Excerpt from Poultry Keeping as an Industry for Farmers and Cottagers

Poultry keeping is a pursuit which recommends itself very strongly indeed to the small farmer and cottager, in that the outlay of capital required is very little in deed, and the returns are quickly arrived at. Chickens bred for the table can be marketed within a few weeks those intended as layers will commence operations by the time they are five months old. Only in one or two other branches of farming can the same rapid return be secured. There need be no outlay for rent, and, except upon large farms, where a special poultry woman is kept, wages do not enter into consideration. It is, in fact, one of those pursuits which can be engrafted upon the regular operations with very little additional outlay But there is a further benefit to be derived. F owls play an important part in cleaning and enriching land upon which they are kept, and in the following chapters evidences of this are given. If the example shown by vine growers in France were followed, and every fruit grower maintained a flock of poultry, large or small according to his occupation, his profits would be added to considerably, his land would be cleaned by the fowls, their manure would improve his creps, and their produce would be a welcome addition to his income. We are strongly of Opinion that every fruit grower should also be a poultry keeper. The same applies to dairy farms. In Devon and Cornwall nearly every dairy farmer keeps poultry, and in his contracts bar gains for delivering so much butter and so many eggs. As a rule he declines to sell'one without the other. Milk or butter and eggs are bought together, and ought to be produced on the same place, and equal care should be taken to market one as fresh as the other. The dairy farmer has a great advantage in that his connections enable him to find a sure and constant outlet for his eggs, with a minimum of trouble.

Whilst to some extent attention has been paid to improvement of breeds, and just as we are going to press an announcement is made that the Congested Districts Board of Ireland has granted £100 and the Royal Dublin Society £50 for the purchase of stock birds to be distributed in the West of Ireland, the equally important details as to preparation of and mar keting poultry, and the collection, sorting, packing and marketing of eggs, have, as a rule, been dealt with in a most haphazard fashion. It is true that in Sussex, in Buckinghamshire, and Norfolk, so far as poultry are concerned, the trade is conducted on systematic lines. In these counties may be found examples of what can be done by method and enterprise, examples which ought to stimulate the efforts of breeders and dealers in all parts of the country. But in Britain we cannot point to any district where a system of collecting and marketing eggs has been adopted at all approaching that met with in France and other continental coun tries, except in Devon and Cornwall. Last spring we made an enquiry into this question in Yorkshire, and learnt that, with a practically unlimited demand on the one side, and a specially favourable district for poultry keeping on the other, the York and Malton districts are dependent on foreign supplies during a large por tion of the year. A trader in York informed us that he sells about eggs per week, but, excepting the first three or four months of each year, he has to obtain Irish, French and Danish eggs to supply his needs. What is true there applies to many other sec tions of the country.

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