they have to accept a shilling for a score, 
 and sometimes two dozen. And the eggs are 
 certainly not worth more. 
 
 * At the Central Market ' (wrote C. D. L. in the County 
 Gentleman of July 2, 1904) ' I made inquiries about the 
 eggs of the National Poultry Organization Society, and 
 learned, to my regret, that even they are not so reliable as 
 the foreign cases. If you buy a case of foreign eggs 
 guaranteed fresh, they are fresh ; but time and time again 
 a rotten one is found among the branded eggs which the 
 Society guarantee. This is not the fault of the secretary 
 or his assistant, but it seems impossible to make every 
 member deliver nothing but absolutely fresh eggs, or to 
 get the eggs properly tested at each collecting depot. In 
 the foreigners' best brands a bad egg is unknown. It is 
 chiefly owing to this fact that they have built up their 
 market.' 
 
 F^erb sap. 
 
 5—2 
 
(J8 THE BOGEY OF FOREIGN COMPETITION 
 
 What is possible in the production of the best 
 eggs is also possible in the production of the 
 best table poultry. The best French table 
 poultry is excellent ; but as the Dairy Show and 
 the Islington Show exhibits prove, and the leading 
 West End poulterers agree in acknowledging, 
 the best EngUsh poultry has no cause to fear 
 comparison with it. 
 
 ' Mr. William Bellamy, the weU-known poul- 
 terer of Jermyn Street,' it is stated in Sir Walter 
 Gilbey's book, ' obtained from Paris the first- 
 class French fowls required by his customers. 
 The French birds cost him 9s. apiece, and 
 averaged 7 pounds each in weight, while the 
 English fowls cost 7s. and averaged 9J pounds. 
 The English birds were considered by his cus- 
 tomers much finer than the French, carrying 
 more meat on the breast,' 
 
 But the production of the very best table 
 poultry, reared for fattening and killing at the 
 proper season, properly kiUed, properly trussed, 
 properly cooled, and properly packed — aU this 
 needs, let it be repeated once more, careful learn- 
 ing and planning. 
 
 Farmers' sons and daughters inclined to make 
 a special study of poultry matters would do well 
 to restrict themselves to producing a moderate 
 quantity of the best eggs and the best poultry — 
 
INCUBATORS VERSUS ' BROODIES ' 69 
 
 small quantities of first-class produce are by no 
 means despised by the London factors — instead 
 of dreaming of big schemes and laying out large 
 sums on 'poultry plants.' 
 
 This alone, as Mr. Pickwick said of politics, 
 ' comprises by itself a difficult study of no incon- 
 siderable magnitude.' Incubators* may come in 
 time — one, at least, is almost a necessity, for 
 when the pleasure of the hens of the district for 
 going broody has to be waited upon, hatching is 
 often put off" too late ; permanent brooding 
 houses may follow them — albeit they and the 
 ground beside them are not so easily kept abso- 
 lutely clean as is imagined, and coops have many 
 advantages ; but if these things are to lead to 
 the production of less than the very best table 
 bird and the very best large brown eggs — as 
 considerable enterprises rashly entered upon have 
 a way of doing, if some American experience 
 
 * Although incubators have reached a high degree of 
 perfection and undoubtedly give excellent results in skilled 
 and painstaking hands, and though more perfect brooders 
 and more enlightened methods of feeding chicks have 
 enormously decreased the mortality of artificially-hatched 
 birds, it is noteworthy that several large poultry pro- 
 ducers seem to prefer, when possible, to hatch and rear by 
 means of hens. The advantages of artificially-hatched 
 birds are that a large number are ready together, and that 
 the trouble with insect pests is avoided. 
 
70 THE BOGEY OF FOREIGN COMPETITION 
 
 goes for anything — they cannot bring with them 
 the financial results which those who invest in 
 them are apt to expect. It cannot be too often 
 insisted that in the matter of second-quality eggs 
 and second-quality table poultry the market is 
 already catered for from abroad, and that little 
 or no profit is to be obtained by the home pro- 
 ducer by entering into competition in ordinary 
 circumstances with these suppUes. 
 
 The future of poultry keeping in this 
 country is to the intelligent farmer's intelligent 
 daughter. 
 
 There may be cases, as at Sir Walter Palmer's 
 farm, where it may be found to be profit- 
 able to devote the entire services of a man 
 and a lad to the poultry ; but the average 
 farmer, hampered as he is by the lack of fluid 
 capital, will not readily contemplate the sinking 
 of £350 in apparatus and as much in stock. It 
 is natural that he should also be disposed to wait 
 for the balance-sheets of more experiments, and 
 of experiments extending over more than three 
 yfears, made by tenant-farmers as well as by rich 
 landowners, before he sees his way to resigning 
 one of his sons entirely to ' the hens.' 
 
 One of his daughters will probably show ever 
 so much more aptitude for the work, and possibly 
 more interest in it, and she will be content with 
 
FARMERS' AND SQUARSONS' DAUGHTERS 71 
 
 smaller profits and be equally industrious. With 
 little dread of the difficulties of getting about in 
 the winter — she would readily surmount them 
 were she coursing or otter hunting — and with 
 the assistance of a handy lad and the power to 
 call for help occasionally, she will get through 
 an immense amount of work. Provided she has 
 taken care to gain an adequate training and is 
 keenly business-like, the poultry may soon grow 
 into one of the most profitable departments of 
 the farm for the capital invested in it. 
 
 But it is quite impossible to build up a big 
 business in a hurry. ' Make haste slowly ' must 
 be the daily motto. It is particularly necessary 
 that all ' improvements ' shall be paid for out of 
 profits, or by paternal loans commerciaEy justified 
 by the profits. ' Improvements ' which cannot 
 be effected on this sound basis are probably 
 indefensible. 
 
 "Not only many a farmer's, but many a squire's 
 and many a squarson's daughter might find 
 something to work for in an occupation such as 
 this. One of the problems of the rural districts 
 is how to find remunerative occupation for a 
 large class of intelligent girls who have ' cost a 
 good deal for their education,' and in towns 
 would be endeavouring to do something which 
 would contribute to their support without taking 
 
72 THE BOGEY OF FOREIGN COMPETITION 
 
 them from home. In well-considered plans of 
 poultry management on their father's or relative's 
 land there is healthful work lying to their hands 
 which is well within their powers, full of interest, 
 and on a sound financial basis. 
 
CHAPTER V^III 
 
 OP ' POULTRY PLANTS ' 3,000 MILES OFF AND 
 ' 300-EGG HENS ' 
 
 The American phrase ' poultry plants ' has been 
 used, and a few words on these enterprises are 
 necessary. 
 
 In the first place, there is undoubtedly a great 
 deal of misconception as to the average degree of 
 success which has attended the operation of these 
 establishments in the States. Our public has 
 heard a great deal about the successes, but very 
 little of the failures, and that there have been 
 many failures, and big failures, cannot be gain- 
 said. ' There has been more money lost in 
 broiler raising,' writes Mr. A. F. Hunter, editor 
 of the American Farm Poultry, ' than there has 
 been made in that branch of poultry work.'* 
 
 * ' The most instructive, and, I was led to believe, one 
 of the most profitable broiler plants I visited in the States 
 was that of Mr. Twining. He told me, however, that he 
 
 73 
 
74. 'POULTRY PLANTS' 3,000 MILES OFI' 
 
 Again, it has still to be proved that the 
 assumption which is constantly made that the 
 Americans are very far ahead of us in poultry 
 matters is based upon facts. In this connection 
 the testimony of a skilled observer like Mr. Tom 
 Brown (instructor at the poultry establishment 
 in connection with University College, Read- 
 ing), who recently made a poultry tour of 
 inspection through the States and Canada, is 
 of value : 
 
 ' The result of these inquiries ' (he writes in the Agri- 
 cultural Gazette) ' has been to convince me that far from 
 being behindhand, we are quite equal to, and in many 
 instances distinctly ahead of, the Americans. Probably 
 the chief reason for the supposed flourishing condition of 
 poultry keeping in the States is that in that country some 
 enormous plants exist. But it must not be forgotten that 
 such establishments are few and far between. Although 
 the Americans believe in their large plants, yet some of 
 them believe otherwise, and a well-known expert in the 
 States said to me : " We in America have to look to the 
 innumerable small utility poultry keepei-s, rather than to 
 
 was giving up the broiler industry entirely. There is no 
 branch of poultry keeping, so I was told, and I can readily 
 believe it, to which so much difficulty is attached as rearing 
 young chickens, and at certain seasons the number of 
 infertile eggs is so great, and the mortality among the 
 chickens is so alarming, that frequently a few days see the 
 whole month's profit swallowed up.' — Tom Brown, in 
 Poulti-y. 
 
THE AMERICAN ' BROILER ' 75 
 
 the very large plants, for the greatest development of the 
 business. The millions of eggs and cartload lots of 
 poultry meat will have to come from the small growers 
 and farmers." ' 
 
 ' Recently a leading American poultry publica- 
 tion told its readers,' says a writer in Poultry, 
 ' that even in the land of mammoth plants the 
 total output of market eggs from such plants is 
 but a drop in the ocean beside the main stream 
 fed by supplies which trickle in from the 
 ubiquitous general farmer, and it is the supply 
 drawn from the latter which baffles the Chicago 
 billionaires in their effort to " corner the market " 
 by cold storage.' 
 
 Thirdly, some of the success which has been 
 attained in America is due, no doubt, to the 
 immense demand across the Atlantic for ' broilers,' 
 i.e., fowls sold at a size which would be un- 
 marketable in this country.* ' In America,' says 
 ' The New Book on Poultry,' ' there is not the 
 same general supply of joints, and even their 
 place, as well as that of the ubiquitous British 
 chop or steak, is taken by poultry.' The profit- 
 able petits poussins, or fatted chicks of the 
 Continent, for which our poultry keepers are 
 
 * ' It takes Mr. Twining about nine weeks to grow a 
 1^-pound broiler, and eleven weeks to grow a 2-pounder.' 
 — A. F. Hdnteu, editor of Farm Pmdtry. 
 
76 'POULTRY PLANTS' 3,000 MILES OFF 
 
 urged to cultivate the taste of the British public,* 
 are, of course, quite different things from the 
 American ' broiler.' 
 
 There is also in the States a climate which 
 enables the farmer not only to crowd his stock 
 indoors to a degree which would have disastrous 
 results in our milder temperature, but also to 
 feed it heavily on cheap maize, which is generally 
 regarded here as too fattening, and as creating 
 yellow flesh, appreciated in the States, but 
 objectionable in English eyes. 
 
 * 'In the leading hotels in Liverpool there is a good 
 demand for these young chicks. They are hatched as 
 early as possible in the new year, and are fed up and killed 
 as soon as they are ready at six to eight weeks old. The 
 breed used by the enterprising poultryman who is doing 
 this business is a cross between American imported White 
 Rock or Buff Orpington and Indian Game. This makes a 
 fine plump chick. They are sold at three shillings each, so 
 they certainly pay. The feeding is a very important 
 factor. They want to be forced on as much as possible, 
 so meat in some form is given.^ — ' Norseman,' in Feathered 
 Life, February 22, 1905. 
 
 Commenting on this, Mr. W. J. Magee, El Rancho. 
 Lavenham, Suffolk, writes : ' No doubt if you can deal with 
 the hotels direct a handsome profit could be made, but 
 dealers give you Is. 4d. for birds weighing 10 ounces, and 
 you have to pay carriage. As you cannot get the bii-ds up 
 to that weight under six weeks, and as it costs nearly two- 
 pence a week for feeding, there is not much margin left 
 for profit, is there ?' 
 
FARM POULTRY PLANTS' 77 
 
 Further, it is notorious that many of the large 
 American poultry farms have changed hands 
 more than once. 
 
 It should be added that many of the estabhsh- 
 raents which succeed are obviously departments 
 of farms.* One firm, which exports large quanti- 
 ties of frozen poultry to England, treats it as a 
 by-product of its business as Chicago ' pork- 
 packers.' 
 
 As yet, at any rate, there is no warrant for 
 believing that it is possible to repeat in this 
 country, over a reasonable period, the successes 
 which are said to have been attained by large 
 poultry plants in America, and it must be plainly 
 stated that such imitative ventures as are being 
 made here are experiments only. American 
 experience helps us little, for it has been gained 
 in other conditions. In any case, a large capital 
 would be necessary, with a perfect knowledge of 
 utility poultry keeping in all its branches, un- 
 common organizing and business ability, and 
 
 * One man described as a ' Pennsylvanian poultryman 
 with fifteen years' experience, who produces broilers in 
 large numbers,' is, for example, a farmer of 200 acres. The 
 skim milk of twenty-eight cows is used for the broilers, and 
 a large proportion of the corn grown. Even the cobs of the 
 maize are the fuel with which steam is raised to grind 
 corn for the chicks. Mr. James Rankin, the well-known 
 American duck rancher, is also a considerable farmer. 
 
78 ' POULTRY PLANTS ' 3,000 MILES OFF 
 
 advantages in the management of land and the 
 purchase of foodstuffs which have not been 
 within the reach of any English poultry farm 
 conductors who have hitherto taken the public 
 into their confidence. Whether we are likely to 
 see a union of these things in the face of the 
 undoubted fact that poultry raising, as a single 
 industry, has never yet been proved to be com- 
 mercially profitable may be reasonably doubted. 
 
 But whatever plausible and confident young 
 men from the States may be able to do in com- 
 mitting English capitahsts, with httle knowledge 
 of profitable poultry keeping or of the intricate 
 trade in eggs and poultry, to big poultry plant 
 schemes,* these are not enterprises which im- 
 perfectly-instructed landowners or landowners' 
 sons, farmers, townsmen turned countrymen with 
 capital which they cannot afford to lose, or ladies 
 who have been through a poultry course at 
 
 * Two somewhat ambitious schemes launched of recent 
 years in this country, both of which have come to grief, 
 were directed by men of the vaunted ' American experi- 
 ence.'' Again, in the matter of incubators, an American 
 ' expert ' writes : ' I brought over (from the States) tlie 
 
 identical and I had used in Rhode Island, both 
 
 of which produced excellent hatches there. But in this 
 
 country the destroyed fully half the eggs, and the 
 
 never reached within 20 per cent, of the average of 
 
 the other side. The trouble was climatic' 
 
EGG RECORDS ON PAPER 79 
 
 Studley Castle, Swanley College, or a 'poultry 
 farm,' should ever dream of emulating. 
 
 A great deal has been said about the wonders 
 that may be wrought, and are being wrought, in 
 the States by flocks of ' 200-egg hens.' Indeed, 
 the American Reliable Poultry Journal, on 
 receipt of the report of our Utility Poultry 
 Club's last Laying Competition but one, had a 
 vision of ' the 300-egg hen ' : 
 
 'The winning pen' (it writes) 'laid an average of 
 61 eggs per fowl during the sixteen weeks. Other indi- 
 vidual fowls laid respectively 61, 64, 65, 74, and 79. 
 Assuming that the fowls would lay equally well during the 
 following eight months of the year, then the winning pen 
 would lay 198 extraordinarily large eggs in a year, while 
 the other individual fowls referred to would respectively 
 lay 198, 208, 211, 240, and 257 eggs in a year. In 
 ninety-nine cases out of a hundred (and that's putting it 
 low) fowls lay proportionately more eggs in spring and 
 summer than they do in wipter, and it should be remem- 
 bered that these fowls were chosen on account of their 
 proclivity for laying large eggs rather than many eggs. It 
 would not require much stretch of imagination to make 
 that 257-egg hen lay 300 eggs in a year, considering the 
 spring and summer months were to follow, and any estimate 
 we might make under such conditions would bring the 
 number up to at least 275. The 300-egg hen, therefore, 
 is not so far distant.' 
 
 No one of common-sense would assert that the 
 limit of profitable egg-production under scientific 
 
80 THE ' 300-EGG HENS ' 
 
 management has been unquestionably reached. 
 That the laying power of hens has already 
 been immensely improved is a commonplace. 
 That it may be further improved is perhaps 
 possible. But three things should be remem- 
 bered. 
 
 In the first place, an American poultry journal, 
 as well known as its Transatlantic contemporary 
 which has been quoted, has expressly stated that 
 ' 200-egg stock ' is by no means so common or so 
 easUy come by in the United States, to the 
 standard of which we are so constantly be- 
 sought to level up our poultry practice, as seems 
 to be supposed here. The tendency of owners 
 of big 'poultry plants' in the States is rather 
 to be content with good average laying. But 
 here is a quotation from the American Farm 
 Poultry : 
 
 'No experienced practical poultryman ever put any 
 faith in the big stories. The unreliability of the records 
 has been thoroughly shown up flora time to time. Things 
 that were to revolutionize the industry have come and 
 gone, leaving the industry as a whole going on about the 
 same lines as before their appearance.' 
 
 In the second place, just as dairy farmers find 
 it possible to obtain milk too dearly, it is easy, as 
 has already been suggested, to produce winter 
 eggs at too high a cost to be highl}' remunerati-ve. 
 
AN ANATOMICAL QUESTION 81 
 
 When the eggs obtained per hen exceed a certain 
 number they become expensive. The secret of 
 getting winter eggs, say the poultry books, is to 
 provide summer conditions for the hens. But to 
 do this undeniably costs money. In the United 
 States climatic and other conditions favour ' yard- 
 ing,' but it is not a system which — on the evidence 
 at present available, at any rate — competent 
 authorities recommend for adoption on English 
 farms, except possibly in a modified form, in 
 favourable circumstances, in the depth of winter. 
 And although the farmer, who works by rule 
 instead of by rule of thumb, can easily provide 
 for the intelligent giving of warm food and a 
 variety of food to his poultry, there must be, 
 from a business point of view, limits to the 
 amount of ' fiddling work ' required. 
 
 Thirdly, one cannot help feeling that many 
 poultry keepers, desirous of obtaining a high 
 egg yield and evolving a marvellous laying 
 strain, are in danger of forgetting that hens are 
 only hens, and not crates of eggs. In other 
 words, the number of eggs available during the 
 period when a hen is disposed to lay the largest 
 proportion is, after all, limited. There is no 
 greater authority on the anatomy of domestic 
 fowls than the octogenarian naturalist, Mr. W. B. 
 Tegetmeier, whose influence has been thrown so 
 
 6 
 
Sa THE '300-EGG HENS' 
 
 long on the side of useful poultry keeping, and 
 he wrote in the Meld on April 8, 1905 : 
 
 ' As to the possibility of obtaining hens capable of 
 laying 300 eggs a year, I have no belief. Even grant- 
 ing the existence of a number of germs in a hen which 
 would enable her to produce that number of eggs, the 
 circumstance is incredible. The time occupied in moult- 
 ing may be taken as at least a month, during which 
 period the whole of the nutriment taken is disposed of in 
 the manufacture of new feathers, and could not possibly 
 be employed in the production of eggs. The abstraction 
 of this period would require the hen to lay practically an 
 egg every day for the remainder of the year. That hens 
 can be obtained by most careful selection that can be 
 depended on during their first two seasons for laying over 
 150 eggs a year may be regarded as the utmost egg 
 production that has yet been attained. 
 
 ' The number of germs contained in the ovary of a hen 
 cannot be determined by the most careful microscopic 
 examination, but that they exceed 500 or 600 is exceed- 
 ingly incredible. The largest proportion of these are laid 
 during the first two years, and every practical egg pro- 
 ducer knows that it is much better to get rid of hens 
 at the end of their second season of laying than to keep 
 them. The system is exhausted by the great drain upon 
 it which has taken place during the two seasons, and 
 cannot possibly keep up an equal number during the third 
 and fourth.' 
 
 Marvellous statements as to egg records are 
 made in the advertisements of establishments 
 with sittings to sell, and even in works of 
 reference, but the highest total which has 
 
THE LAYING RECORD 83 
 
 ever been reached in a public Laying Competi- 
 tion which lasted twelve months was 218,* and 
 218 is a long way behind 300, Moreover, this 
 figure was only reached by the winners because 
 ' they went right through without breaking into 
 moult.' 
 
 Needless to say, however, the birds could not 
 be expected in their second year to repeat their 
 production of 218 — first, because two-year-old 
 birds always lay fewer eggs than one-year-olds ; 
 next, because it would not be economical to 
 keep them to the end of their second year. The 
 profitable life of a hen is twenty-six months. 
 The producers of the 218 eggs were nine months 
 old when they entered the Competition, so that 
 when it was over they were entering their twenty- 
 first month. Consequently, they had only six 
 months more of profitable life, and months which 
 would be winter. In the six months of winter 
 of their first year 80 eggs per bird were laid. 
 Deduct one-third for reduced laying in the 
 second year, and we have not quite 53 eggs. 
 
 * The first six pens of the seventy which took part in 
 the Second Annual International Laying Competition in 
 New South Wales, which lasted from April, 1903, to 
 March, 1904, inclusive, produced an average of 218, 212, 
 206, 204, and 200 eggs per bird. 
 
 There is hope that a twelve months' long Competition 
 will shortly be held in England. 
 
 6—2 
 
84 THE ' 300-EGG HENS ' 
 
 Add 218 and 53 and the total egg produce during 
 the whole lifetime of birds sold off at twenty-six 
 months is found to be 271. 
 
 But from the theoretical 271 there should be a 
 deduction for loss in total through moult or 
 broodiness, and also in respect of mortaUty risks. 
 (Sixteen birds among the 420 engaged in the 
 Australian Competition died during the twelve 
 months, and had the birds of the sixteen weeks' 
 Competition of the home Utility Poultry Club 
 been kept under observation for a year the 
 mortahty would certainly have been found to be 
 at as heavy a rate.)* 
 
 What that reduction should be is perhaps a 
 matter of opinion. It is plain, however, that if 
 we confine ourselves to the facts disclosed by the 
 average of the best laying pen among the seventy 
 entered at the Australian Competition, there is 
 small reason to believe that birds are common 
 the egg totals of which during a hfetime approach 
 within 30 of 800, the number which the Reliable 
 Poultry Journals bird is to lay in twelve months 
 only 1 
 
 A warning to rash breeders for ^gg production 
 
 beyond reason is to be found in the fact that all 
 
 the fifteen hens out of the 420 entered for the 
 
 Australian Laying Competition of 1903-04 which 
 
 * V-ude lieport on next page. 
 
' OVER-PRESSURE ' IN THE HEN RUN 85 
 
 died during the year succumbed to ovarian 
 troubles. 
 
 And the following common-sense declaration 
 by the manager of the last Utility Poultry Club 
 Laying Competition, Miss Yates, of Royston, 
 who has made a special study of the domestic 
 fowl in health and disease, speaks for itself : 
 
 ' The health of stock birds is of such vital importance 
 that perhaps I may be allowed to go rather fully into the 
 state of the Competition pens. The combating of disease 
 is a subject of deep interest to me, for I desire greatly to 
 see the stamina of our utility flocks maintained in the 
 highest degree. It is evidently difficult to breed for a 
 high percentage of eggs without impairing the vitality of 
 the flock, and the competition this year has proved to me 
 that a note of warning in the matter ought to be struck, 
 or we may find ourselves faced with the same difficulties 
 that beset the breeder of exhibition stock. The health of 
 fourteen pens has been superb. The stamina of the flocks 
 from which they have been bred is evidently of a very 
 high order, as the birds have been in perfect health during 
 the entire competition in spite of the severe atmospheric 
 conditions. Seven pens have enjoyed good health on the 
 whole, but have required occasional care. Five pens I 
 should consider of medium health and seven pens distinctly 
 indifferent, while the health of the following three has 
 been bad. Of all the breeds entered, the Wyandottes 
 have given me the greatest anxiety. They have all (with 
 the splendid exception of pen 31) required the most 
 watchful care and attention. It has been a matter of 
 considerable difficulty to keep birds 1, 40, 64, 80, and 95 
 alive at all ; they have sometimes required feeding every 
 
86 THE '300-EGG HENS' 
 
 two hours, day and night, on spoonfuls of beef-tea and egg 
 and milk, and constant attention in other ways, for their 
 enfeebled state made special treatment a necessity.' 
 
 Wyandottes, which ' have given the greatest 
 anxiety,' are, of course, a breed which has been 
 bred hard for laying quahties.* The idea of 
 producing poultry for utUity work which are so 
 delicate that they have to be 'fed every two 
 hours, day and night, on spoonsfuls of beef-tea 
 and egg and milk ' is so ludicrous that it may 
 well seem incredible. 
 
 But it will not appear incredible to those who 
 have had occasion to foUow the vagaries of 
 poultry enthusiasts. It is not easy to imagine 
 anything more grotesque than certain of them 
 have done in the past or may gravely attempt in 
 the future. The fact, however, that keepers of 
 poultry, who set egg production so much in the 
 forefront of their operations that they go to the 
 trouble and expense of entering birds for the 
 national Laying Competition, still lack gumption 
 enough to see the absurdity of breeding hens as 
 delicate as the birds Miss Yates describes may 
 perhaps help the general reader to obtain some 
 notion of the lengths to which the exhibition 
 
 * In too many cases no doubt by in-breeding. The 
 smallness of the egg laid by many strains of Silver and 
 White Wyandottes is probably due to tliis cause. 
 
'FANCY' PREJUDICES 87 
 
 poultry keeper, some of whose excesses have 
 been already described, has gone, and is likely to 
 go, and of his unfortunate influence. 
 
 The truth of the matter is, no doubt, that, 
 as a class, utility poultry keepers are not yet 
 emancipated from some of the absurd beliefs and 
 methods of show poultry keeping, in which, as a 
 show poultry keeper once frankly admitted, ' a 
 breeder may do and believe anything, however 
 absurd.' A large proportion of even the members 
 of the UtUity Poultry Club are keepers of 
 exhibition birds, and many attempt to produce 
 that strange stock, ' utility birds of exhibition 
 
 type.' 
 
 Two prizes were given at the last Utility 
 Poultry Club Laying Competition for the best 
 pen of birds, judged by laying and table qualities. 
 The rewards went to a pen of BufF Orpingtons, 
 seventh on the laying list, instead of to a pen of 
 Lia Bresse, which was second on the laying list. 
 (La Bresse is a breed which has been described 
 as the leading French fowl for table quahties.) 
 It turns out that the pen of La Bresse was passed 
 over because of the birds' yellow legs, against 
 which there is an absurd prejudice on the part ol 
 some folk in this country. As the donors of the 
 two guineas wrote, 'Leg colour is not a table 
 quality, and the Utility Club would be better 
 
88 THE ' 300-EGG HENS ' 
 
 employed in fighting rather than fostering the 
 present illogical objection to a table fowl having 
 slate, black, or yellow legs.' 
 
 The surviving sub-title of one of the leading 
 poultry papers in this country — ' For Fancier. 
 Amateur, and Poultry Farmer ' — is significant as 
 to the extent to which the poultry papers are 
 still written for the keepers of show birds, and as 
 to the backward place which reaUy useful poultry 
 and commercial methods continue to hold. 
 
 ' But,' said a London editor recently, ' every- 
 body knows that poultiy farming is a delusion.' 
 Unfortunately, everybody does not. It is because, 
 in spite of all that has been done, and lost, and 
 written, ignorance or half-knowledge is stUl so 
 general that it has seemed worth while to collect 
 the elementary data to be found in these pages. 
 
 It remains to be said that if on examining the 
 case for and against the poultry farm pure and 
 simple the tyro should come to the conclusion 
 that the fact of its profitable character is not yet 
 sufficiently estabUshed, he has still to be warned 
 against underrating the difficulties of poultry 
 farming ' in association,' in Mr. Brown's phrase, 
 ' with cultivation or farmmg in one direction or 
 another.' In such a case knowledge of small 
 farming, fi-uit-growing, dairy fanning, bee-keep- 
 
THE TOWNSMAN TURNED COUNTRYMAN 89 
 
 ing, or whatever it is, is needed in addition to an 
 experience of poultry if profits are to be obtained 
 in competition with old hands on the land.* 
 Such knowledge does not come by nature, and 
 he who directly or indirectly encourages the too 
 common impression of the townsman that it does 
 incurs a serious responsibility. 
 
 * From an article headed 'Poultry Farming' in Poultry: 
 ' Of course I do not limit my definition of a poultry farm 
 to a place where poultry only are kept. I consider some 
 adjuncts essential to success. Tomato culture under 
 glass, vegetable-growing, and flowers, are each profitable 
 adjuncts.' 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE FACTS ABOUT SEVERAL, AVELL-KNOWN 
 POULTRY FARMS 
 
 The idea that a big duckling ' ranch ' might be 
 highly profitable here if * chicken outfits ' do not 
 answer has caught the fancy of some would-be 
 poultry farmers, and the well-known docUity of 
 the duckling, no less than the ease and speed 
 with which it may be brought to a marketable 
 age, make the suggestion attractive. 
 
 But any considerable degree of success surely 
 depends upon factors the importance of which it 
 is very easy to underrate. These are the cheap 
 food and low working expenses, the long expe- 
 rience, and the business ability required. Further, 
 there is the necessity of getting for incubators — 
 what it has been found in practice to be very 
 difficult indeed to get at regular intervals, by 
 purchase or from flocks of stock ducks — consider- 
 able quantities of eggs of a reasonable degree of 
 
 90 
 
DUCK FARMING PROJECTS 91 
 
 fertility, laid by birds of a uniform type, or of 
 obtaining large numbers of young ducklings of a 
 good market type and robust enough to stand 
 transportation, herding together, and rough 
 feeding.* 
 
 On paperf ' duck farming ' looks even more 
 attractive than ' poultry farming' ; but the follow- 
 
 * We recall the experience of an ardent poultry farmer 
 with a large ' plant,' who endeavoured to obtain a weekly 
 supply of only 200 or 300 ducks' eggs during the season of 
 the year when ducks' eggs are best worth hatching. He 
 had simply to abandon the enterprise. Mr. Walsh, of 
 Fleetwood, no doubt obtains a large supply of ducks' eggs ; 
 but he is content, we understand, to do a large part of his 
 hatching late in the season. The idea of the would-be 
 duck rancher, however, is to get his ducklings ready in 
 time to secure the high prices to be obtained before Boat- 
 race Day. 
 
 It was lately explained by a firm of Sussex chicken 
 rearers that they were deterred from the adoption of 
 'incubators' because of the difficulty of getting at the 
 scarce time of the year what are known as strongly fertilized 
 eggs, and because of the 'many drawbacks to artificial 
 rearers or brooders.' Ducklings do not, of course, require 
 much brooding. It is significant, however, that Mr. 
 Walsh's heaviest losses are sustained during the few days 
 after leaving the incubators. 
 
 + One duck farming scheme, prepared for land with 
 which we are familiar, by a man who had been poultry 
 farming with some capital, much labour, great faith, and 
 no profits for some years, provided for dotting over a 
 field little summerhouse huts of straw and bracken on a 
 
92 FACTS ABOUT WELL-KNOWN FARMS 
 
 ing, among other personal experiences, seem to 
 suggest the need of caution in accepting figures 
 in regard to enterprises which are not merely 
 departments of farm work, or are not carried 
 on in the favourable circumstances outlined in 
 Chapter II., or have not been personally inves- 
 tigated. 
 
 We recently took the trouble to visit three 
 poultry farms which were seemingly above the 
 ordinary level of such ventures. They appeared 
 to be establishments which, if successful on the 
 lines on which they were described in print as 
 being successful, might fairly be considered to 
 dispose of the notion that such places cannot be 
 made to pay. 
 
 The first was a • duck plant ' described at great 
 length m a well-known work on poultry keeping. 
 The same place is referred to in a volume on 
 poultry by a writer of high reputation. Two 
 statements may be quoted : first, that the 
 feathers of the ducks ' cover all the expenses of 
 labour, buying, seUing, rearing, killing, and 
 plucking'; second, that 'the profit made upon 
 the enterprise is equal to sixpence a bird.' The 
 
 frame of rough stakes. The ducklings were to be housed 
 in these places, with a stable lantern apiece for wai'inth. 
 The fact that the district was infested with rats and stoats 
 did not seem to have been taken into account. 
 
HOW DUCKS AND HENS DIFFER 93 
 
 fact is that the proprietor of the establishment, 
 who is widely respected in his district, was not 
 responsible for either of these allegations, that 
 the truth of neither can apparently be sub- 
 stantiated, and that the elaborate ' plant ' is now 
 practically ' shut down.' 
 
 Even when the difficulties of duck farming 
 have been overcome, as they appear to have been 
 overcome by Mr. Peter Walsh, of Fleetwood 
 (who has the advantages of long experience- 
 gained, let it be noted, in keeping ducks on an 
 ordinary farm — a supply of ofFal gratis, and an 
 establishment vnthin sight of the docks whence 
 cheap meal may be obtained, and close to the 
 excellent market of Manchester), data have not 
 been obtained in support of the belief that large 
 flocks of hens could be handled with similar 
 success on a poultry farm. This is^ Mr. Walsh's 
 own statement to the writer. As he explained, 
 ' duck nature is one thing; hen nature is another.' 
 Mr. Walsh frankly admitted that it was only 
 necessary for agriculturists to take up duck 
 keeping on commercial lines for his enterprise 
 to be driven out of the field. The ordinary 
 farmer whose son or daughter produced a few 
 thousand ducklings a year as a department of 
 farm work would enjoy economical advantages, 
 he declared, with which it would be impossible 
 
94 FACTS ABOUT WELL-KNOWN FARMS 
 
 to compete. The working of Mr. Walsh's estab- 
 hshment is described in the World's Work of 
 September, 1905. One thing which sliould re- 
 commend duck keeping to farmers is the mar- 
 vellous way in which the duckhngs would improve 
 pasture. But even Mr, Walsh keeps no stock 
 ducks. A poultry farmer proper would. 
 
 The second of the three poultry farms the 
 affairs of which we have investigated achieved 
 notoriety by its proprietor's pubUcation of a 
 manual — which, it is particularly worth noting, 
 went into several editions and is still circulating 
 — on how to make a yearly sum in three figures 
 out of poultry farming. Inquiry on the spot 
 failed to discover the whereabouts of the writer. 
 But his own ' poultry farming ' was, it is under- 
 stood, even more profitable than he gave his 
 readers to believe. In one week only he is said 
 to have cleared a sum calculated to make his 
 balance-sheet for that year eclipse any balance- 
 sheet in his book. This was accomplished by — 
 the receipt of two £100 premiums for pupils! 
 Before this satisfactory trading could be repeated, 
 however, the successful poultry farmer found 
 himself in the hands of the police. 
 
 As to the third poultry farm, it is perhaps 
 enough to mention that in the second week 
 in November its 'flock of 250 early-hatched 
 
HOW SOME POULTRY FARMS PAY 95 
 
 pullets ' was discovered to be producing — 5 eggs 
 a day I 
 
 Since these visits some interesting details are 
 to hand in regard to certain other poultry farms, 
 the pretensions of which have impressed would- 
 be poultry farmers, and seemed, even to the 
 present writer, to demand examination. 
 
 The first estabhshment, though no reference 
 to this appears in its prospectus or in any of the 
 numerous puffs which have been written of it, 
 proves to be merely a department of a consider- 
 able farm. 
 
 The second poultry farm is on a well-known 
 estate, is devoted largely to cramming, gets much 
 of its work done by pupils at £l a week, who 
 must engage to stay twelve months, and is only 
 in its second year. 
 
 A third poultry farm, which has been much 
 photographed and written about, proves to have 
 a large proportion of its birds running on 
 more than a dozen farms.* The rent of the 
 
 * Writing in the Jownal of the Board of Agrkultv/re 
 on 'Renting of Farm Land by Poultry Keepers,' Mr. 
 Edward Brown says: 'A general rate is 2s. per acre or 
 10s. per house per annum, the latter not to contain more 
 than twenty-five fowls. On permanent pasture where 
 other stock are kept the number should not exceed four or 
 five per acre ; but on meadows cut for hay or arable land, 
 ten to fifteen fowls per acre can be kept quite safely. The 
 
96 FACTS ABOUT WELL-KNOWN FARMS 
 
 owner's house and the land attached is, however, 
 considerable ; but the rent and rates are more 
 than covered, on the proprietor's own show- 
 ing, by the fees received from pupils. As this 
 poultry farm has agencies for poultry houses, 
 incubators, etc., it is not the pupUs' fees and 
 labour only which prove of advantage. 
 
 It should be added, in regard to poultry farms 
 in general, that the titles assumed by them are 
 no indication of the actual scale on which the 
 ventures are carried on or of the capital behind 
 them — indeed, they are often in amusing contrast 
 therewith — and that some of the most imposing 
 names are borne by establishments which 
 undoubtedly come under one or other of the 
 classes described in Chapter II. Two of the 
 most elaborately named poultry farms which 
 have pressed themselves on the attention of the 
 poultry public have failed during the last two 
 years. The notes appended to the hst of poultry 
 farms given in the next chapter and the com- 
 ments recorded in the Appendix also deserve 
 notice in this connection. 
 
 Many industrious and high-principled people 
 are engaged in poultry keeping, but there are 
 
 more kept within reasonable limits the better for the 
 farmer, as he is securing a greater amount of manure.'' 
 
BLACK SHEEP 97 
 
 persons making no little show in poultry press 
 advertisements and notes whose reputation is 
 indifferent. During the preparation of this 
 chapter one notable advertiser has come to 
 disaster. It is only a question of time with 
 some others. 
 
 In the same week in which the foregoing 
 paragraph was written a correspondent of one of 
 the poultry papers, in sending to it an extract 
 from the Geflilgel Zeitung, of Leipsic, wrote as 
 follows : 
 
 'You will perceive that the names of two English 
 poultry exporters figure here on the black list. Their 
 offence is, in the first place, non-payment of advertisement 
 accounts, amounting to £Q 2s. lOd. and £'^ 16s. 7d. 
 respectively; and, secondly, it is asserted that these gentle- 
 men received money from Continental clients — 15s. for one 
 sitting of eggs on April 7, 1904, in the one case, and ^4 
 for birds in the other — but failed to despatch goods or 
 give any explanation whatever. I notice from advertise- 
 ments that one of these exporters has won several cups 
 and medals at the Palace, etc' 
 
 And in the same issue of the poultry paper 
 from which this extract is made, Mr. W. M. 
 Elkington, in an article ©n another subject, has 
 these remarks, evidently without having heard 
 of the Geflilgel Zeitung incident : 
 
 ' It is surely going a bit too far to take advantage of 
 inexperienced persons by charging them tip-top prices for 
 
 7 
 
98 FACTS ABOUT WELL-KNOWN FARMS 
 
 inferior stock. Such cases are becoming far too common, 
 and not only regarding birds, but also eggs for sitting. 
 In how many instances, I wonder, does a big breeder sell 
 eggs from his best poultry ? To judgfe from some of the 
 chickens from guinea sittings that I have seen lately, some 
 of the big breeders must be getting a lot of extremely bad 
 chickens if they themselves are breeding from the same 
 birds they sell eggs from. There is more in this than 
 meets the eye, but I question whether it pays to give a big 
 breeder a high price for eggs for the sake of sajdng that 
 they come from him.' 
 
 In the way of mere humbug and bluff, without 
 overstepping the bounds of legaHty, some poultry 
 enterprises are also conspicuous. Many almost 
 incredible things which come to the knowledge 
 of those who have taken an interest in poultry 
 matters for some years would be merely ludicrous 
 were it not that by these audacious pretensions 
 numbers of innocent people are led to part with 
 their money. The novice cannot be warned too 
 strongly against taking literally the printed 
 statements of not a few advertising poultry 
 farmers, however reputable they may seem to 
 be, whether the statement concern the nature of 
 their experience, the numbers of their stock, the 
 extent of their farms or their profits — particularly 
 their profits. 
 
 No doubt this chapter might have been more 
 serviceable and striking could certain names and 
 
A TALE OF COCK AND BULL 99 
 
 addresses before us have been given ; but so long 
 as ' the greater the truth the greater the Hbel ' 
 remains an axiom of the law, and adventurers 
 and men of straw are privileged to make public 
 writers pay heavily merely to establish the accu- 
 racy of what they have carefully written, there 
 must be limits to knight errantry, even on behalf 
 of the would-be ' poultry farmer.' 
 
 However, let us conclude with a name and 
 address. The following paragraph appeared in 
 the Westminster Gazette in May, 1905 : 
 
 'Municipal Poultry Faeming. 
 
 ' The idea of poultry farms being run by local councils 
 has more than once been mooted, but suph projects have 
 not received much encouragement, the prevailing idea 
 being that they could not be made to pay. Some time 
 ago, we learn from Feathered Life, the Mundesley Parish 
 Council started such a farm, and were not unnaturally 
 subjected to some sharp criticism. The Council kept 
 pegging away, however, and it has just transpired that 
 through the profits realized on the farm they have been 
 able to reduce their rates 3d. in the pound. The profits 
 apparently represent about £4iS, and this the Council has 
 put into the sinking fund. For this state of affairs the 
 inhabitants of Mundesley are naturally grateful, while the 
 critics are effectually silenced.' 
 
 So striking a statement, with the authority of 
 a poultry paper and a leading London journal 
 behind it, duly went the rounds of the press, and 
 
 7—2 
 
100 FACrS ABOUT WELL-KNOWN FARMS 
 
 even appeared, we noticed, at the head of a 
 column in one of the most hard-headed of the 
 agricultural papers. Feeling sure that the para- 
 graph had no basis in fact, we ventured to com- 
 municate with the Clerk of the Mundesley Parish 
 Council. This is his reply : 
 
 ' MlKDESLEY, 
 
 ' NoHPOLKj 
 
 ' June 10, 1905. 
 'Deak Sib, 
 
 'In reply to your letter of June 3 {re Poultry 
 Farming), I b^ to inform you the report is unfounded, 
 and comes from some ill-disposed person. 
 
 ' Yours faithfully, 
 
 ' A. Larter.' 
 
 Ex uno disce omies! 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE CONFLICT OF AUTHORITY 
 
 ' It is to be remembered,' says ' The New Book 
 of Poultry,' 'that in America the question of 
 poultry farming has long ago been solved in 
 the affirmative, and that though this fact does 
 not prove at aU that it would ever be so in 
 England — we presently point out great differences 
 in the circumstances — it does prove that the 
 matter is one of figures and circumstances, which 
 in regard to cost of land, and food stuffs, and 
 incubation have changed materially in favour of 
 poultry during recent years.' 
 
 Some reasons why the published results of 
 American experience need to be carefully ex- 
 amined have already been stated {vide, too, the 
 conclusion of Chapter XII.), but account should 
 also be taken of the fact that the unquestion- 
 able success of none of the poultry farms which 
 have been established in this country under 
 
 101 
 
102 THE CONFLICT OF AUTHORITY 
 
 American auspices seems to be generally acknow- 
 ledged. 
 
 Poultry food may be somewhat cheaper than 
 it was, feeding may be more scientific, and the 
 principles of artificial incubation and rearing 
 may be better understood than they were ; but 
 can it be contended that these facts help the 
 poultry farmer very much when balanced by the 
 increased stress of home and foreign competition 
 with all but best - quality produce, and the 
 annually more exacting character of poul- 
 terers' demands where first-quality produce is 
 concerned ? 
 
 ' The New Book of Poultry ' says, ' The 
 matter is one of figures and circumstances.' Just 
 so. But no figures are forthcoming. 
 
 ' There are some examples ' — of successful 
 poultry farming — ' on quite a large scale,' this 
 work reports, ' though, fi-om the nature of the 
 case, few and little known, for the simple reason 
 that the owners very much object to be either 
 pestered with useless correspondence, or to have 
 their methods and markets and arrangements 
 discussed by press ^^Titers who have often done 
 much mischief.' 
 
 Surely, however, the modesty and self-eflPace- 
 ment of poultry farmers, to say nothing of their 
 public spirit, are a little extraordinary when, in 
 
'PRESS CRITICS' 103 
 
 spite of the success of their ventures, the balance- 
 sheet of not one is pubhshed for the confounding 
 of the critics who have done so ' much mischief I 
 By this time, it might be thought, some of the 
 successful must surely have done well enough to 
 be able to run the risk of having ' their methods 
 and markets and arrangements discussed by press 
 critics.' 
 
 Until these convincing balance-sheets appear 
 who shall say that the would-be poultry farmer 
 is not well counselled who has pressed upon him 
 the repeated advice of a responsible paper like 
 the Times, two leading country weeklies — the 
 Field and the Ccmnty Gentleman and Land and 
 Water — and even a poultry paper, the Feathered 
 World,* to have nothing to do with poultry 
 farming as popularly understood ? 
 
 ' So far as regards poultry farms proper,' wrote 
 Mr. W. B. Tegetmeier some years ago, ' I have 
 again to reiterate the fact that they do not exist. 
 I have known scores that have been founded, but 
 none that have endured.' And whUe this book 
 has been in preparation he has several times 
 repeated his declaration of agnosticism. ' We 
 loiow of no poultry farm,' he writes, ' that has 
 
 * ' Poultry farming, pure and simple, for egg produc- 
 tion and table fowls will not pay.' — Feathered World, 
 April 17, 1903. 
 
104 THE CONFLICT OF AUTHORITY 
 
 ever paid its expenses.' Is it not a little strange 
 that the conductors of a paper of such high 
 reputation for independence and for fair dealing 
 with its readers as the Field should have 
 permitted Mr. Tegetmeier such freedom of ex- 
 pression almost w^eekly for a long period of 
 years if numerous balance - sheets had been 
 seen of many showing the absurdity of his 
 attitude ? 
 
 On the other hand, we have the following 
 deliverance from another poultry veteran, Mr. 
 Lewis Wright, in the Feathered World of 
 April 10, 1903 : 
 
 ' The editor of the Reliable Poultry Journal, who travels 
 more widely than any other American authority, makes 
 some remarkable statements. He says that while ten or 
 fifteen years ago one had to "travel far to find half a 
 dozen " successful purely poultry plants, now " two or three 
 dozen of them can be visited in a week's journey if one 
 knows where to go." He states that " there are more than 
 fifty poultry plants doing business at the present time that 
 use enough incubators to require 5,000 to 30,000 eggs 
 every three or four weeks,"* but that no man can safely 
 
 * The writer means, of course, if they were filled. The 
 high-sounding ' incubator capacity ' of poultry farms is 
 one of the humours of 'the industry.' One has heard 
 some curious stories, by the way, as to the history of some 
 of the much-photographed rows of incubators belonging 
 to American ' poultry plants,' which are so enthusiastically 
 written up in incubator catalogues, (Readers who are 
 
A TALE OF INCUBATORS 105 
 
 set a limit to what will be accomplished in the next 
 decade, since " the financial risk is being eliminated from 
 the business, until it is not greater now than that involved 
 in other business enterprises, and men of means and 
 brains are taking up the work in rapidly increasing 
 numbers." 
 
 'Turning now to our own country, the editor of the 
 Reliable Poultry Joitirnal has spent some time in England, 
 and he says that while he met people who say that no 
 practical plants exist here, "nevertheless, we ran across 
 several, and have heard of still others," besides others being 
 fresh planned. Some asked why these people did not 
 write about their farms. Mr. Curtis gives the reason — 
 they do not want to. They " neither want to brag nor to 
 lead others into it," and they do want to be let alone to 
 mind their own business. But he adds, "They can be 
 found by those who really look for them," and he avers 
 that " England is going to see wonders worked during the 
 next few years in the way of big poultry plants built on 
 practical lines. Englishmen themselves do not seem to 
 realize this, but it is so nevertheless." That is the final 
 
 photographers will readily reckon up the actual value 
 of certain imposing-looking outdoor views !) Cases are 
 known in which an incubator company has fitted up 
 poultry farms with a fine display of incubators, and has 
 done excellent business by circulating photographs of the 
 same. When the time for payment arrived, and no pay- 
 ment was made, it took back its incubators. Then another 
 incubator company arrived on the scene with its machines, 
 and the poultry public read the nominal owner's glowing 
 testimonial : ' On his plant all other incubators have been 
 cleared out, and Blank's only are now kept.' What could 
 be more convincing .'' 
 
106 THE CONFLICT OF AUTHORITY 
 
 judgment of an experienced practical man, who went about 
 with the real desire to see.' 
 
 Well, that was two years ago, and there are 
 neither names and addresses nor balance-sheets 
 yet available to confound the sceptical Enghsh- 
 men. Obviously, it would be a little easier to 
 believe in what ' England is going to see ' if 
 those who have perhaps spent as much time in 
 the search for paying poultry farms as Mr. Curtis 
 was likely to be able to do during his trip to 
 Europe, had been as successful as he in discover- 
 ing ' practical plants.' 
 
 Writing again in the same paper the next 
 week, Mr. Wright said : 
 
 ' Within the last two or three years there has been 
 quite an immigration of" poultry managers who have learnt 
 the business in America. One of these was two years the 
 foreman on Mr. C. I. Nesmith's well-known plant at 
 Reading, Massachusetts; another was superintendent of 
 Mr. George Pollard's immense poultry and duck ranch. I 
 do not know whether either of these has yet " settled," but 
 Mr. F. S. Noon has now been over a year in charge of, 
 and running mainly on Ameiicau lines, the large poultry 
 plant at Billesley Hall, King's Heath, Birmhigham. Last 
 season he raised 6,000 chickens — not an excessive number, 
 as Mr. Kenward real's 8,000 on his fai'm in Sussex, but 
 this was on a new " plant " the first season. This season 
 he is aiming at 15,000. This farm may be visited. 
 Another large establishment is High House Farm, Lickey 
 End, Bromsgrove. Mr. J. jVdams has a large poultry 
 
'200-EGG HENS^ FOR POULTRY FARMERS 107 
 
 farm, rather more on English lines, under the manage- 
 ment of Mr. Purdy, at Fleet, in Hants. Mr. Falkner 
 devotes 60 acres to poultry, mainly on utility lines, near 
 Farnham, and there are others that might be men- 
 tioned. ... A most interesting feature is a new spirit of 
 adaptability, and change of method from the teaching of 
 experience. As an example of this may be cited the 
 poultry farm at King's Langley, now carried on for some 
 years by Mr. Toovey, assisted as manager by Mr. Williams. 
 
 These addresses will no doubt be useful to 
 the reader in making investigations on his own 
 account. We must content ourselves with 
 saying that no facts are within our knowledge 
 at present calculated to remove the doubts 
 already expressed as to the prospects of com- 
 mercial poultry farming which is not largely 
 poultry fattening, selling sittings and stock-birds, 
 or a department of general farming. 
 
 The reader will note with interest, perhaps, 
 that it has been stated on behalf of one of 
 the enterprises mentioned, the Worcestershire 
 Poultry Farm, near Bromsgrove, that 
 
 ' in utility poultry farming (we are, of course, speaking of 
 laying fowls only, as we have had little experience of 
 table poultry) the crux of the whole question seems to be 
 this — the quantity of eggs laid per hen. A 120-egg hen 
 is of no use at all to the utility poultry keeper, because 
 she will not pay for her keep and attention. The 150-egg 
 hen is very little better, because she will perhaps only just 
 do it, but the 200-egg and upwards hen is everything. 
 
108 THE CONFLICT OF AUTHORITY 
 
 because every egg laid after she has paid for her keep and 
 attention is all profit.' 
 
 Some notion as to the extent to which the 
 200-egg hen exists upon poultry farms may be 
 gathered from the following defence of poultry 
 farming in a letter in Poultry, from Mr. A. 
 Tysiho Johnson, a well-known poultry lecturer 
 and writer : 
 
 'With regard to the possibilities of poultry farming 
 pure and simple — that is to say, the hiring of land for the 
 sole purpose of producing poultry and eggs for con- 
 sumption — poultry farming of that kind is probably the 
 most risky and the least profitable, but it is not impossible 
 to make it pay sufficiently well to justify its existence as 
 a sound industry. It is a business that requires enormous 
 capital, thorough practical experience, untiring energy, a 
 keen business instinct, and a power of organization of no 
 mean kind. The layers will have to be of the "high- 
 pressure'" strains, housed in properly constructed houses 
 (with scratching sheds), each provided with two pens of 
 grass, to be used alternately. 
 
 ' Whether there are any large flocks of layei-s in exist- 
 ence averaging 200 eggs a hen is questionable, but I believe 
 with careful breeding the laying powers of a hen may far 
 exceed that. I know many people contend that their 
 flocks, and large ones I mean, average 200 and more, but 
 these assertions are " unproven." To produce a number of 
 hens with an egg average of 200 is a matter of many years, 
 but there is no reason why, by careful selection, the laying 
 hen should not be bred to produce very many more eggs 
 per annum. She readily yields to treatment if directed 
 rightly, and her descendants may be as far removed fi-om 
 
A ' TRADE OR PROFESSION ' 109 
 
 her in prolificacy as a first-class shorthorn milker is from 
 its wild ancestors. We have by no means seen the laying 
 hen in her best light. The evolution of her laying powers 
 is only just beginning. 
 
 ' I am not writing to advocate poultry farming " pure 
 and simple "* — not that I disbelieve in its possibilities for 
 a moment — because I know that a far greater profit may 
 be made from utility poultry in conjunction with general 
 farming or some branch of agricultural work.. At the 
 same time I would not say " Don't " to a man who was 
 about to embark in an egg and table poultry farm or a 
 duck " ranch," if I knew him to be equal to the task of 
 making a success of it.' 
 
 It would undoubtedly be interesting to know, 
 in detail, exactly what, in the writer's opinion, 
 would enable a man with a family to do well 
 with hens as a single industry. 
 
 Another defender of poultry farming is the 
 chief writer in Feathered Life : 
 
 ' To the energetic man with a little capital, plenty of 
 knowledge, and plenty of -enthusiasm^ poultry as a business 
 has distinct possibilities, quite as much as a dozen other 
 trades or professions.'' (The italics are ours.) 
 
 Against these testimonies in favour of poultry 
 farming, these pleas for poultry farming as a 
 problem satisfactorily solved, as a 'sound in- 
 
 * But why not ? In these times, when not a few trades 
 are said to be 'going,' can we have too many 'sound 
 industries ' introduced to public notice ? 
 
110 THE CONFLICT OF AUTHORITY 
 
 dustry,' as the peer of ' a dozen trades or 
 professions,' may be set the fact that in the very 
 latest book on poultry, 'Poultry Keeping on 
 Farms and Small Holdings' (1904), Sir Walter 
 Gilbey, author of a dozen or more works on 
 rural subjects, an extensive keeper of poultry, 
 an experienced stock-breeder, and Chairman of 
 the Smithfield Show Committee, writes in this 
 uncompromising fashion : 
 
 ' It is difficult to account for the belief still entei-tained 
 by many persons that poultry farms can be made to pay. 
 Poultry can only be made to pay if they are kept on the 
 farm as part of the farmer's general stock. The experi- 
 ment has been tried of taking tracts of land or small 
 farms to be exclusively devoted to poultry breeding. 
 Such a proceeding as poultry farming has never proved 
 successful. The rearing of market fowls will not pay the 
 rent of land, the expense of feeding, the cost of labour, 
 of fattening, killing, plucking, dressing, and conveyance 
 to market. 
 
 ' The experiment has been tried many hundreds of 
 times, and with loss to the promoters, and the loss sus- 
 tained in some cases has been very serious to those who 
 pushed the experiment far. 
 
 ' What ai-e now called poultry farms aie places whei-e 
 fancy exhibition stock is bred for sale at fancy prices, or 
 they are places where bii-ds ai-e bought young by the 
 proprietor and sold at advanced prices. 
 
 ' So-called poultry farms in France, Germany, Italy, or 
 America can be quoted, but in no case have they been 
 successful. 
 
AN OLD HAND'S SCEPTICISM 111 
 
 ' There is no limit to the number of ignorant writers on 
 the subject of fowls and eggs. Very few of them can 
 possibly have written from their own experience. 
 
 'The agricultural and live-stock papers are to blame 
 for publishing many misleading statements. From my own 
 experience, such advice has been the means of involving 
 readers who ax;cepted it in cruel losses. In some cases it 
 has cost those who followed it the savings of a lifetime.' 
 
 Again, Mr. C. E. Brooke, the head of one of 
 the largest firms of salesmen in the Central and 
 LeadenhaU Markets, an ex- Master of the Poul- 
 terers' Company, a constant exhibitor and judge 
 of table poultry at the Shows, and a man 
 occupying, by reason of his business success, 
 an absolutely independent position, has written : 
 
 'The question is often put, "Are you in favour of 
 poultry breeding on a large scale — i.e., on extensive farms?" 
 I reply, No ; for the experiment has never so far proved 
 economical unless combined with other branches of farming 
 and dairying. 
 
 ' Every fowl keeper knows, of course, that any huge hen 
 ranch on a limited space of ground is impossible, and that 
 with a wide area for the poultry to scrape over the project 
 would soon be found impracticable. At first everything 
 looks promising, and the inevitable balance-sheet, showing 
 amazing profits on paper, makes its appearance in the 
 papers. But after a time — be it very short or not so 
 short, as the skill or good luck of the farmer goes — a tale 
 of misfortune is all there is to tell. The fowls cease to 
 lay, they require a great deal of feeding, and finally they 
 begin to die off by the score. Roup and other diseases 
 
112 THE CONFLICT OF AUTHORITY 
 
 have seiy^ed them, owhig to the foulness of the soil, and in 
 a few months Mr. Tegetmeier has to record the failure of 
 another poultry farm. Fowls require much waste ground 
 to roam over, and if their houses and haunts are not kept 
 scrupulously clean, disease is certain. 
 
 ' On the other hand, a few fowls, or, if the available 
 ground be large, a few dozens of them, pay admirably. It 
 is fowl keeping on this modest scale that pays. And it is 
 from poultry farmers in this humble way that the 
 "higglers" collect the millions of eggs of fowls which are 
 sent to England from the little peasant farmers of France 
 and Holland.'' 
 
 This opinion is quoted from a pamphlet by 
 Mr. C. E. Brooke, printed so long ago as 1893 ; 
 but though during the twelve years since then 
 he has been in the closest daily touch with the 
 poultry world, and has seen large numbers of 
 poultry farms started, he is of the same opinion 
 still. 
 
 'Several times' (he declared this year) 'I have been 
 pressed to join schemes for running poultry farms as com- 
 panies. I said : " Don't come with paper figures. Show 
 me profitable working, and Tm with you. Til support 
 you at once. But there must be something to support. 
 Show me you can make a dividend out of poultiy farming, 
 and you can count on me putting you in the way of 
 getting any further capital you want up to i'10,000." ' 
 
 The oflfer is stiU open. It is surely remarkable 
 that no one should be ready to accept it 
 
 ^^^ith regard to the Past Master's refei-ence to 
 the sources from which we derive some of our 
 
NO CONTINENTAL POULTRY FARMS 113 
 
 supplies of foreign eggs, it is well worth notice 
 that, whatever stories of ' poultry plants ' may 
 have reached us from America, it is not often 
 alleged that poultry farms flourish in France and 
 Denmark, the two countries which are our closest 
 competitors for good table poultry and eggs. In 
 Denmark, says the Report of the Scottish Agri- 
 cultural Commission, 'the great and profitable 
 egg export trade ' — £1,500,000 worth are sent 
 abroad in a year—' rests, not upon large poultry 
 farms, but upon numerous groups of peasant 
 proprietors and cottagers who keep fowls, from 
 the number of 10 to 100, and are joined in co- 
 operative societies for collecting, testing, and 
 marketing the eggs to the best advantage.' 
 The Danish Poultry Yard confirms the accuracy 
 of this statement. In Holland we lately made 
 personal inquiries for poultry farms unavailingly. 
 The eggs which are exported from the Nether- 
 lands to England in increasing numbers come 
 from the dozen or score or so of hens — seldom 
 many more — which it is the custom of each 
 farmer to keep. 
 
 The conductor of the Farmers' Gazette, of 
 Dublin, echoes the views of his Danish confrere : 
 ' Though it may be possible to invest £l in 
 a certain direction so as to earn another £l, 
 it does not follow that it may be possible to earn 
 
 8 
 
114 THE CONFLICT OF AUTHORITY 
 
 £2 from the investment of £2 in the same specu- 
 lation. The poultry farming experiences of 
 many who have sought to keep fowls upon a 
 large scale afford an admirable illustration of the 
 correctness of this principle.' 
 
 The following confession was made by Mr. 
 A. T. Johnson in Poultry for April 28, 1905 : 
 
 ' It must always be the farmers and peasantry to whom 
 the nation must look for its supply of home eggs, for 
 the few produced by the specialist are but a drop in the 
 ocean compared with those collected from farm and road- 
 side cottage.' 
 
 Or, as Mr. Tegetmeier put it in the Field in 
 January : ' The large supply of poultry for the 
 London, Brighton, and Liverpool markets is 
 not produced by trained poultry farmers, but 
 collected by the higglers from the birds reared 
 by the ordinary farmers and cottagers.' 
 
 ' The last fifty years,' says an authority no 
 less than the Secretary of the National Poultry 
 Organization Society, in his work significantly 
 entitled ' Poultry Keeping as an Industry for 
 Farmers and Cottagers ' (1904), ' have seen the 
 commencement of many enterprises in which 
 large sums of money have been mvested — either 
 privately or in companies — for the breeding and 
 rearing of poultry, but they have without ex- 
 ception come to grief The chief reason why 
 
'A PART OF FARM WORK' 115 
 
 these failures have occurred, he declares, is that 
 the poultry were not made ' a part of the stock 
 and a branch of the farm work.' 
 
 On another page Mr. Brown has the fol- 
 lowing : 
 
 ' There are now springing up in different parts of the 
 country a number of what may be fairly called " poultry 
 farms." These are, however, conducted in association 
 with cultivation and farming in one direction or another, 
 although under such conditions poultry forms the great 
 objective, and other branches are only adopted in order to 
 meet the requirements of, or are supplementary to, the 
 poultry. Such establishments, as a rule, combine pro- 
 duction for marketing purposes with the sale of stock 
 birds and eggs for hatching, and although it is yet too 
 early to form a definite opinion as to how far they can be 
 extended, our experience is sufficient to warrant us in 
 believing that this branch of poultry keeping will develop 
 very greatly throughout the country.' 
 
 ' In every case, however,' adds Mr. Brown in 
 his National Poultry Organization Society Cir- 
 cular, issued about the same time, ' it is important 
 that twice, or, better stUl, three times, as much 
 land should be occupied as required for the 
 poultry, to insure rotation, and the land be 
 cropped to the best advantage.' 
 
 In his 1905 report to his Society, Mr. Brown 
 viTites : 
 
 'Attention has been called to the growth of special 
 establishments where egg and poultry production is the 
 
 8—2 
 
116 THE CONFLICT OF AUTHORITY 
 
 leading feature, in some cases upon an extensive scale 
 Dunng the last year the number has largely increased, 
 and a considerable amount of c apital is now invested But 
 what >8 more to the point, the experiment stage is pmc- 
 tically passed. Failures there are and wUl be, as in every 
 business, even those recognised as ordinarily profitable. 
 But because some traders or manufacturere enter the 
 Hnnkruptcy Courts, we do not argue that their respective 
 businessi-s cannot be made to pay. Nor need it be longer 
 so with regard to poultry farming. Given the necessary 
 knowledge, skill, capital, and perseverance, under suitable 
 conditions success can be achieved.'' 
 
 Mr. Brown declares that ' almost every failure 
 can be explained by the absence of one or more 
 of the above qualifications.' 
 
 In the passa^ quoted, Mr. Brown appears to 
 be dealing with establishments where egg and 
 poultry production is only ' the leading feature.' 
 But in the next paragraph he refers to ' intensive 
 poultry keeping' — in other words, to what is 
 variously called poultry farming proper, or 
 poultry fanning as properly understood. 
 
 'Intensive poultry keeping' (sap Mr. Brown) 'requires 
 capital to a greater extent than when carried out as 
 supplemental to ordinary fanning or fruit-growing. Part 
 of the capital should consist of sufficient means or income 
 to provide maintenance during the process of formation or 
 development — say, for the first two years. Whilst recog- 
 nising the value of poultry farming upon intensive lines, 
 we must not forget that the greatest profit will be secui«d 
 
WANTED: BALANCE-SHEETS! 117 
 
 by farmers who obtain an additional revenue without 
 increased rent and probably of wages.' 
 
 Well, that is what we have ventured to say. 
 But the balance-sheets of any ' poultry farming 
 on intensive lines ' ventures on which ' the 
 experiment stage is practically passed ' would 
 be instructive. 
 
 ' A further point to be noted is,' the Secretary 
 of the National Poultry Organization Society 
 goes on, ' that men are taking up poultry farming 
 much more than was the case at one time,' which, 
 he says, ' is all to the good, as they can handle 
 bigger concerns than is usual with the opposite 
 sex.' Clearly, we may expect some most interest- 
 ing balance-sheets before long, though there are 
 impatient folk, no doubt, who will say that we 
 have waited long enough already ! 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 POULTRY FAEM BALANCE-SHEETS SCRUTIKIZED 
 
 Meantime we must rest content with the 
 balance-sheets of such successful poultry farmers 
 as write to the papers, and, without giving an 
 address, show how supremely easy it is to take 
 ' a delightfully situated cottage,' and make a 
 living out of hens. 
 
 An interesting communication of the usual 
 character lately appeared in Country Life. 
 It opens, of course, with the cUcM, ' The fact 
 that 160,000 tons of eggs w^ere imported into 
 England from Russia, apart from the enormous 
 quantities shipped by Denmark and France,' 
 etc. ; it gives a balance-sheet for one year only, 
 and that the first year ; and the figures show a 
 handsome profit of more than a pound a week. 
 The following note of income and expenditure 
 is furnished by the correspondent, so that the 
 reader may know 1k)\\ the money was made : 
 
 118 
 
A REMARKABLE BALANCE-SHEET 119 
 
 Expenditure, 
 
 Food 
 
 Eggs for incubation 
 
 Rent 
 
 Incubators 
 
 Foster-mothers (16) 
 
 Fowl houses (12) 
 
 Stocks (ducks and 
 
 geese) 
 Egg boxes and ham 
 
 pers 
 Petroleum 
 Repairs 
 Paint, tar, whitewash, 
 
 etc. 
 Labour 
 Sundries - 
 
 IE. 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 300 
 
 
 
 60 
 
 
 
 26 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 21 10 
 
 
 
 - 15 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 - 5 
 
 
 
 13 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 £468 10 
 
 
 
 Receipts. 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 Fowls (1,040) at 3s. - 156 
 
 Ducks (100) at 2s. 9d. 13 15 
 
 Goslings (54) at 6s. 16 4 
 
 Eggs (30,000) at Id. - 125 
 
 „ (20,000) at l^d. 125 
 
 Stock. 
 Chickens (746) at 2s. 
 Ducks (8) at 5s. 
 Geese (4) at 7s. - 
 Plant 
 
 Expenditure 
 Profit 
 
 £435 19 9 
 
 74 12 
 
 2 
 
 - 18 
 
 - 20 
 
 £533 10 
 
 - 468 10 
 
 -£65 9 
 
 The roundness of the figures is certainly interest- 
 ing. How does one manage to keep down one's 
 expenditure on food to £300 exactly, and to sell 
 exactly 30,000 eggs for £125 and exactly 20,000 
 for another £125 ? 
 
 But as to the second and third years : 
 ' The second and third years my egg produce 
 increased, likewise the number of my clients. 
 Bear in mind, I constantly worked on the same 
 lines as the first year, so you can draw your con- 
 clusions as to profits therefrom.' 
 
 No doubt we can. The money-making concern 
 is not, however, to be floated as a company, in 
 which the pubhc wiU have an opportunity of 
 taking shares. No, ' after testing this business 
 for three years, I sold the whole of my stock 
 
laO FARM BALANCE-SHEETS SCRUTINIZED 
 
 and plant, without any difficulty, at a very good 
 profit.' It is a pleasing trait in the character of 
 many of the successful poultry farmers of whom 
 we read that they show no selfish disposition to 
 keep hold of a good thing ! 
 
 Or can it really be that it is not such a good 
 thing after all, and that the warning caveat 
 emptor needs to be given ? At any rate, here is 
 a letter once received by the present writer from 
 a ' poultry manager ' : 
 
 ' I am writing to ask your assistance in advertising for 
 sale as a going concern the farm, some particulars of 
 which, as to location and nature of business, etc., you will 
 find emblazoned on this sheet. I am selling because, 
 having exchanged all my capital for experience during the 
 past three years, before the profits were sufficient to keep 
 me going, I have been obliged to take a billet as poultry 
 manager. What I have for disposal is the lease, goodwill 
 (good private connection), stock (live and dead), incubators 
 and appliances, and the price I am asking for the whole is 
 £Q00, which is £150 less than I paid for it, and con- 
 siderably less than half what it has cost me to date. The 
 incubator capacity is 1,400 eggs, and there are good fowl 
 and duck houses, yards, etc., in the place, about 100 stock 
 hens and pullets and 80 stock ducks, and heaps of chicks. 
 Area, 4^ acres; rent, dPSS per annum. Eight-roomed, 
 two-storey cottage.' 
 
 It may be of interest to novices to mention 
 that some such advertisement as the following is 
 constantly to be found in the poultry press : 
 
' AS A GOING CONCERN ' 121 
 
 WITHOUT RESERVE. 
 
 Poultry Farm, 
 
 -, SUSSEX. 
 
 Unreserved Sale of about 600 Head of pure-bred Buff 
 ORPINGTONS, SALMON FAVEROLLBS and FIRST 
 CROSS POTJLTRY ; the whole of the capital nearly now. 
 
 POULTRY APPLIANCES, 
 
 Comprising 25 Portable Span-roof Poultry Houses, 11 
 Incubators by Hearsou, Tamlin, and others, 30 Brooders, 
 about 200 Portable Wire-netting Hurdles, about 2,000 yds. 
 of Wire Netting, Galvanized Com or Meal Bins, Portable 
 Iron Furnace, 160-Gallon Oil Cisterji, 4 Timber-built Build- 
 ings with Corrugated Iron Roofs, and MiscolIaneoUH Effects, 
 which will be conducted by 
 
 PUBLIC AUCTION, 
 
 upon the premises as above. 
 
 On , , 1905. 
 
 By Order of Mr. — — , relinquishing Poultry Farming. 
 
 In the same issue of the journal in which this 
 advertisement appeared, the sale ' as a going 
 concern ' of a poultry farm which had made a 
 considerable figure at Shows and in utUity poultry 
 circles was also announced. 
 
 Mr. W. W. B. Hulton, of Hulton Park, 
 Bolton-le-Moors, recently contributed the follow- 
 ing letter to the Field : 
 
 'The year just closed corroborates my oft-repeated 
 assertion that with a free grass run, without charge for 
 rent or labour, poultry are a very profitable accessory to a 
 gentleman's house. Undoubtedly my experience goes to 
 show the axiom is true, " The greater the stock the smaller 
 the profit." I append the items of my balance-sheet, 
 which speaks for itself: 
 
122 FARM BALANCE-SHEETS SCRUTINIZED 
 
 Paid. 
 
 
 
 Received. 
 
 
 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Stock on Jan. 1^ 1903— 
 
 
 
 3,894 eggs at 10 to Is. 
 
 
 
 75 head of poultry at 
 
 
 
 = jei9 9s. 6d., less 
 
 
 
 3s. 
 
 7 10 
 
 
 
 141 used for setting 
 
 
 
 20 pigeons at lOd. 
 
 
 
 = 14s. - 
 
 18 15 
 
 6 
 
 each - 
 
 16 
 
 8 
 
 141 poultry killed, 564^ 
 
 
 
 Spratt's food, rice, etc. 
 
 1 14 
 
 2 
 
 poimds at 7d. per 
 
 
 
 107 eggs hought for 
 
 
 
 pound 
 
 16 9 
 
 4 
 
 setting - 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 63 poultry sold at 7d. 
 
 
 
 Use of incuhator at Is. 
 
 
 
 per pound 
 
 7 11 
 
 9 
 
 per week 
 
 14 
 
 
 
 Eggs sold for setting 
 
 13 
 
 
 
 Use of foster-mother at 
 
 
 
 61 pigeons killed, at 
 
 
 
 Is. per week - 
 
 16 
 
 
 
 lOd. each 
 
 2 2 
 
 6 
 
 10 pigeons bought 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 22 pigeons sold for 
 
 
 
 13 sacks of wheat 
 
 10 4 
 
 6 
 
 shooting - 
 
 1 2 
 
 
 
 5^ sacks of Indian meal 
 
 3 9 
 
 8 
 
 Stock on Jan. 1, 1904— 
 
 
 
 4^ sacks of Indian com 
 
 2 16 
 
 
 
 61 head of poultry 
 
 
 
 3 sacks of barley-meal 
 
 1 18 
 
 2 
 
 at 2s. 
 
 6 2 
 
 
 
 2 sacks of dari - 
 
 1 10 
 
 
 
 21 pigeons at lOd. 
 
 17 
 
 6 
 
 
 33 4 
 
 2 
 
 
 Balance in hand 
 
 20 9 
 
 5 
 
 Total 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 63 13 
 
 7 
 
 63 13 
 
 7 
 
 ' The balance of £S,0 odd leaves sufficient margin to pay 
 for one-tenth of the man's time who, amongst many other 
 duties, finds time to see to the poultry — say, 2s. per week 
 or ^5 4s. per annum — and to pay the rent of three acres at 
 ^2 or £6 per annum, making a total of <£ 11 4s., and 
 leaving £9 in hand.' 
 
 On a poultry farm there would be, of course, 
 further expenses, such as carriage, to come out 
 of the £9 before the owner touched any profit. 
 
 Nothing is debited, either, for interest on 
 cost of houses, coops, etc., and depreciation. 
 As a matter of fact, there would have been no 
 £9, if only because the products would not have 
 made the prices stated without the employment 
 
AN EXPERTS 'PROFIT' 123 
 
 of skilled labour. In poultry farm conditions the 
 profit would be turned into a loss. 
 
 Perhaps the tyro's spirits may revive on turn- 
 ing to the report of the second Australian Laying 
 Competition, which lasted twelve months — fi*om 
 March, 1902, to March, 1903. ' The test,' says 
 the ' Government poultry expert,' ' shows that 
 poultry farming, more especially egg farming, 
 will pay.' ' Profit,' he declares, ' can absolutely 
 be obtained.' Let us make a little balance-sheet 
 out of the Competition figures : 
 
 Cr. 
 
 £ s. d. 
 228 hens laid 29,627 eggs 176 9 6 
 
 Dr. 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 Meals and corn ... ... 59 13 4 
 
 Meat 7 16 
 
 Grit 17 6 68 6 10 
 
 Supposed profit 108 2 8 
 
 Even the novice, however, ought to be able to 
 see at once that labour, houses, troughs and 
 outfit for preparing food, and cost of coals or oil 
 for same, mortality with and cost of breeding 
 and rearing hens, and rent, taxes, interest on 
 capital, repairs, and incidentals, are left out of 
 consideration. The remainder is profit, no 
 doubt, but it is not £108 2s. 8d. It has also to 
 
lU FARM BALANCE-SHEETS SCRUTINIZED 
 
 be bome in mind that the Competition hens 
 were more than average layers. 
 
 The same mistake is made in the report of the 
 third AustraUan Competition, The manager 
 writes : ' The market value of the eggs was £382, 
 from which deduct the cost of feed, £134, and a 
 profit of £248 is left on the 600 hens.' And a 
 poultry paper, in reproducing the report, duly 
 heads it, ' Profit of £248 on 600 Hens !' 
 
 ' The attention demanded by this number of 
 hens,' it goes on, ' does not fiilly represent one 
 man's work.' Clearly, however, the one man is 
 not to have a holiday. But on such an extra- 
 ordinary poultry estabUshment the man would 
 probably be extraordinary too— so extraordinary 
 that, ' a profit of £248 ' having to be shown, he 
 would work for nothing himself, and be able to 
 persuade people to buUd him hen-houses, and 
 supply him with rent and rates-free ground, 
 stock, utensils, litter, the dozen and one odds 
 and ends of a poultry estabUshment handling 
 91,169 eggs in a year, and petty cash as well, for 
 nothing too ! Easy book-keeping like this might 
 pass, perhaps, in a popular journal, but the 
 admission of such rubbish to a poultry paper 
 would seem to be only one more illustration of 
 the way in which imagination frequently takes 
 the place of certified figures in the periodicals 
 
LAYING COMPETITION ' PROFITS ^ 125 
 
 which lend themselves to the advocacy of poultry 
 farming. 
 
 As the point we desire to bring out is of the 
 first importance, we may also direct attention to 
 the figures of the last home 16- weeks Competi- 
 tion held during the period of the year when eggs 
 are worth most. Yet the balance-sheet shows 
 that only £29 worth of eggs (5,224 at an average 
 of 9 for Is.) were produced by the 108 birds, 
 while the expenses of management, at Is. 6d. a 
 week a pen (of three birds each), were as much 
 as £48 6s. Id. This amount only covers, of 
 course, the cost of food and the fee to the 
 manager for the use of her premises and attend- 
 ance on the birds.* If the cost of feeding 108 
 winter layers be put down at 2d. a week each,t 
 
 * The total expense of the Competition was i?80. 
 
 f The management and feeding of the birds at the 
 recent Laying Competition are described as follows in the 
 report : 
 
 'Management. — The range of runs and house faces 
 south. The houses, constructed to hold twelve birds, are 
 open-fronted and partially glazed, and fitted with canvas 
 shutters ; the floors are formed of dry dust covered with 
 straw placed on the ground itself. The trap-doors to runs 
 have always been arranged overnight, so that the birds 
 had access to the fresh range as soon as they pleased to 
 take it in the mornings. 
 
126 FARM BALANCE-SHEETS SCRUTINIZED 
 
 and an adequate amount be added for rent, 
 labour, interest on capital and depreciation of 
 houses and utensils, cost of rearing stock, general 
 expenses, possible death of birds — at the last 
 Competition it was ' a matter of considerable 
 difficulty to keep birds 1, 40, 64, 80 and 90 ahve 
 at all ' — and profit, it wiU be realized at once that 
 to make money by means of poultry on a self- 
 supporting poultry farm, on which everything 
 used must be paid for, is hardly as easy as it is 
 
 ' Foods and Feeding. — The 144 birds have had 9 pounds 
 of mash (weighed dry) each morning. It has consisted of 
 2^ pounds each of chopped salad, meat, bran, and meals 
 (which la^t were changed every day). The meat, bran, 
 and meals were scalded together and cooked all night, the 
 fresh-cut salad, which formed half the bulk of the food, 
 being added in the morning. A quart of grain was fed to 
 each twelve birds at night and half a pint at mid-dav. 
 Oats have been the staple food, but barley and wheat 
 have been considerably used, all of which have frequently 
 been steamed and fed warm at night. The grain has 
 usually been fed in the litter, which in bad weather has 
 been forked into heaps as often as three times a day, in 
 order to give ample exeicise. Clean water, flint grit, and 
 crushed oyster shells, have always been before the birds. 
 No spices, condiments, or patent foods of any description 
 have been used.' 
 
 For a series of dietaries for poultry, see a leaflet of 
 thirteen pages to be had free by addressing a postcard 
 to the Board of Agriculture, 2, Whitehall Place, S.W. 
 
TABLE POULTRY PRODUCTION 127 
 
 declared to be. And it must be remembered that 
 where numbers of birds were kept the laying 
 average would not be that of picked Laying 
 Competition birds. It is probable that some 
 farmers' fowls do not lay more eggs in a twelve- 
 month than the average produced by the winning 
 pens at the recent Laying Competition in sixteen 
 weeks. 
 
 When the novice, by making calculations from 
 the cost of the production and the results of the 
 sale of a comparatively few birds, tries to calcu- 
 late the profits to be obtained from producing 
 table poultry on a poultry farm, he is in danger 
 of faUing into the same snare as when, on the 
 basis of satisfactory returns from a few layers on 
 a homestead or in a suburban garden, he draws 
 up figures as to the probable receipts on an ' egg 
 farm.' 
 
 Last year the poultry estabhshment in con- 
 nection with the agricultural department of 
 University College, Reading, issued statistics 
 giving in great detail the income and expendi- 
 ture in connection with the hatching and sale at 
 twelve weeks old of thirty White Wyandottes 
 and thirty cross-breds. As the cross-breds made 
 more money than the Wyandottes, we wiU quote 
 the figures referring to them : 
 
£ s. d. 
 
 £ s. 
 
 2 12 6 
 
 
 2 1 9 
 
 
 
 4 14 
 
 128 FARM BALANCE-SHEETS SCRUTINIZED 
 
 Cr. 
 
 15 birds at 3s. 6d. 
 
 15 „ 2s. 9d. ... 
 
 Dii. 
 
 Commission and carriage ... 7 4 
 
 Eggs 3 7 
 
 Oil for incubator 8f 
 
 Oil for brooder 5 
 
 Food 18 0^ 1 10 1 
 
 Net profit 3 4 2 
 
 To start with, this ' net profit ' is not ' net 
 profit ' at all. Nothing is allowed for labour 
 (attending to the incubator, say twenty-three 
 days ; attending to the birds, twelve weeks), rent, 
 taxes, interest on capital laid out in and deprecia- 
 tion of the incubator, hot and cold brooders, hen- 
 house, fattening shed and utensUs, cost of htter, 
 killing, picking, and mouldmg, and box, straw, 
 and nails used in despatching the birds to towa. 
 and the necessary sundries. 
 
 With regard to receipts also, it should be 
 noted that the birds were placed on the market 
 at a favourable time. Twelve-weeks-old chickens 
 make 3s. 6d. each during certain months only. 
 
 Even at the 3s. 6d. time of the year, in hatcli- 
 ing and rearing large numbers of birds on a com- 
 mercial scale — in which there would Jilone be 
 
HATCHING AND REARING FIGURES 129 
 
 any prospect of ' making a living out of poultry 
 farming' — it is not at all certain that there 
 would be, as in this small experiment, a carrying 
 through to sale point of 70 birds for every 100 
 fertile eggs put into the incubator.* Some 
 American death-rate experience is very much 
 to the point, and should be weighed against 
 declarations which have been made from time to 
 time by various ' managers ' of other people's 
 poultry, who have much to gain by spreading 
 reports of their skill. Allowances must obviously 
 be set down for contingencies- — accidents to in- 
 cubators and brooders, and losses of life from 
 animal, bird, and human agency, and from 
 weather and disease. 
 
 In every poultry book it is admitted that fresh 
 
 * Mr. Edward Brown, reporting in May of this year in 
 the Journal of the Boa/rd of Agriculture on the Theale 
 experiments, concluded by stating that 'to secure an 
 average of 75"82 per cent, is indicative of the success 
 attending the use of artificial methods of hatching under 
 suitable conditions, and with well-made, reliable machines.'' 
 Unfortunately, though the average farmer might secure 
 proper incubators, he is not always likely to be able to 
 conduct his hatching under the best conditions. We have 
 vividly in mind the frank confession of a farmer concerning 
 his first hatch in his cellar, his next in his box-room, and 
 his third in his dairy. Tve done better this year,' he 
 added, ' with the wife looking after the sitting hens.' At 
 Theale there is, of course, a specially-built incubator house. 
 
 9 
 
130 FARM BALANCE-SHEETS SCRUTINIZED 
 
 ground for chicken-raising is indispensable, and 
 that birds kept together in large companies do 
 not answer. This means that a very consider- 
 able tract of land must be available. 
 
 In a poultry farming venture it would also be 
 necessary to provide accommodation for stock 
 birds, so as to be able to have regular supplies of 
 eggs from breeds suitable for table poultry work 
 and of a fair average of fertility. This obviously 
 means further acres. 
 
 As several male birds running with one lot of 
 hens is not found to be a satisfactory arrange- 
 ment, it would be necessary either to pen separate 
 half-dozens or so — which would involve consider- 
 able expense in 6-feet netting if the range was 
 to be large enough to ensue fertility — or to 
 scatter the flocks in the fields, a plan which 
 would mean a somewhat extensive poultry fann, 
 and, it need hardly be said, no little expense in 
 working it. 
 
 In an industry invohong factory work there 
 must always be, as everyone knows, a larger 
 allowance for wear and tear than in the case of 
 handwork or a cottage industry. When we are 
 invited to take the results of chicken-raising 
 on a small scale — in which close attention ad- 
 mittedly counts for so much — as the basis of 
 calculations for the raising of chickens on a 
 
LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS 131 
 
 wholesale scale, the factory analogy seems par- 
 ticularly close. 
 
 Again, in the discussion of industrial processes 
 there are frequently references to highly profit- 
 able results which have been obtained in new 
 directions in the course of 'laboratory experi- 
 ments.' Farming treatises are also full of data 
 obtained in what are called pot culture — that is, 
 flower-pot experiments. But no manufacturer 
 or farmer in his senses dreams of reckoning on 
 profits on the basis of laboratory or pot experi- 
 ments. It is realized that in actual factory and 
 field practice there are many practical difficulties 
 to be coped with that do not present themselves 
 or press themselves to the front in the small-scale 
 and carefully safeguarded experiments of the 
 chemist's laboratory and the bacteriologist's 
 greenhouse. In the same way, is it wise to base 
 programmes of poultry farming too closely on 
 such tests as those at Theale ? 
 
 To do so is certainly to reach some astonishing 
 conclusions. In March of the present year the 
 Marquis of Tulhbardine opened the poultry farm 
 of the Scottish Poultry and Game Rearing Com- 
 pany. What the Company proposes to do in 
 game-bird rearing does not concern us, but the 
 Marquis is reported as saying : ' The manager 
 informs me that he can bring up all his cliickens 
 
 9—2 
 
132 FARM BALANCE-SHEETS SCRUTINIZED 
 
 to market ' — this eclipses even the Theale 70 per 
 cent. — ' and have a profit of Is. a head.' If this 
 be so, everyone will agree with his lordship in 
 his further statement that ' if the Company 
 obtains that profit on the 40,000 fowls it means 
 to rear, it ought certainly to be more than suc- 
 cessful.' Another speaker, an ex-bailie, seems 
 also to have been impressed by these figures. 
 ' If the Company can rear 40,000 fowls a year 
 with a capital of £3,000,' he said, ' it will be a 
 profitable undertaking.' He seemed, however, 
 to have something to learn about poultry keep- 
 ing, for he told the audience as a great discovery 
 that ' the Company has demonstrated that 
 chickens can be hatched in the winter !' 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 POULTRY PAPER PUFFERY OF POULTRY FARMING 
 
 The foregoing pages have been prepared under a 
 sense of some responsibility, and, it need hardly 
 be added, with the certainty of being scoffed at 
 by poultry enthusiasts and those who are directly 
 or indirectly interested in urging them forward. 
 
 There are several reasons why it is necessary 
 to write plainly about poultry farming. 
 
 In the first place, the daily papers have not 
 space to spare to deal with a large, complicated, 
 and highly technical subject as it needs to be 
 dealt with if any useful result is to follow. 
 
 Secondly, as Sir Walter Gilbey has suggested, 
 and it is necessary to say in unmistakable terms, 
 poultry writers in the agricultural press, however 
 honest and well meaning, cannot always pretend 
 to occupy an impartial position. 
 
 Thirdly, as we shall shortly see, much of what 
 imposes on the readers of poultry papers as 
 honest opinion is nothing of the sort. 
 
 133 
 
134 POULTRY PAPER PUFFERY 
 
 Fourthly, not a few of the advertised poultry 
 courses, however excellent they may be in some 
 respects, unquestionably inspire the eager pupils, 
 directly or indirectly, with inflated and mipractical 
 ideas.* 
 
 I>astly, tnrning from College courses to poultry 
 farm training, there is undoubted evidence that 
 premiums from pupils are not the least profit- 
 able feature of many poultry farmers' enter- 
 prises. 
 
 If we seem to express ourselves with some 
 severity, it is difficult to see what other manner 
 of writing can properly be adopted when hardly 
 a week passes without the production of sad 
 stories of money lost and hopes of a modest out- 
 of-door life in the country dashed by poultry 
 ventures which no genuine expert could have 
 countenanced, but for which so-called experts 
 were unmistakably answerable to a greater or 
 lesser degree. And this at a time when changes 
 in agricultural conditions and a 'back to the 
 land ' movement which touches the imagination 
 and conscience of more than one class of society 
 
 • ' One result of this ci-aze for the municipalization of 
 instruction in aviculture is that the poultry community is 
 becoming overrun with spurious experts who really know 
 next to nothini:; about aviculture."— Mr. Ernest Steaixs, 
 in a paper read at the Conference of Economic Biologists 
 at Birmingham University, April 19, 1906. 
 
'PREJUDICE' 135 
 
 excite a hope that inteUigent poultry keeping 
 may have a large part to play in the development 
 of rural industry and the invigorating of country 
 Ufe. 
 
 In the light of the fact that for several years the 
 present writer has taken some little part in the 
 ' back to the land ' movement, that his personal 
 interests are bound up in the country, and that 
 he has had the acquaintance of some of the most 
 intelligent of English poultry keepers, and is 
 likely to keep hens himself to the end of his days, 
 the suggestion made in some poultry press com- 
 ment on the original article in the Quarterly 
 Review that its author writes with a prejudice 
 against poultry farming seems almost too absurd 
 for notice. If the poultry farm of popular im- 
 agination were reaUy feasible, he would warmly 
 welcome it as the readiest of all means of getting 
 people from the towns into the country. If it 
 can be shown that poultry farming does pay, no 
 one who has written on the subject of poultry 
 keeping will be more sincerely gratified than he. 
 
 The accusation of prejudice is not only stupid, 
 but inexpedient, for it invites a rejoinder which 
 ought perhaps to be made, A prejudiced witness 
 is one whose evidence is likely to be affected by 
 the nature of his personal interests. Those, how- 
 ever, who, with some practical knowledge of 
 
136 POULTRY PAPER PUFFERY 
 
 poultry keeping and an experience of the slight 
 value which investigation has shown to attach to 
 many positive assurances which have been given 
 as to the profits of poultry farming, venture to 
 urge caution on the inexperienced, have no con- 
 ceivable interests to serve but those of truth and 
 the pubhc advantage. Can all the apologists for 
 poultry farming be said to occupy an equally 
 detached position ? 
 
 Nothing has done more to induce would-be 
 poultry farmers to beUeve in the financial soxind- 
 ness of poultry farming than the glowing accounts 
 of particular poultry farms which have been 
 published from time to time, and continue to 
 appear almost weekly in poultry papers. 
 
 AVith these flattering ' interA^ews ' or ' descrip- 
 tive sketches ' of paying poultry farms before 
 their eyes, contributions usually signed in some 
 way, at times extending to more than a page, or 
 even two pages, and often elaborately illustrated, 
 what could the novice or even the reasonably 
 experienced poultry keeper believe but that 
 paying poultry farms not only exist, but are 
 fairly numerous, and that the poultry editors of 
 the Field, and the Coutity Gentleman and Land 
 and Water, and other sceptics, either never stir 
 from home or are hopelessly prejudiced ? 
 
 In the course of the investigations made in 
 
TWO INSTRUCTIVE OFFERS 137 
 
 preparation for this book, it was represented to 
 
 the writer that all was not as it should be in the 
 
 conduct of the poultry press. Accordingly, a 
 
 poultry keeper was good enough to write to two 
 
 leading poultry papers saying that he had been 
 
 interested in their descriptions of successful 
 
 poultry farms, and that he should be glad to 
 
 know what their ' terms ' would be for describing 
 
 his 1 By return of post came the following two 
 
 letters : 
 
 I. 
 
 ' March 7, 1905. 
 'Dear Sir, 
 
 ' Re Report of your Poultry Establishment. 
 
 ' Replying to yours of 6tli instant, we beg to say 
 that our charge for the above, including a sketch of one 
 bird on the front page, is three guineas {£3 3s.) and return 
 fares from London. 
 
 ' We might just add that similar reports are booked to 
 appear weekly until the second week of next month, hence 
 
 our notes of your place would appear in for April — , 
 
 if we hear from you to that effect within the course of the 
 next few days. 
 
 ' We need hardly point out that it is one of the very 
 cheapest forms of advertising.' 
 
 II. 
 
 'March 7, 1905. 
 ' Dear Sir, 
 
 'We are in receipt of your favour of yesterday's 
 
 date in reference to the descriptions of Poultry Farms 
 
 appearing in our issues. 
 
138 POULTRY PAPER PUFFERY 
 
 ' The usual arrangement we make with those whose 
 places we write up is that one thousand copies of our paper 
 containing the review be taken for distribution amongst 
 friends and clients, the charge for same being £4< 4s. We 
 also expect that all photographs for illustrating the article 
 be supplied us free of cost. 
 
 'We should be pleased to supply you with a review 
 upon the above-mentioned terms, and await your con- 
 sideration.' 
 
 It would certainly be very interesting and a 
 little astonishing to many poultry keepers if a 
 list of the poultry farms which had ' booked ' 
 No. 1 paper's * write-ups,' and were accordingly 
 duly extolled between March 7 and 'the second 
 week of next month,' could be set out here. One 
 establishment in particular was a well-known 
 poultry farm, the seeming success of which has no 
 doubt tempted many novices to their undoing. 
 
 As to 'the sketch of one bird on the front 
 page,' a copy of the paper bearing a date between 
 March 7 and • the second week of next month,' 
 containing this feature, was submitted by way of 
 experiment to an experienced journalist and an. 
 experienced poultry keeper, and neither would 
 believe, until shown letter No. 1, that the picture 
 actually appeared as the result of a financial con- 
 sideration. How completely this ' very cheapest 
 form of advertising' is likely to impose on the 
 unwary average reader is obvious. 
 
'AMERICAN POULTRY PAPER TRICKS ' 139 
 
 In regard to both papers, it will be noticed 
 that the offer to ' write up ' is given without any 
 knowledge whatever of the size or character of 
 the poultry estabhshment. In other words, the 
 question whether it may be a gross failure and 
 only be paying for the ' write-up ' to get its 
 wares or itself sold is considered to have nothing 
 to do with its eligibility for ' special description.' 
 
 With this evidence before us, evidence on 
 which we are entitled to view with suspicion the 
 claims of poultry papers to afford light and 
 leading on the subject of poultry farming, the 
 grave question arises whether practices similar to 
 those which have been exposed may not be 
 known on the other side of the Atlantic, and 
 afford an explanation of some rose-tinted accounts 
 of successful ' poultry plants,' on which so many 
 hopeful calculations are based here. 
 
 When this theory was laid before one of the 
 greatest living authorities on poultry keeping, he 
 said, ' Why, it was from Yankee poultry papers 
 that ours learnt their tricks 1' Again we say, a 
 ■wpvd to the wise should be sufficient. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 WHY EGG COLLECTING AND POULTRY FATTENING 
 
 PAY 
 
 As we have seen, poultry as a by-product or as 
 an adjunct to other rural operations is found to 
 pay weU. 
 
 Egg collecting and poultry fattening are also 
 undoubtedly profitable. 
 
 Many landowners and farmers have found it 
 answer to sell at a moderate price to neighbour- 
 ing cottagers and others sittings of eggs from 
 good table birds, and then to buy back the 
 chickens when ready for ' putting up ' in the 
 fattening shed. 
 
 In fact, in regard to every method of handling 
 poultry other than by means of a poultry farm 
 there is evidence of success I 
 
 It may be wondered why it is that, if egg 
 collecting pays, egg producing is not still more 
 profitable, for the cost of collection is saved. 
 
 140 
 
[From ' Poultry for Profit ' (CoUnnjrnlgc). 
 IRISH CHICKENS DETEAINING AT UCKFIELD, SUSSEX. 
 Similar consignments now reach Uckfield from Wales. 
 
 [To face p. 140. 
 
THE FEEDER AND THE REARER 141 
 
 But if there is no fallacy here in respect of 
 acreage or labour, why do many farmers habitu- 
 ally buy bullocks, sometimes from a considerable 
 distance, if it would be more profitable to rear 
 themselves all they want to fatten ?* 
 
 Is not the successful Enghsh poultry fattener 
 or egg higgler t successful for exactly the same 
 reason that the poultry and egg collectors of the 
 Continent are successfi.il — because they gather 
 their supplies from a number of persons whose 
 expenses are low, owing to keeping a small 
 number of poultry in relation to area, and these 
 
 * ' The feeder of all descriptions of live stock, such as 
 cattle, sheep, and pigs, is not always the breeder. It is 
 equally necessary .that chickens, to be fit and nutritious 
 for the table, should receive the same care from the hands 
 of the fattener as do cattle, sheep, and swine. Fattening 
 for the London market may be regarded as a business in 
 itself.' — SiE Walter Gilbey, in ' Poultry Keeping on Farms 
 and Small Holdings^ 
 
 ' From my own experience, on three adjoining farms 
 900 acres in extent, and worked by one bailiff, the average 
 value of poultry and eggs produced thereon during nine 
 years was £%5Q per year. The poultry and eggs were 
 sold to higglers. The figures show the importance of 
 poultry keeping in connection with agriculture. The 
 fowls were not specially fed ; the food was waste product 
 on the land, with the addition only of tail or small com.'' 
 —rbid. 
 
 t One poultry keeper, who makes poultry work pay, 
 proudly says she is known as ' the lady higgler.' 
 
142 WHY COLLECTING AND FATTENING PAY 
 
 on economical lines ? A little practical considera- 
 tion will show that the cash expenditure per 
 head on fifty broods of chickens must be more 
 when one person hatches and rears the fifty 
 simultaneously than when the hatches are divided 
 up among, and become the particular care of, 
 fifty cottagers. 
 
 Mr. Lewis Wright puts his finger at the root 
 of the matter when he notes that ' the fowl as 
 stock has the tremendous drawback that it is a 
 smaU unit ; the products have to be realized in 
 numerous small detached items from small 
 animals, which yet require more care than 
 sheep.' 
 
 In the work of his already quoted, he has 
 drawn the following picture of life on poultry 
 farms : 
 
 ' They afford ' (he says) ' no rest, no intermission. Incu- 
 bators must have unfailing care, every pen its food and 
 attention and cleaning, every chick its regular feeding ; 
 intermission of even a few hours means loss, if not disaster. 
 It is terribly exacting and monotonous. There is no relief 
 for the hands unless extra labour is provided to afford it 
 [one ambitious poultiy faim known to the pi-esent writer, 
 which went the way of such places, had at one time twenty 
 persons on it drawing wages !] ; none for the prmcipal 
 unless there is someone with actual pei-sonal interest to 
 take his place. This necessity for incessant attention to 
 details of all sorts will be for many temperaments a most 
 formidable objection.'' 
 
LIFE ON A POULTRY FARM 143 
 
 A poultry keeper who once communicated with 
 us by letter, and asserted that he had built up 
 a business, but would not furnish the details 
 asked for as to its extent, acreage, and relations 
 to other industries, said he had never been off 
 his premises for a day for three years. Mention 
 has frequently been made of the remarkably long 
 hours on American poultry establishments ; but 
 the author of 'Poultry for Profit,' writing of 
 English conditions, says : ' Sixteen hours a day 
 during summer is the usual lot of the poultry 
 keeper, and the work is of a tedious character, 
 owing to monotonous sameness.' How accurate 
 is the impression given of the realities of poultry 
 farming in the following advertisement — t5rpical 
 of not a few poultry farmers' announcements 
 of their willingness to take pupils — may be 
 imagined: 'Vacancy for a gentleman's son as pupil 
 on a small Pure-Bred and Utility Poultry Farm, 
 situated in a very healthy district. Particulars 
 
 as to terms, etc., on apphcation to , 
 
 Poultry Farm, . {Good Golf, Cricket, and 
 
 Tennis in the neighbourhood.)' 
 
 With regard to table poultry, there is the 
 problem of producing it and the problem of 
 finding the best market for it. As to producing 
 it, so long as birds suitable for fattening into 
 ' prime Sussex fowls ' can be bought so cheaply 
 
144 WHY COLLECTING AND FAITENING PAY 
 
 in the remote provinces that they can be profit- 
 ably transported from Ireland to the districts 
 served by the Brighton and South Coast and 
 South Eastern and Chatham railways, why 
 should home fatteners run much risk in doing 
 their own breeding and rearing ?* The poiJtry 
 
 * ' The fatter buys large quantities of birds from Ireland, 
 also Suffolk, Norfolk, Cumberland, and Wales. In March 
 of 1904 there were 832 tops — viz., 37,440 chickens — sent 
 into Heathfield from Ireland. On December 2, as I got 
 off a train at Heathfield Station, 1,000 Irish chickens came 
 in, no less than 650 being consigned to one fatter. The 
 birds are crammed, and many of them sent to London as 
 Surrey fowls. I do not know where the Surrey part comes 
 in, unless it is while they are passing through the county 
 on their way to the London market. The chickens sent 
 in from Ireland are much better specimens than they were a 
 few years ago. From January 1 to December 31 the weight 
 of birds sent to Leadenhall and Central Markets, London, 
 was 1,469 tons 6 cwt. This means about ,£'1,469 paid to 
 the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway Company 
 for carriage, as the charge is £1 per ton. This would repre- 
 sent about 705,120 chickens. From Uckfield Station 600 
 tons wei'e sent, representing 288,000 chickens ; to Brighton 
 from Heathfield 163 tons 15 cwt., total chickens 78,240 ; 
 to Hastings, Eastbourne, Worthing, and other south coast 
 towns, 113 tons 6 cwt., total chickens 58,384, making 
 the number of chickens sent fi"om Heathfield Station in 
 1902, 837,744; from Uckfield, 288,000; total, 1,125,744. 
 This would represent to the fatters about dt^25,148 16s. 
 Some weeks as much as 50 tons of dead fowls are sent away to 
 London, August, September, and October being the busiest 
 
TENPENNY DUCKLINGS 145 
 
 referred to is purchasable so cheaply by the 
 fatteners because prices and the cost of produc- 
 tion are so much lower in Ireland than here. It 
 is probable, indeed, that a chicken could be pur- 
 chased in Limerick for ninepence and a duckling 
 for tenpence.* 
 
 ' The largest thing that is going now,' writes a 
 market salesman to a friend of the writer's, 'is 
 bringing live chickens from Ireland and fattening 
 them here. There has just lately started in 
 Liverpool a very large firm at that work, and I 
 think it should pay them well, as the carriage 
 from Ireland to Liverpool is very much less than 
 to Sussex.' 
 
 months. During December I travelled regularly from 
 Heathfield Station by the 8.20 (called the chicken train), 
 and each Friday night there has been 10 tons or more 
 on this train.' — S. C. Sharpe, in the ' Country Gentleman's 
 Estate Book for 1905.' 
 
 * Visitors to the Isle of Man have found eggs making 
 only forty a shilling ten miles from Douglas. 
 
 10 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 'DIRECT TO THE CONSUMER' THEORIES 
 EXAMINED 
 
 As to finding the best market for eggs and table 
 poultry, not a little of what has been written in 
 advocacy of ' supplying the consumer direct ' is 
 by no means according to knowledge and 
 experience. 
 
 Some little time ago the County Gentleman 
 and Land and Water gave up a great deal of 
 space and spent some money on a philanthropic 
 attempt to estabUsh a Free Register of Country 
 Produce. The idea was to bring farmers and 
 other country producers into touch with towns- 
 man consumers. One class, the paper argued, 
 had good things to sell, and could not get a fair 
 price for them ; the other class wanted the good 
 things, and could not get them at a fair price. 
 The thiniT to do, therefore, was to eliminate the 
 middleman. 
 
 140 
 
AN INGENIOUS SCHEME 147 
 
 But the scheme was a failure. Comparatively 
 few rural producers took the trouble to keep 
 their names on the register, and the one or two 
 farmers, parsons, and lady small culturists who 
 did often proved a broken reed when a London 
 housekeeper wired for, say, four ducklings. The 
 producer had only two ducklings, or his duck- 
 lings were not old enough to kill, or he was rearing 
 chickens only this year. Briefly, townsman 
 readers found it in practice so much more con- 
 venient to ring up the Stores for their ducklings 
 and what not, that they were willing to put up 
 with higher charges, and so they quietly dropped 
 their direct-from-the-country supplies. 
 
 While the remembrance of our feelings of 
 regret at the failure of this well-intentioned effort 
 is still fresh, the following interesting letter 
 comes to hand. It shows very clearly where 
 the difficulty arises in schemes of bringing 
 country produce direct to the consumer : 
 
 'On January 1 this year I thought I would try a 
 scheme which I considered was a means of making money 
 to live on, and at the same time enable me to live in the 
 country. 
 
 ' I got the book of farmers in the Eastern Counties who 
 are prepared to supply farm produce direct to the con- 
 sumer. There was a list of 1,050 names and addresses (Great 
 Eastern Railway List). I sent each one a letter and a 
 form to fill up with list of goods they could supply, and 
 
 10—2 
 
148 'DIRECT TO THE CONSUMER' 
 
 the price for supplying them. I got thirty-five replies, 
 all told, and only seven of these had any goods for sale, 
 and even what they had were veiy limited. 
 
 ' My idea was to buy from the farmers in large quan- 
 tities, and have lady agents in London, especially in neigh- 
 bourhoods where flats were plentiful, to get orders for the 
 produce. I would add on a small sum to cover agents'* 
 commission and a profit for myself. 
 
 ' I advertised for lady agents, and I got seventy-five. 
 In every case I made inquiries as to their trustworthiness, 
 and I Sent them a list of what I could supply and the 
 prices. (The farmers supplied the lists to me and their own 
 prices, and I made up my list and my prices, a small 
 addition being made to cover agents^ commission and give 
 me a profit, as mentioned before.) 
 
 ' The agents had to call at houses, show my list, and the 
 lady of the house would select what she wanted, fill up a 
 printed order form, and prices thereon. The agent would 
 send this order to me, and I woidd send instructions to 
 
 Fanner to send on the goods direct to Mrs. . 
 
 The agent would call and ask if the goods arrived safe and 
 sound, if they gave satisfaction, etc., and collect the money 
 and forward to me. The farmer would charge to my 
 account, and I would settle with him weekly. 
 
 ' Just to prove my scheme, my seventy-five agents were 
 set going, and in the first week I had orders Jbr the value 
 of £186 \ But when I wrote to the farmers I could not 
 get the produce ! 
 
 ' So I had actually to return the majority of the orders. 
 This .^ISG meant a clear profit for me (after paying 
 fai'mers and agents) of VIS 12s. (10 per cent.) — not a 
 bad profit. 
 
 ' Of course, I had to give up the scheme, as I could not 
 get the produce. 
 
THE MIDDLEMAN'S GOOD OFFICES 149 
 
 ' My experience proves to me that if some huge company 
 could be formed to buy up land, say, up to £W an acre, 
 and grow farm produce and sell it by agents, or send up 
 to the Central Market by motor-cars, there would be a 
 splendid profit earned, cottages for labourers could be 
 built, and the people brought back to the land. 
 
 ' I only wish I had the capital to start a good farm on 
 up-to-date methods. There is a splendid demand for farm 
 produce, but the supply is inadequate in every way, and 
 no wonder we have to import such millions of farm produce 
 year by year.' 
 
 Let us suppose the correspondent had his 
 farm, and that it was skilfully managed. The 
 number of customers he could supply would 
 really be very small. Of course, it could sup- 
 plement its operations by buying from its neigh- 
 bours. It could even be — we are assuming all 
 along good management — ^the chief of several 
 farms. But then, obviously, it would be only 
 the middleman over again. And what was the 
 Agency which came to grief but the middleman 
 over again ? 
 
 The letter which is quoted, and the experience 
 of the journal referred to, show the real difficulty 
 which the small producer has in meeting the 
 requirements of the consumer direct. And if 
 the consumer feels in the end that he must be 
 indebted to the middleman, is not the middleman 
 the producer's sheet anchor also ? 
 
 The consumer, whether he is Mr. Smith making 
 
150 ' DIRECT TO THE CONSUMER' 
 
 a purchase at the Stores, or the Stores' buyer 
 making up the Stores' wholesale orders at the 
 Central Market, finds the middleman necessary. 
 By his intervention both have freedom to buy in 
 different qualities and in different proportions of 
 qualities every week of the year, or, when it may 
 suit them, not to buy at aU. 
 
 In the same way the producer has in the 
 middleman the most accommodating of cus- 
 tomers. He will take at any time ten chickens, 
 or ten times ten, and, so long as they are graded, 
 he will dispose of second as well as first quality 
 — albeit second quaUty may possibly realize as 
 much locally — at the highest current prices. 
 There are black sheep in most flocks, but every 
 producer does not have cause to doubt the 
 honesty of the Central Market salesman with 
 whom he regularly deals, and e\'idence is forth- 
 coming of a desire on the part of more than one 
 salesman to do the best possible for those who 
 make a practice of consigning to them regularly. 
 In much of the easy talk about middlemen — 
 what are merchants but middlemen ? — ^the fact 
 that the best producer is seldom the best marketer, 
 and that the knowledge which the poultry factor 
 has gained by a lifetime's acquaintance \\ath the 
 poultry trade is wortli something to tlie producer, 
 is usually overlooked. 
 
CONTINENTAL PRACTICE 151 
 
 Occasionally a plea is made for ' the Continental 
 plan of direct relations between smaU producer 
 and consumer.' But in what proportion of cases 
 does the Continental small holder rely upon 
 individual customers ? If he comes into direct 
 contact with his patrons it is usually at a stall 
 or at a barrow from which he can sell to other 
 people if those who bought from him last week 
 do not want to purchase this. But where we 
 have personally investigated the business methods 
 of intelligent small holders on the Continent we 
 have found them taking their produce to stated 
 centres at which merchants attend and buy it by 
 auction. 
 
 It has seemed worth while to devote some 
 space to the facts affecting a direct supply system 
 between producer and consumer, because it is 
 notorious that few townsfolk who have turned 
 poultry keepers with commercial views have 
 escaped disappointment and loss by over-esti- 
 mating the volume and making too sure of the 
 regularity of their output. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 WISDOM FROM THE SHIRES 
 
 The opinions which have been expressed by men 
 so highly respected and of such authority on 
 many branches of poultry keeping as Mr. Lewis 
 Wright and Mr. Edward Brown undoubtedly 
 carry weight. But what is it that their testi- 
 monies amount to ? 
 
 Surely, not much more than this, that a certain 
 number of poultry farms have been started, more 
 or less closely identified, seemingly, wth tlie 
 working of agricultural land, and that, wliile 
 there are confident assertions, and even what are 
 regarded by these writers as certain indications, 
 of success, the owners of the establishments do 
 not produce balance-sheets. The impression 
 made on a jury when counsel, after a eulogistic 
 speech, intimates that he does not produce 
 documents, and does not propose to put his 
 client in the box, is well known. 
 
 l.')2 
 
POULTRY FARMING PROPHECIES 153 
 
 There is no one acquainted with the best 
 poultry feeding, housing, and marketing practice 
 in the United States, Canada, Denmark, and 
 Great Britain, who does not admit that the work 
 of the poultry keeper has now been simplified in 
 many directions, that we in England, Scotland, 
 Ireland, and Wales have had, and may stUl 
 have, some things to learn from abroad — it is a 
 matter of opinion how much — and that the out- 
 look for commercial poultry keeping — the only 
 kind of poultry keeping which is a matter of 
 national importance, or worth writing about 
 seriously — is more encpuraging than it has been. 
 
 But when these admissions are followed by 
 the assumption that in the future, when long 
 and varied experience of managing and market- 
 ing poultry shall be united to exceptionally good 
 stock, immense industry and high business 
 ability, large capital, and ideal geographical 
 conditions, very different results will be obtained 
 from those with which we are now familiar, it is 
 necessary to point out that, however honest such 
 an assumption may be, it is stiU only an assump- 
 tion, and that it is particularly necessary to 
 examine it carefully because it appears to be 
 made in direct conflict with apparently incontro- 
 vertible economical data. 
 
 When application was made to Mr. Edward 
 
154 WISDOM FROM THE SHIRES 
 
 Brown this spring for his definite views on 
 poultry farming after a quarter of a century's 
 acquaintance with poultry production, he was 
 good enough to write as follows : 
 
 ' My main object has been to improve tbe poultry upon 
 the farms of the country, rather than to promote the 
 establishment of what are frequently called "poultry 
 farms." I do not believe in and have never advocated the 
 latter, except as part of a wider scheme of cultivation in 
 one form or another. The reasons for this are that all live 
 stock must be treated in pretty much the same fashion, so 
 fai' as their relationship to the land is concerned.' 
 
 After referring to breeding or breeding and 
 fattening establishments, Mr. Brown went on : 
 
 ' I fail to see why such operators should not sell sittings 
 of eggs or stock-birds if their fowls are good enough for the 
 pui-pose, any more than a farmer should be objected to 
 if he sells a colt or cattle for breeding. With regard to 
 the American poultry plants, whilst there appear to be a 
 number that have succeeded chiefly by reason of their 
 production for marketing, all of those with which I am 
 acquainted take advantage of their reputations to sell eggs 
 for sitting or stock. All those who have given the most 
 attention to this question realize that it is the combination 
 of poultry keeping with cultivation which is essential to 
 success, and I have discouraged hundreds, if not thousands, 
 from taking it up on other lines.'' 
 
 Still, it will be seen, the object of our search 
 eludes us. We seem no nearer finding that 
 poultry farm pure and sunple which, owing to 
 
STOCK BIRDS AS « EXTRAS' 155 
 
 the money to be made by producing table eggs 
 and poultry ' intensely ' on a poultry farm, devotes 
 itself to producing these things exclusively, and, 
 while it sells a sitting or a cockerel to anyone 
 who may come along and ask for it, never dreams 
 of advertising such things, when a financial return 
 so much greater is to be made by sticking to the 
 business in hand. 
 
 And might not a practical agriculturist suggest 
 that a fallacy underlies two of Mr. Brown's 
 arguments ? Very few farmers indeed make it 
 a main point of their business, as the owners 
 of alleged poultry farms do, to sell stock for 
 breeding. The selHng of stock for breeding is 
 chiefly the business of well-to-do stock-raisers, 
 who, if the testimony of many of them may be 
 trusted, derive very little money from it, and 
 regard it largely as a hobby. No one objects to 
 any poultry farm taking advantage of its reputa- 
 tion to sell sittings and stock-birds, but does this 
 describe the operations of many of them? And if 
 the business of table eggs and poultry raising as 
 a single industry is as profitable as it is widely 
 assumed to be, how is it that those engaged in it 
 are not compelled by the pressure of their proper 
 work, and by the advantage to be derived from 
 doing one thing at a time, to put up a notice, 
 ' Wholesale only ' ? 
 
156 WISDOM FROM THE SHIRES 
 
 It is no doubt sound teaching that 'it is the 
 combination of poultry keeping with cultivation 
 which is essential to success ' — that is, if it is 
 interpreted to mean poultry as an adjunct to 
 cultivation. But in some advocacy of poultry 
 farming 'with cultivation ' the cultivation is 
 made an adjunct to the poultry. Undoubtedly 
 there are many people up and down the country 
 endeavouring to make poultry pay on these 
 lines. Surely they are doomed to disappoint- 
 ment, simply because they are putting the cart 
 before the horse. What practical agriculturist 
 would countenance the idea of making the work- 
 ing of the tiniest farm revolve round the poultry 
 — the smallest and most labour-compeUing stock 
 on it? 
 
 It is strange that would-be poultry farmers 
 never ask themselves how many horse or pig 
 farms there are in this country, and, if it does not 
 seem that they are numerous, what the reason is. 
 
 It is true that there are sheep farms. But only 
 a poultry enthusiast, who had never been on a 
 Highland sheep farm, would suggest that sheep, 
 though so much larger than poultry, require 
 anything like the unremitting care and attention 
 demanded by hens. And even in the case of 
 sheep, a large proportion of the mutton and 
 lamb in the shops does not come from sheep 
 
ALL THE EGGS IN ONE BASKET 157 
 
 farms at all, but from ordinary farms, where the 
 flock is only a part of general farm stock, and is 
 kept, not so much for the direct profit it makes, 
 but for the return it gives indirectly. 
 
 One of the great truths of agricultural ex- 
 perience is, not to put all the eggs into one 
 basket. It is notorious that, whether the 
 product concentrated on be pigs or hops, farmers 
 who have violated the first law of economical 
 farming have sooner or later made serious losses. 
 
 Certainly one cannot imagine any farmer, how- 
 ever favourable his experience of poultry may 
 have been, deciding to turn his holding into a 
 poultry farm. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 ' FOR THE SNARK WAS A BOOJUM, YOU SEE 1' 
 
 Advocates of poultry farming abound, as has 
 been seen. It has not been found possible, how- 
 ever, to discover a case in which one of them has 
 taken to, or, rather, has kept to poultry farming 
 pure and simple to make the living which it is 
 alleged is offered by ' the industry ' here and in 
 America. 
 
 Nor have the chief authorities on poultry been 
 poultry farmers. The devoted and pubhc-spirited 
 editor of the standard work in Enghsh on poultry 
 was never a poultry farmer. Neither was the 
 distinguished artist whose great volumes on 
 poultry keeping extend even to a larger number 
 of pages. Nor are the leading members of the 
 organization devoted to the interests of utility 
 poultry known to be sending up regular consign- 
 ments of poultry and eggs to London from large 
 poultry farms on the model of the eulogized 
 American ' poultry plants.' 
 
 168 
 
MARKET SALESMEN AND POULTRY FARMS 159 
 
 It remains to be added, in regard to those 
 paying poultry farms which the poultry press 
 has led novices, and even experienced poultry 
 keepers, to believe exist in this country, that these 
 establishments have done more than succeed in 
 hiding the fact of their existence from the con- 
 ductors of the poultry departments of two 
 responsible organs of the ' country interest.' 
 London poultry factors of great experience in 
 the trade, together with leading officials of well- 
 known poultry organizations, and other likely 
 persons well acquainted with the poultry world, 
 have all, on being successively interrogated for 
 the purpose of this book, declared themselves 
 unable to call to mind the name and address of 
 a single profitable poultry farm which is in 
 business for breakfast eggs or table poultry 
 only, and is regularly marketing these products 
 in the Metropolis. 
 
 Yet it might be thought that the annual pro- 
 duction of birds to a total running into five 
 figures — mentioned by a leading poultry authority 
 as the turnout of one particular poultry farm, 
 and a statement which has no doubt greatly 
 impressed many a tyro — would have attracted 
 the attention of the trade. Indeed, as the figures 
 quoted are now a year or two old, we ought, no 
 doubt, to assume that the number of birds 
 
160 'FOR THE SNARK WAS A BOOJUM' 
 
 ' raised ' is even higher than that mentioned. 
 But making allowances for chickens kept for 
 stock, let the present annual production stand at 
 15,000. Even then it is a little difficult to 
 understand how such a quantity of table poultry 
 could be disposed of in complete privacy. It is 
 odd that the market salesmen have not been 
 competing with one another for the commissions 
 to be earned on the sale of the produce of a 
 poultry farm in such a large way of business, 
 for it wUl hardly be suggested, we suppose, that 
 private customers can have been got equal to 
 eating up the whole 15,000. 
 
 UnhappUy, the mystery is never Ukely to be 
 solved ; for since the foregoing paragraph was 
 written the news comes to hand that the paying 
 poultry farm in question is no longer in existence ! 
 The mortaUty among youthful paying poultry 
 farms is certainly extraordinary. 
 
 At this point there is a temptation to abandon 
 the protracted quest of the pajdng poultry farm 
 in these pages. Yet there are one or two 
 other pleas for poultry farming which are some- 
 times advanced by folk who are almost persuaded 
 of the baseless pretensions of the ' industry,' and 
 may justifiably, perhaps, detain the reader a little 
 longer. 
 
 ' Granting that all that has been said against 
 
A 'LIVING' OUT OF POULTRY 161 
 
 poultry farms is true,' this type of apologist 
 says, ' surely you would not deny that a great 
 deal depends upon the poultry farmer ?' 
 
 Premising that the would-be poultry farmers 
 who have the capital, the health, and the wilhng- 
 ness to work, usually lack the knowledge, and 
 those who have the knowledge are without the 
 required capital or strength, let us seek the 
 fallacy underlying this plea for the feasibility 
 of poultry farming on what is called a modest 
 scale. 
 
 To start with, even supposing that up and 
 down the country there are — ^ although their ad- 
 dresses are not forthcoming— successful poultry 
 farms managed by a man and a lad, it has still to 
 be proved that a prospect of success awaits them 
 if their operations were extended beyond the 
 power of such a cheap and deeply-interested staff 
 to manage. But are there such places ? 
 
 And when the man and lad are spoken of as 
 making a living — the actual making of it has yet 
 to be proved — what kind of a Uving is it which 
 is pictured ? In what other line of work would 
 an equally healthy and intelligent person and 
 his son be content to slave so hard to earn so 
 little ? Is it really understood what a dispropor- 
 tionate turnover from poultry is needed to bring 
 in half a sovereign, not to speak of a single pound 
 
 11 
 
162 'FOR THE SNARK WAS A BOOJUM' 
 
 a week profit, which would be required on the 
 very smallest conceivable establishment — and 
 roup or enteritis might not be long in arriving 
 at such a place — to meet rent, taxes, and wages, 
 only three among several items of expenditure 
 of which the balance-sheet of the competing 
 farmer's wife knows nothing ? 
 
 And if indeed profitable, is the life hved by 
 such a poultry farmer actually the life which the 
 would-be poultry farmer from town fancies 
 himself hving ? 
 
 Is he (or she) likely to be attracted, either, by 
 the other departments of work possibly open to 
 him — poultry fattening and egg higgling? It 
 may be so, but such work is hardly the more 
 or less idyllic poultry farming of popular fancy 
 and country Ufe photographs. 
 
 But let us stick to poultry farming proper — 
 for it has already been shown that egg higghng 
 and poultry fattening pay — and see, if we can, 
 what are the difficulties which confront the man 
 and his son whose case has been stated. 
 
 'Annual income twenty pounds, annual ex- 
 penditure nineteen nineteen six,' explained Mr. 
 Micawber ; ' result, happiness.' It is on a profit 
 arrived at something after this fashion that many 
 poultry farms are said to be ' successful.' The 
 enthusiastic proprietor assures his eager friends 
 
MR. GILES'S BOOK-KEEPING 163 
 
 and callers that his books prove that last year he 
 made a profit of 5^ per cent, on £250. As there 
 is a great demand for 5j per cent, investments, 
 the friends and callers ask: 'What could be 
 better?' and wonder 'why people do not start 
 great poultry farming companies — does not one 
 gather from the papers that they do that kind of 
 thing in the States, and make no end of money ? 
 — to earn 5^ per cent, for aU and sundry.' If, 
 later on, the poultry farmer, inspired by his 
 5^ per cent., writes off to the poultry press and 
 sings the praises of poultry farming, and then, 
 for the further benefit of the poultry world, 
 invests his 5^ per cent, in 'the best form of 
 advertising,' as offered by the two enterpris- 
 ing journals dealt with in Chapter XII., we 
 may be sure that there are soon considerable 
 additions to the large class of townsmen and 
 townswomen who are itching to sell all that they 
 have and go poultry farming. 
 
 The truth is, of course, that it has not occurred 
 to these beguiled folk what an agriculturist 
 actually means when he says that he 'made a 
 fair bit last year.' It is not generally known 
 that in his book-keeping a farmer charges every- 
 thing against his farming — his groceries, his 
 doctor's biU, his wife's dresses, his daughter's 
 piano, the children's schooling, the new peram- 
 
 11—2 
 
164 'FOR THE SNARK WAS A BOOJUM' 
 
 bulator, the trip to London to the Dairy Show, 
 and his Sunday oiFertory. It is only when the farm 
 has yielded enough to meet all these expenses, in 
 addition to the expenses of farming, that he talks 
 of having made a profit. How else could he 
 manage ? He has no other resources than are 
 locked up in the farm. If he makes only £120 
 out of his farm, and his domestic expenses are 
 £200, he is £80 to the bad, and is on the high- 
 road to bankruptcy. 
 
 In the same way with the poultry fanner. 
 His income from his poultry farm must do more 
 than merely exceed the expenditure on it. The 
 balance has to meet his house-rent, his trades- 
 men's bUls, and every personal outlay of his wife, 
 his family, and himself If we imagine a still 
 more extensive poultry farm, the property of a 
 company, then it has to pay the manager's salary 
 and his men's wages, as well as all other expenses, 
 before there is a hal^enny of profit. 
 
 The question, ' Does a poultry farm pay ?' is, 
 of course, very easily answered if the poultry 
 farmer wants nothing out of it. But, when he 
 has no private income, he wants a good deal — to 
 live out of it, and to live properly, and also to 
 put by something for a rainy day, for old age, 
 and for his children. 
 
 And this is what no balance-sheets which have 
 
A SLANDERED INDUSTRY 165 
 
 been published show any poultry farm has ever 
 done yet. 
 
 Here our investigation into the commercial 
 aspect of poultry farming might surely come to 
 an end were not some readers still liable, perhaps, 
 to be impressed by what may be called the appeal 
 to the feeling heart. The pathetic plea is con- 
 stantly urged that 'few industries have been so 
 thoroughly misunderstood, falsely interpreted and 
 belied as poultry farming.' 
 
 ' People endeavour to force us to swallow the unreason- 
 able argument ' (says the author of ' Poultry for Profit : 
 Poultry Farming for Egg Production and Table Pur- 
 poses,' in his opening chapter, and the same argument is 
 developed in the chapter on 'Poultry Farming' in the 
 poultry classic, 'The New Book of Poultry) 'that a 
 poultry farm must be a place where eggs and fowls are 
 produced for consumption only, and the moment the 
 poultry keeper happens to sell a bird for stock purposes or 
 a sitting of eggs at a little over the market price he ceases 
 to be a poultry farmer. Was ever a more absurd argument 
 offered to reasoning human beings ? Does the dairy farmer 
 cease to exist as such the moment he sells a pure-bred calf 
 for breeding purposes, and at a price considerably above 
 that which he would have obtained from a butcher ? Does 
 the market gardener make his exit if he happens to win a 
 prize at an exhibition, and to sell his bunch of grapes, or 
 whatever it may be, for a price ten times higher than that 
 quoted in the market ?' 
 
 Let us in return ask two questions : Is the 
 
166 'FOR THE SNARK WAS A BOOJUM' 
 
 yearly profit made by a market gardener in 
 selling exhibition prizes enough to keep him in 
 tobacco ? Is the yearly profit obtained by the 
 average dairy farmer fi-om selling 'pure-bred calves 
 for breeding purposes ' sufficient to pay for his 
 family's cobbler's biU ? Of course the answer is 
 ' No ' in both cases. As every practical man is 
 aware, the dairy farmer and the market gardener, 
 when they made their plans for going into busi- 
 ness, took no account whatever of such trifles. 
 Did the poultry farmer do the same ? On the 
 contrary, when, under the influence of the books 
 referred to, he began his venture, sales of stock- 
 birds and sittings, ' at more than the market 
 rates,'* bulked very largely in his prospective 
 balance-sheets. If the Hibernianism may be 
 pardoned, his ' extras ' were to be his main revenue 
 and the backbone of his business. Now, we 
 venture to think that the question whether a 
 poultry farmer can live on his ' extras ' has already 
 been disposed of. 
 
 There only remains — to repeat the title of a 
 current work — our old acquaintance, 'Poultry 
 Farming for Egg Production and Table Pur- 
 poses.' At the back of the minds of the 
 apologists for poultry farming is the belief — 
 
 * Vide extract on p 17 from 'The New Book of 
 Poultry.' 
 
A BOOTLESS QUEST 167 
 
 sometimes it is openly avowed, as we have seen* 
 — that poultry farming pure and simple can pay 
 by itself. Sometimes there is a saving clause, 
 such as, ' if the circumstances are entirely favour- 
 able,' or, ' if the requisite experience has been 
 gained.' Sometimes the responsibility for the 
 sound financial basis of such enterprises is deftly 
 laid on those enormously successful American 
 poultry plants of which we have had something to 
 say. Sometimes the would-be poultry farmer is 
 merely encouraged by a vague reference to ' the 
 numerous poultry farms ' up and down our own 
 country which have proved so profitable. 
 
 Yet we have been unable to find one. We 
 have doggedly hunted the snark of a paying 
 poultry farm through sixteen chapters, and failed 
 to catch even a glimpse of it : 
 
 ' For the snark was a boojum, you see.' 
 
 * Poultry farming establishments have proved extremely 
 profitable, and it is satisfactory to find that they are 
 greatly on the increase.' — Lloyd''s News. 
 
APPENDIX 1 
 
 THE SECRETARY OF THE NATIONAL POULTRY ORGANI- 
 ZATION SOCIETY CROSS-EXAMINED 
 
 The following extracts are taken from an interview, in the 
 County Gentleman and La/nd and Water, between ' Home 
 Counties' and Mr. Edward Brown (Secretary of the 
 National Poultry Organization Society, Lecturer on Avi- 
 culture to the Agricultural Department of the University 
 College, Reading, and the author of a substantial book 
 on poultry keeping), who is constantly travelling about the 
 country and meeting with poultry folk of all sorts. If 
 any man was likely to hear of paying poultry farms, surely, 
 it was thought, it must be he. For the convenience of the 
 reader each paragraph is now simply marked ' H. C" or 
 ' B.,' according to whether it reports what ' Home Counties' 
 or Mr. Brown said : 
 
 B. 'Tell me why you and various others use the pre- 
 posterous phrase "poultry farming pure and simple." 
 There is no such thing.' 
 
 H. C. ' That's just what we say.' 
 
 B. ' But I have a poultry library shelf as long as both 
 my arms, and I don't know anyone who advocates " poultry 
 farming pure and simple." You are setting up a skittle 
 to knock it down again.' 
 
 H. C. 'I beg your pardon. I can show you cuttings 
 
 168 
 
PAYING POULTRY FARMS! 169 
 
 and extracts from various poultry writers countenancing 
 poultry farming.' 
 
 B. 'I should be glad to see them. So far as I am 
 aware, and I can claim pretty wide observation, no re- 
 sponsible or experienced person has ever advocated "poultry 
 farming pure and simple." But surely you do not judge 
 by the writings of enthusiastic novices, who fly to print 
 when they have kept a dozen hens — or before.' 
 
 H. C. 'A Mr. T. Carr writes as follows in Feathered 
 Life of January 4 : "I have for forty-five years been 
 keeping utility poultry in large numbers, and for the last 
 fifteen years it has been my only source of income on a 
 farm of £%00 per year, including rent, rates, and taxes." 
 He seems out of his novitiate. Then he goes on : " There 
 is nothing pays so well on the land as keeping poultry for 
 egg production and table purposes in large numbers of 
 500 to 1,000 head, sleeping together under one roof, at the 
 rate of 200 to the statute acre. This I state from my 
 experience. A sound business, practical poultry keeper 
 with twenty acres of land and ^500 capital, within driving 
 distance of a large industrial town, will make double the 
 amount of money with far less care, anxiety, greater 
 comfort, and certainly with less labour, than his farming 
 brother, wherever he may be located and however fertile 
 his land may be, on a farm of 100 acres and a capital 
 of dfi'ljOOO." He is allowed to write as he does in a 
 series of articles which appear without correction in a 
 paper which calls itself "the utility poultry journal." 
 Again, in a book by Mr. Vale, who describes himself as 
 on the staff of the Feathered World and Poultry, plans 
 are given for a poultry farm on such an enormous scale 
 that the profit shown in the balance-sheet is more than 
 .^2,000 a year. Then in Poultry of July 3, 1903, Mr. A. T. 
 Johnson, a Well-known poultry lecturer and judge, poultry 
 
170 AN AUTHORITY CROSS-EXAMINED 
 
 editor of the Profitable Farm and Garden, and author of 
 " Poultry for Profit," says he does not disbelieve in the 
 possibilities of " poultry farming pure and simple " for a 
 moment. [The full quotation appears on pp. 108, 109 of 
 the present book.] I have no personal knowledge of 
 Messrs. Carr, Vale, and Johnson. I only cite them to 
 you as people who are in a position to address and 
 impress poultry novices.' 
 
 * * * * » 
 
 H. C. 'Perhaps, Mr. Brown, you would kindly look 
 down this list I have made of some poultry farms which 
 are said to be successful.' 
 
 B. ' No. I was a swindle.' 
 
 H. C. • Was ?' 
 
 B. ' Smashed up !' 
 
 H. C. ' H'm !' 
 
 B. ' No. 2 is mainly devoted to poultry fattening.' 
 
 H. C. ' It is admitted that that pays.' 
 
 B. ' No. 3's chief man has gone to America. No. 4 is a 
 general farmer, so is No. 5. As to No. 6 I have no recent 
 news, but it has been remodelled.' 
 
 * » # * * 
 
 B. ' Of course there remains America.' 
 
 H. C. ' Yes, there remains America. You have been to 
 America ?' 
 
 B. 'No.' 
 
 H. C. 'Ah ! But are the "poultry plants" not depai-t- 
 ments of considerable farms P' 
 
 B. 'They are on farms, but the poultry feature has 
 been greatly developed, and is the more important.' 
 
 H. C. ' But they grow their own poultry com, etc' 
 
 B. 'Yes.' 
 
 H. C. ' And in view of high rents, etc., of English land 
 
CLIMATIC CONSIDERATIONS 171 
 
 and the low prices of foreign feeding stuffs, an English 
 poultry farmer could not do that profitably ?' 
 
 B. 'No. But the poultry are not running free on an 
 American farm which is up to date from a poultry point 
 of view. They are on a very small piece of it ; they do not 
 have a chance of picking up anything. They are "yarded," 
 in fact.' 
 
 H. C. 'We could not make poultry pay in such con- 
 ditions ?'' 
 
 B. ' It remains to be proved. We have never been able 
 to keep half as many birds in this country to the acre as 
 they manage to do in the States.' 
 
 H. C. 'Except Mr. T. Carr.' 
 
 B. ' Except Mr. T. Carr.' 
 
 H. C. ' It is due to climatic differences between the two 
 countries, of course ? 
 
 B. ' Yes. In Massachusetts they will have eleven weeks 
 of snow and frost. During that time the manure is 
 rendered harmless by being frozen up. Then they will 
 have long periods of intensely dry weather, when the 
 droppings are readily swept up. We have no such iron 
 frost or dry spells.' 
 
 H. C. ' But though very many American poultry plants 
 are no more, some are doing very well when they ai-e on 
 farms? The farmers who have them have simply realized 
 that poultry are the same as other farm stock in this 
 respect, that when skilfully attended to they pay better 
 than when left to traditional methods of management ?' 
 
 B. ' That is it. By treating them as a branch of farming 
 worth study and business attention they have made them 
 a paying department of agriculture. But every farm takes 
 advantage of its poultry's reputation to sell sittings and 
 eggs. In my books and lectures I have consistently and 
 persistently advocated poultry keeping as a branch, but 
 
172 AN AUTHORITY CROSS-EXAMINED 
 
 more important than generally realized, of agriculture, 
 whilst recognising under proper conditions the oppor- 
 tunities of intensive poultry farming, but still as farming. 
 A most important part of my work has been to stop 
 foolish and unworkable schemes.' 
 
 ***** 
 
 H. C. ' American farmers seem to think that there is 
 more money in ducks than hens .?' 
 
 B. ' Ducks are on an altogether different basis from 
 hens.' 
 
 H. C. ' We have a duck farm in England ? 
 
 B. ' Yes, Mr. Peter Walsh's. It answers excellently.' 
 
 H. C. ' Mr. Walsh does not keep stock-birds, but buys 
 eggs .?' 
 
 B. 'Yes.' 
 
 H. C. 'And other duck farmers do not do so, either, 
 some buying ducklings instead of eggs .'*' 
 
 B. ' Yes ; and in Belgium, where so much is done in 
 duck raising — it is a part of farming — ^the ducklings are 
 sold at six or eight weeks for others to fatten.' 
 
 H. C. ' In fact, the duck farming pure and simple of 
 the popular imagination — that is, the hatching of early 
 ducklings from eggs laid by great flocks of stock-ducks, 
 maintained all the year round, during the most of which 
 they are doing nothing but eating their heads off, because 
 in such numbers they must be very largely hand-fed — does 
 not exist here.' 
 
 B. ' Not so far as I know.' 
 
 H. C. 'In spite of the fact that nothing does such 
 wonders for poor fields — Mr. Walsh has proved it — as 
 quartering ducks on them ?' 
 
 B. 'No.' 
 
 H. C. ' Paying duck ranches in America must have 
 advantages of some sort if they maintain their own birds T 
 
DUCKS AND HENS 173 
 
 B. 'The successful duck ranch belonging to Weber 
 Brothers has three features worth noticing. First, only a 
 part of each pen is on the ground. The other part is in 
 the water.' 
 
 H. C. 'The plant is on both sides of a stream, I think?' 
 
 B. ' Yes. The wire netting runs right down into the 
 river. Therefore the ground keeps reasonably sweet, for 
 half the pen is renewed every few minutes by the water, in 
 which the birds were swimming, running away. In the 
 second place, the birds are only on the ground which is 
 used a part of the year. During the other months it is 
 sown down. Third, the general farm is run by three 
 brothers, and one of them makes the ducks his speciality.' 
 
 H. C. ' Hens won't stand being penned up or lie about 
 as ducklings will .?' 
 
 B. ' Certainly not. Ducks and hens are quite different.' 
 
 H. C. ' And some other form of cultivation must always 
 go hand-in-hand with poultry keeping or poultry farming i*' 
 
 B. ' It is a sine qua, non.'' 
 
 H. C. ' A poultry farmer must te a farmer, in fact ?' 
 
 B. ' Yes, or a gardener. But surely this is realized ?' 
 
 H. C. ' The townsman who would turn poultry farmer, 
 the class which is losing thousands of pounds at poultry 
 farming, the land-owners' sons iilflamed by the tall stories 
 of American poulti-y plants, have not gripped it.' 
 
 B. ' I know several farmers who make £100 a year and 
 more out of their poultry. But not without a farm — that 
 is, only as part of farming.' 
 
 H. C. ' Poultry are not enough by themselves to keep a 
 family going ?' 
 
 B. ' I should not advise anybody to try the experiment 
 except on lines already laid down. But there is an opening 
 in poultry keeping for people who have an income from 
 other sources or take up special branches. I want to see 
 
174 AN AUTHORITY CROSS-EXAMINED 
 
 towns men and women come into rural industrialism, and 
 they have prospects of success if they recognise the essential 
 conditions.' 
 
 H. c. ' If; 
 
 B. ' If. But my appeal, and the appeal of the National 
 Poultry Organization Society, is to the farmer.' 
 
APPENDIX II 
 
 A POULTRY FARMER'S CONFESSION 
 
 The following extract is from an article in the Cownty 
 Gentleman and Land amd Water : 
 
 ' The poultry farmer I have just interviewed took over 
 from his predecessor — 
 
 28 ducks. 700 chicks and ducklings. 
 
 4 turkeys. 2 incubators hatching 250 eggs. 
 
 250 hens. 40 hens sitting on^ say^ 600 eggs. 
 
 'The poultry farmer took over the place because he 
 was in a position to settle down in the country on a 
 modest scale, and wanted something to do. 
 
 'As to experience, he had gained his knowledge of 
 poultry keeping in Sussex, and could kill, pluck, truss, and 
 market properly, and was a first-rate f business man. But 
 let him speak for himself : 
 
 ' " The following figures which I have got ready for you 
 from my books, for we have had enough loose accounting 
 in descriptions of poultry farms, show to the odd half- 
 pennies how things went during the three years from the 
 end of April, 1902, when I took over the place, till the end 
 of April, 1905, when I abandoned poultry farming for 
 good. The accounts show not only profit and loss as 
 against food and incidentals, but what, if I may say so, you 
 do not get in the average poultry farmer's accounts, every 
 stiver of expenditure on houses, appliances, new stock, etc., 
 
 176 
 
176 A POULTRY FARMER'S CONFESSION 
 
 with proper allowances for depreciation of live and dead 
 stock." 
 
 MONTHLY CASH ACCOUNTS FROM MAY 1, 1902, TO 
 APRIL 30, 1903. 
 
 
 Received. 
 
 Paid. 
 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 May 
 June- 
 
 ■ 12 
 - 10 11 
 
 
 6 
 
 - 7 19 7 
 10 5 10 
 
 July 
 August 
 September- 
 October 
 
 8 4 
 
 8 1 
 
 5 4 
 
 9 7 
 
 3 
 9 
 4 
 H 
 
 8 9 3 
 
 9 16 4 
 8 
 
 10 15 4 
 
 November - 
 
 8 19 
 
 3 
 
 10 7 
 
 December - 
 
 11 9 
 
 2 
 
 12 7 2 
 
 January 
 February - 
 March 
 
 7 6 
 4 3 
 
 8 1 
 
 
 9 
 
 7 18 lOi 
 
 6 6 
 
 7 16 9 
 
 April 
 
 12 4 
 
 7 
 
 9 13 3 
 
 iElOS 13 2 
 
 ^109 9 lOJ 
 
 SUMMARY FOR YEAR ENDING APRIL 30, 1903. 
 
 Dr. 
 
 
 
 Cb. 
 
 
 To- 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 By- 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Food 
 
 84 18 6 
 
 Eggs sold - 
 
 45 13 
 
 3 
 
 Railway charges 
 
 7 8 
 
 Chickens and ducks - 
 
 16 10 
 
 6 
 
 Advertising 
 
 5 8 
 
 Turkeys - 
 
 17 9 
 
 6 
 
 Stationery 
 
 17 6 
 
 Eggs sold for setting - 
 
 14 11 
 
 6 
 
 Postage 
 
 2 3 lOi 
 
 Birds sold for stock - 
 
 11 8 
 
 (i 
 
 Boxes 
 
 1 18 6 
 
 Value of young stock 
 
 
 
 Crates 
 
 1 10 
 
 in hand - 
 
 21 2 
 
 6 
 
 Timber - 
 
 2 19 
 
 
 
 
 I'aint and tar 
 
 10 6 
 
 
 
 
 Oil for incubators 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 
 Sundries - 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 
 iE109 9 lOi 
 
 
 Depreciation of live 
 
 
 
 
 
 and dead stock at 1 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 per cent, on capital 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 
 Cr. to balance - 
 
 jei24 9 10^ 
 - 2 6 lOi 
 
 JE126 16 9 
 
 £l-2fi 1.5 9 
 
A YEAR'S POULTRY FARMING 
 
 177 
 
 MONTHLY CASH ACCOUNTS FROM MAY 1, 1903, TO 
 APRIL 30, 1904. 
 
 
 Received. 
 
 Paid. 
 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 £ s. A. 
 
 May - 
 June - 
 
 - 20 3 
 10 8 
 
 3 - 
 6 
 
 n 14 10i 
 13 13 3 
 
 July - 
 August 
 September 
 October 
 
 - 9 7 
 
 - 5 14 
 6 3 
 
 10 4 
 
 2 - 
 6 
 8 - 
 
 5 
 
 - 10 1 9 
 
 9 14 7 
 
 - 8 18 7 
 
 - 11 5 8 
 
 November 
 
 9 2 
 
 1 - 
 
 - 10 14 4 
 
 December - 
 
 - 10 15 
 
 9 
 
 - 11 1 11 
 
 January 
 
 February 
 
 March 
 
 - 11 2 
 
 - 10 19 
 
 - 8 9 
 
 4 - 
 8 - 
 3 
 
 - 11 4 9 
 
 - 11 4 
 11 10 
 
 April - 
 
 7 7 
 
 2 
 
 - 9 10 10 
 
 
 f 119 17 
 
 9 
 
 fl30 1 8^ 
 
 SUMMARY FOR YEAR ENDING APRIL 30, 1904. 
 
 Dr. 
 
 
 
 
 Cr. 
 
 To— 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 By- 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 Food 
 
 99 12 
 
 6 
 
 Eggs sold 
 
 62 12 11 
 
 Rail charges 
 
 9 2 
 
 
 
 Chickens sold - 
 
 10 2 6 
 
 Advertising 
 
 5 3 
 
 
 
 Ducks sold 
 
 9 9 10 
 
 Stationery 
 
 1 3 
 
 6 
 
 Turkeys sold 
 
 14 18 
 
 Postage - 
 
 2 12 
 
 2i 
 
 Eggs sold for setting 
 
 17 4 6 
 
 Boxes 
 
 1 18 
 
 8 
 
 Birds sold for stock 
 
 12 10 
 
 Crates and hampers 
 
 3 10 
 
 
 
 Value of young stock 
 
 
 Timber - 
 Netting - 
 
 1 10 
 1 10 
 
 
 6 
 
 in hand 
 
 31 3 
 
 ~ 
 
 
 Paint 
 
 10 
 
 6 
 
 
 150 18 
 
 Oil - 
 
 1 16 
 
 
 
 Dr. to balance 
 
 1 13 8^ 
 
 Sundries - 
 
 1 12 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 Depreciation on stock 
 
 
 
 
 
 at 15 p.c. on ^150 
 
 22 10 
 
 
 
 
 
 £152, 11 8i 
 
 Jei52 11 8J 
 
 M 
 
 12 
 
178 A POULTRY FARMER'S CONFESSION 
 
 MONTHLY CASH ACCOUNTS FROM MAY 1^ 1904, TO 
 APRIL 30, 1905. 
 
 May - 
 June - 
 July - 
 August 
 September - 
 October 
 November - 
 December 
 January 
 February - 
 March 
 April - 
 
 Received. 
 
 Paid. 
 
 £. s. 
 
 d. 
 
 £ 6. d. 
 
 - 10 8 
 
 3 - 
 
 - 7 11 3 
 
 - 9 4 
 
 7 - 
 
 - 11 1 8 
 
 - 10 2 
 
 2 - 
 
 10 16 8 
 
 - 7 15 
 
 6 - 
 
 - 6 6 8 
 
 12 10 
 
 8 - 
 
 - 8 5 8 
 
 - 5 6 
 
 10 
 
 - 10 4 5i 
 
 4 2 
 
 9 - 
 
 9 13 11 
 
 20 16 
 
 4 - 
 
 - 12 2 2J 
 
 - 12 6 
 
 2 
 
 - 8 17 6| 
 
 - 11 3 
 
 6 
 
 - 9 14 4 
 
 9 10 
 
 3 - 
 
 - 8 13 lOJ 
 
 9 3 
 
 6 - 
 
 8 9 4 
 
 i'122 10 
 
 f! 
 
 Jill 16 7* 
 
 SUMMARY FOR YEAR ENDING APRIL 30, 1905. 
 
 Dr. 
 To— 
 Food 
 
 Rail charges 
 Advertising 
 Stationery 
 Postage - 
 Boxes and crates 
 Timber 
 Paint 
 Oil - 
 
 Sundries - 
 Depreciation 
 
 Cr. to balance - 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 89 15 
 
 6 
 
 7 8 
 
 3 
 
 5 2 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 6 
 
 2 9 
 
 4i 
 
 2 16 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 1 10 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 22 10 
 
 
 
 134 6 
 
 7i 
 
 • 6 16 
 
 3i 
 
 £U\ 2 
 
 11 
 
 
 Cb. 
 
 
 By- 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Eggs sold 
 
 53 10 
 
 
 
 Chickens sold 
 
 11 2 
 
 6 
 
 Ducks sold 
 
 9 10 
 
 
 
 Turkeys sold - 
 
 18 10 
 
 
 
 Eggs sold for setting 
 
 16 
 
 
 
 Birds sold for stock - 
 
 13 18 
 
 
 
 Value of young stock 
 
 18 12 
 
 5 
 
 £141 2 11 
 
 ' " You will see by these figures," said the ex -poultry 
 farmer, " that I invested ^100 to pm"chase the stock and 
 plant as it stood. The second year, or rather towai"ds the 
 end of the first year, I put an additional .fSO capital into 
 
A YEAR'S WORK FOR £5 179 
 
 the concern. The bulk of this went towards the purchase 
 of incubators and brooders as patterns, and the necessary 
 timber and fittings to make additional ones, also more 
 houses. The balance went in the purchase of more stock, 
 either in the shape of pullets and the necessary cockerels, 
 or day-old chicks, or good sittings. On the first year there 
 was a profit of £2 5s. 9id., on the second a loss of 
 £1 13s. 8id., and on the third a profit of £6 16s. 3|d." 
 
 ' " To the novice," I said, " this no doubt seems by no 
 means unsatisfactory. Is not the poultry farm actually 
 ' paying ' ? It is true the amount is small, but do not the 
 poultry farming books say you must not expect to make a 
 living till after the third year? The third year's profit 
 was an enormous proportionate increase on the result of 
 the previous trading. One can hear the novice saying that 
 it seems only necessary, surely, to keep at it and increase 
 the stock, and a living will be got." 
 
 ' " In the first place," the ex-poultry farmer replied, 
 " nothing is put down for rent of ground or the labour of 
 my wife and myself, or — as I keep a cart and tumbrel and 
 a horse — for carriage to and from the station, or for straw. 
 Put down anything you like for these things, and where is 
 the prospect of profit .'' I am afraid I value our labour, to 
 say nothing of any other item, at more than a £5 note or 
 so a year. And how about interest on the money invested 
 in the business ?" 
 
 ' " Never forget," he went on — " but you know this 
 already well enough — that with us everything has taken 
 second place to the poultry. I have not gone hunting or 
 tennis-playing ; we have seen very little company, we have 
 almost slaved at the work. Our ten acres or so give us 
 sufficient land, the ground is sheltered in an ideal way, and 
 is dry, and we have had no disease. As to the birds, we 
 have all the latest dodges in feeding. Further, having a 
 
 12—2 
 
180 A POULTRY FARMER'S CONFESSION 
 
 rat-proof granary and the cash, I have bought food advan- 
 tageously. Then I have scratching-sheds and trap-nests 
 and a Sussex fatting-shed, and all the rest of it. As to 
 marketing the stuff, about half has gone to private cus- 
 tomers, and half to a good London salesman. I have sold 
 stock-birds and sittings — done a fair bit of it — but my 
 chief interest has been egg and table bird production on 
 the most up-to-date and businesslike lines. As to results, 
 if other couples like to invest dC150 and their labour for 
 three years, and get £5 back, they are welcome." 
 
 ' " But some balance-sheets show more profit than 
 yours." 
 
 ' " So much the worse for the balance-sheets. Get me 
 one, and we'll audit it. I have seen poultry balance-sheets 
 in my time showing profits, but they were not true balance- 
 sheets. Everything was not put down. People simply 
 will not put everything down ; and if they do put down 
 what all the money goes out for, they omit to debit 
 depreciation and interest on capital. I have given a lot of 
 study to this thing on the top of our personal experience, 
 and I am as convinced as I am of my own existence that, 
 where large quantities of birds are kept and all their food 
 and houses have to be paid for and kept in repair, and 
 runs, breeding-pens, and utensils provided, and labour and 
 rent met, they cannot keep anybody. If I had had a 
 dozen hens only, to provide for our domestic requirements, 
 I should have shown as much, if not more, profit at the 
 end of the three years than I showed with the larger 
 quantity, and the investment of capital would not have 
 been needed, and the labour would have been a bagatelle." 
 
 ' My friend added that he " would like to say something 
 quite frankly," I said, " Say on." He said this : " If it 
 were not for the continual incoming of ignorant people 
 with money into poulti-y farming — I have heard in the 
 
PUPIL FARMING 181 
 
 past two months of a lawyer and a City man, of all people 
 in the world, setting about sinking a, couple of thousands 
 in poultry farming — -and if it were not for the tolerant, 
 apologetic, and quasi-apologetic attitude of many people 
 who are poultry lecturers or writers, or who have poultry 
 to sell, the bogus character of poultry farming would have 
 been shown up definitely long ago. These are hard words, 
 but true." 
 
 ' " I said just now that there were no paying poultry 
 farms. I was wrong. I know of five or six that are doing 
 well. But ifs not the poultry that is paying — it is the 
 pupils. If you like to get three or four pupils at twenty 
 guineas apiece for a short course of poultry instruction, 
 well, that does pay ; and then see what a fine opportunity 
 you get to set them up with a lot of your own stock at 
 good prices, and with houses, incubators, etc., for which 
 you are agent, and draw a nice commission." ' 
 
INDEX 
 
 Adams, J., 106 
 
 Advertisements, xii 
 
 Ages and weights of marketing, 
 
 3, 34 
 Agricultural book-keeping, 163 
 Agricultural colleges, 4, 15, 54 
 American climate, 76 
 American poultry farms, 4, 73, 
 
 139, 170 
 American v. English practice, 
 
 74 
 Anconas, 43, 48 
 Andalusians, 43 
 Appliance-makers, 15 
 ' Authorities,^ xii 
 
 Balance-sheets, 9, 118, 175 et 
 
 seq. 
 Bantams, 26 
 Bellamy, W., 68 
 Brahraas, 23, 25 
 Breeds, 22, 23, 24, 38 
 ' Broilers,' 74, 75 
 Brooding-houses, 69 
 Brooke, C. E., Ill 
 Brown, E. T., 88, 95, 114, 129, 
 
 162, 153, 168 
 Brown, Tom, 74 
 Brown v. white egg, 65 
 Buif Orpingtons, 87 
 
 Cabinet Ministers' slips, 5 
 Carbonic acid, 47 
 Carr, T., 169, 171 
 
 182 
 
 Chickens, 3, 34, 50, 54. See 
 
 Table poultry 
 Cochins, 25 
 Cockerel, 40, 44 
 Cold storage, 45 
 CollingridgBj \\'. H. and L., 
 
 xvi 
 Colour, 21 
 
 Continent and colonies, x 
 Continental practice, 151. See 
 
 Imported produce and eggs 
 
 from the Continent 
 Cook, ^Villiam, 47 
 Cottagers' poultry, 8, 17 
 Country-house poultry, 8, 16 
 Country Life, 118 
 ' Country Gentleman's Estate- 
 Book,' 50, 145 
 County Council courses. See 
 
 Agricultural college 
 County Gentleman and Land and 
 
 Water, xv, 67, 103, 136, 146, 
 
 168, 176 
 Crossbreds, 34, 37, 49, 127 
 Curtis, Mr., 105 
 
 Day-old chicks, 17 
 Denmark, 113 
 
 ' Direct-to-the-Consumer ' theo- 
 ries, 146 
 Disease, 47 
 Dorkings, 49 
 
 Ducklings, 3, 4, 54, 90, 172 
 Duck ' ranching,' 90, 172 
 
INDEX 
 
 183 
 
 Egg collecting, 140 
 Egg merchants, 16 
 Egg production, 79, 80, 107, 
 
 123 
 Egg records, 79, 83 
 Eggs, 46, 48, 49, 56, 60, 61, 62, 
 
 66, 66. See Brown v. white, 
 
 Imported produce. Laying 
 
 competitions 
 Eggs for sitting, 17 
 Eggs for the Continent, 141. 
 
 See Imported produce 
 Elkington, W. M., 97 
 Ember, 61 
 Essex, 61 
 Experts, 134 
 
 Faking, 29, 30 
 Falkner, Mr., 107 
 'Fancy,' 22, 28, 86 
 Farmers' book-keeping, 163 
 Farmers' daughters, xiii, 70 
 Farmers' eggs, 66, 67 
 Farm land for poultry, 95 
 
 poultry, xiv, 9, 10, 12, 16, 
 23, 45, 70, 73, 80, 127, 
 171, 173 
 poultry farms, 14, 54. See 
 Palmer 
 Fattening, 15, 60, 54, 140 
 Feathered Ufe, 63, 99, 109, 169 
 Feathered World, 103, 104, 169 
 Feathering. See Markings 
 Fertility, 129 
 Field, XV, 28, 61, 82, 103, 104, 
 
 114, 136 
 Food, 2, 52, 126, 126 
 Foreign eggs, 6 
 poultry, 5 
 Free register of county produce, 
 146 
 
 Game, 25, 29, 37 
 
 Geflugel Zeitung, 97 
 
 Gilbey, Sir W., 59, 68, 110, 133, 
 
 141 
 Girls in the country, work for, 
 
 71 
 Grading, 66 
 
 Hamburghs, 31 
 
 Health, 26, 27, 28, 85 
 
 Heathfield, 144 
 
 Hen, 40 
 
 Higglers, 15, 44, 61, 140 
 
 Holland, 113 
 
 ' Home Counties,' 168 
 
 ' Horn,' 4 
 
 Home, B. W., 40 
 
 Horse, pig, and sheep farms, 
 
 156 
 Houdans, 25 
 Houses, 47, 48, 56, 67 
 Hulton, W. W B., 121 
 Hunter, A. F., 73 
 Hutchinson and Co., xv 
 
 Imported produce, 58 et seq., 141 
 Incubators, 64, 69, 78, 104, 129 
 Irish fowls, 144, 146 
 Isle of Man, 146 
 
 Jews, 151 
 
 Johnson, A. T., 108, 114, 169 
 Journal of the Board of Agricul- 
 ture, 95 
 Judges, 15, 30 
 
 Kent fowls, 24, 37, 49 
 Kenward, 106 
 
 Labour, 12, 179 
 
 La Bresse, 41, 87 
 
 Lady poultry farmers, 16 
 
 Langshan, 24, 37 
 
 Laying, 28, 39, 40, 45, 47, 127. 
 
 See also Laying competitions 
 Laving competitions, 21, 26, 34, 
 
 35, 40 et seq., 49, 79, 83, 86, 
 
 87, 123 
 Laying records, 79, 83, 107 
 Lectures, 16 
 
 Leghorns, 22, 37, 41, 42, 43, 44 
 Legs, yellow, 87 
 Liverpool poultry fattening, 145 
 Lloyd's News, 167 
 
 Maize, 76 
 Malpractices, 30, 97 
 
184 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Management of Poultry, 2, 126, 
 
 142 
 Managers, 13, 14, 120 
 Manure, 53 
 Marketing, 143 
 
 Markets, London, 144, 150, 169 
 Markings, 22, 27, 36 
 Middleman, 15, 146, 160 
 Milk, fruit, and honey, 16 
 Minorcas, 26, 42 
 Mnndealey Parish Council, 99 
 Municipal poultry farming, 99 
 
 National Poultry Organization 
 Society, 40, 61, 62, 64, 66, 
 67, 114, 168, 174 
 
 Nesmith, C. I., 106 
 
 'New Book of Poultry,' 17, 27, 
 30, 46, 48, 75, 101, 166 
 
 Newport, W., 63 
 
 Noon, F. S., 106 
 
 'Organization of Agriculture,' 
 
 61 
 Ornamental poultry, 23 
 Orpingtons, 22, 29, 31, 37, 43, 
 
 44,49 
 'Our Poultry,' XV, 24 
 
 Palmer, Sir W., 14, 52, 65, 70 
 'Paying Poultry,' 63 
 Petite culture and poultry, 88 
 Petits poussins, 75 
 Plymouth Rocks, 42 
 Pollard, G., 106 
 
 ' Poultry,' 29, 30, 75, 89, 108, 
 114, 169 
 arithmetic, xii 
 books, X, 2 
 factors, 64 
 farmers, xiii, 13, 34 
 farmer's confession, 175 
 farming 
 
 ' adjuncts,' 89, 156 
 agricultural authorities 
 
 on, xiv 
 bog^s character of, 181 
 conflict of authority, 
 101 
 
 Poultry farming {continued) — 
 
 Con tinental experience, 
 
 113 
 does not pay, x, W et 
 
 seq., 173 
 fascination of, xii 
 intricate, xi 
 
 money lost in, 2, 6, 181 
 municipal, 99 
 novices' mistakes, 2 
 on a small scale, 161 
 pleas for, 101 
 pupils, 181 
 
 ' pjire and simple,' 168 
 realities of, 162 
 sittings and stock-birds, 
 
 155, 166 
 townsman and, xiv 
 farm myth, 1 
 farms, 11, 13 e< teq. 
 
 American establish- 
 ments, 73, 100, 102, 
 170 
 balance-sheets, 118 
 English establishments, 
 8, 90, 160, 169, 170, 
 175 
 farm poultry fitrms, 14 
 hard work on, 142 
 labour, 179 
 popular notion of, 11 
 poultry authorities do 
 
 not have, 158 
 ' profits,' 163, 169, 175 
 puffery of, 133 
 sales of, 121 
 short lives of, 13 
 unknown to the market, 
 159 
 ' Poultry for Profit,' xv, 143, 165 
 ' Poultry for Table and Market,' 
 
 28 
 Poultry keeping as a hobby, xiii, 
 
 23,32 
 ' Poultry-Keeping as an Industry 
 for Farmers and Cottamrs,' 
 114 
 Poultry-keeping, future of, xiii, 
 6 
 
INDEX 
 
 185 
 
 Poultry-keeping (continued) — 
 nonsense talked about, 1 
 small profits from, 161 
 that pays, xiii, xiv, 8 et seq., 
 173 ■ 
 ' Poultry- Keeping on Farms and 
 
 Small Holdings/ 59, 110, 141 
 Poultry lecturers and writers, 1, 
 
 111, 133 et seq., 181 
 ' Poultry Management on a 
 
 Farm,' 14 
 Poultry papers, x, 133 
 'Poultry plants,' 69, 73. See 
 
 Poultry fax-ras and American 
 
 poultry farms 
 Poultry that do not pay, 36, 173 
 Poultry world parasites, xii 
 Pratt, B. A., 61 
 Preserving, 45, 46 
 Prices, 29, 45, 60, 54, 58 
 Prizes, 30 
 Production of eggs at home and 
 
 abroad, 5 
 'Pi-oiitable Farm and Garden,' 
 
 170 
 Puffery, 136 
 Pullet, 40 
 
 Pupils, 94, 95, 96, 134 
 Purdy, 107 
 
 Quarterly Review, xv 
 
 Rankin, James, 77 
 Reading College poultry, 34 
 Reading College poultry farm, 
 
 127 
 Recording nest, 39 
 Register nest, 39 
 Reliable Poultry Journal, 79, 104 
 Reproduction, 3 
 Russell and Mackenzie, 47 
 Russian birds, 59 
 
 Salmon Faverolles, 44 
 Scientific methods and the con- 
 verse, 3 
 Scottish Poultry Company, 131 
 Scratchibg-houses, 66 
 
 Sharpe, S. C, 50, 144 
 
 Shelter, 56 
 
 Show committees, 7 
 
 Shows, 5, 7, 23, 24, 26, 28, 29 
 
 Snow, 26 
 
 Soil, 49 
 
 Spanish, v, 26 
 
 Squarsons' daughters, 70 
 
 Stamina, 85 
 
 Steains, E., 134 
 
 Studley Castle, 79 
 
 Suburban poultry, 8 
 
 Superstitions, 3 
 
 Surrey fowls, 144 
 
 Sussex fowls, 143 
 
 Sussex and Surrey fowls, 24, 37, 
 
 49 
 Swanley College, 79 
 
 Table poultry, 3, 34, 44, 49, 50, 
 51, 54, 55, 68, 102, 127, 144. 
 See Imported produce 
 
 Tegetmeier, W. B., xv, 28, 81, 
 103, 114 
 
 Times, 103 
 
 Tinting. See Brown v. white 
 
 Toovey, 107 
 
 Trap nest, 39 
 
 Tullibardine, Marquis of, 131 
 
 Twining, Mr., 73, 74 
 
 Type, 22, 36, 37 
 
 Uckfield, 144 
 
 Utility Poultry Club, xv, 34, 40, 
 
 79, 84, 65, 87 
 'Utility with exhibition type.' 
 
 See Type 
 
 Vale, Mr., 169 
 Ventilation, 47 
 
 Walsh, P., 91, 93 
 Weather conductor, 49 
 Weights at different ages, 3, 34 
 Weir, Harrison, xv, 24 
 Westminster Qaeette, 99 
 Williams, 107 
 Winter, 26, 65, 171 
 
186 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Women in the countryj 70 
 Worcestershire poultry farm, 
 
 105 
 World's Work, 94 
 Wright, Lewis, 104, 106, 142, 
 
 152 
 
 Wyandottes, 22, 23, 27, 34, 35, 
 37, 41, 42, 43, 49, 85, 86, 127 
 Wye Agricultural College, 47 
 
 ' Yarding,' 57 
 Yates, Miss, 85 
 
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