The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1890-04-16
FARMER AND PLANTER,
CHAPTER ON EGGS.
The Greatest Item of Profit in Poultry
Raising.

The Greatest Item of Profit in Poultry
Raising.
The following paper was read before
the Giles County (Tenn.) Farmers AS
ISOLATION by H. b. Gear, of Nashville:
When we consider poultry as meat,
and slaughter it for market or for
home use, we throw it in competition
with every thing else in the form OF
meat that we consume. The cattle and
hogs provide us with meat in various
FORMS So does a vast army of wild
game and also the fishes of the sea,
lakes and rivers. Cattle and hog meat,
the flesh of various wild animals, and
that other class of meat, fish and
oysters, and also all kinds of wild fowl,
makes formidable list for our domes.
tic poultry to compete with.
But when it comes to eggs the field is
almost entirely clear. We gather no
eggs from any of the sources above
named. Our eggs come from our hens,
our ducks and our turkeys, our geese
and our guineas. But the great bulk OF
them comes .from the first named-our
hens For their eggs there is a steady
demand-a demand that is steadily in
creasing.
Our Southern cities are growing. There
are springing up all over the South at
the present time manufacturing centers
and villages that increase the popula-
ton of our counties and our Southern
States. With this increase of popula-
ton comes a natural increase in the dc.
mand for eggs. This demand for eggs
offers to the Southern farmer splendid
opportunity to increase his revenues
with but little outlay and trouble.
The difficulty in raising poultry on
the farm and in getting good supply
of eggs, lies in the want of system.
There is a right way to do any thing
and every thing, and to succeed with
any thing it must be done rightly and
understandingly.
1t should be known and borne in mind
that wild fowls will not lay we'll OF
thrive in large f1ocks. No matter how
broad our acres or how extensive our
farms, we can not be successful with
| poultry thereon unless we sub-divide it
into 1ocks of fifteen or twenty-five each,
and give each flock separate run and
hen-house. When the fact is better un-
derstood and acted upon, then the farm
ers OF Tennessee will make more money
out of their hens, than out of their hogs
or sheep.
Nature is great leveler of things,
and nature says flock of fifteen or
twenty-five hens are as many as can
run together and thrive To succeed,
then, we must heed tho voice of nature.
The farm is the place for poultry, as the
farm affords us ample room to carry out
our purposes. But only single flock of
twenty-five fowls on large farm would
be too small matter for consideration
in point of profit.
Each farmer should build four or five
yards, fifty to one hundred feet wide
and one hundred and fifty feet long.
In each of these yards a small hem
house about six feet square and six
feet high should be built, and to
each yard, say twenty-five hens as
signed. These hens should be fed a
! cooked feed in the morning and sound
grain at night, and in the winter time
| some cooked potatoes, turnips, etc., two
or three times a week. Also little
meat twice week. The result of such
treatment would be eggs, and plenty of
them, at all seasons of the year, ex-
cepting moulting time in the fall.
The fencing for this purpose may
consist of four-foot posts, cheap string
ers and plasterers' lath, which cost
twenty Or twenty-five cents hundred.
They are only four feet long, but by
putting the top stringer a foot and a
half from the top of the lath, fowl
can not fly it, and after they have been
in their yards short time, they will
not try to fly.
We have kept Leghorn fowls in yards
Of this kind for years, and gather from
them an average of 100 eggs per year
from each hen. The cost of their keep
is fifty cents a year, which leaves us a
clear profit of over one dollar per hen
each year, valuing eggs at market
price. We may add that we tried the
unlimited range" plan on the farm,
and found it failure. We got fewer
eggs and had more disease than under
any other system.
On our poultry farm at St. Mary's and
at our place in Nashville, Tenn, on,
fowls are all yarded as above described
and we find them profitable and hardy
We build one yard right alongside the
other, and, as our experience grows, oul
poultry yards shall increase to Che
limit Of our ability to care for them
We know the above methods to be sue
cessful in keeping poultry for eggs.
THE COLD FRAME.
| A Useful Adjunct to the Kitchen Garden