Houdans—La Flêche Cock—Crêve-Cœur Hen.

    PLATE VII. 132   Turkey—Guinea-Fowls.     PLATE VIII. 142   Toulouse Goose—Rouen Ducks—Aylesbury Ducks.  

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PROFITABLE AND ORNAMENTAL

POULTRY.

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CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

Until of late years the breeding of poultry has been almost generally neglected in Great Britain. Any kind of mongrel fowl would do for a farmer's stock, although he fully appreciated the importance of breeding in respect of his cattle and pigs, and the value of improved seeds. Had he thought at all upon the subject, it must have occurred to him that poultry might be improved by breeding from select specimens as much as any other kind of live stock. The French produce a very much greater number of fowls and far finer ones for market than we do. In France, Bonington Mowbray observes, "poultry forms an important part of the live stock of the farmer, and the poultry-yards supply more animal food to the great mass of the community than the butchers' shops"; while in Egypt, and some other countries of the East, from time immemorial, vast numbers of chickens have been hatched in ovens by artificial heat to supply the demand for poultry; but in Great Britain poultry-keeping has been generally neglected, eggs are dear, and all kinds of poultry so great a luxury that the lower classes and a large number of the middle seldom, if ever, taste it, except perhaps once a year in the form of a Christmas goose, while hundreds of thousands cannot afford even this. It is computed that a million of eggs are eaten daily in London and its suburbs alone; yet this vast number only gives one egg to every three mouths. "It is a national waste," says Mr. Edwards, "importing eggs by the hundreds of millions, and poultry by tens of thousands, when we are feeding our cattle upon corn, and grudging it to our poultry; although the return made from the former, it is generally admitted, is not five per cent. beyond the value of the corn consumed, whereas an immense percentage can be realised by feeding poultry." A writer in the Times, of February 1, 1853, states that, while it will take five years to fatten an ox to the weight of sixty stone, which will produce a profit of £30, the same sum may be realised in five months by feeding an equal weight of poultry for the table.

Although fowls are so commonly kept, the proportion to the population is still very small, and the number of those who rear and manage them profitably still smaller, chiefly because most people keep them without system or order, and have not given the slightest attention to the subject. Nevertheless, it costs no more trouble and much less expense to keep fowls successfully and profitably, for neglected fowls are always falling sick, or getting into mischief and causing annoyance, and often expense and loss. "A man," says Mr. Edwards, "who expects a good return of flesh and eggs from fowls insufficiently fed and cared for, is like a miller expecting to get meal from a neglected mill, to which he does not supply grain."

The antiquated idea that fowls on a farm did mischief to the crops has been proved to be false; for if the grain is sown as deeply as it should be, they cannot reach it by scratching; and, besides, they greatly prefer worms and insects. Mr. Mechi says, "commend me to poultry as the farmer's best friend," and considers the value of fowls, in destroying the vast number of worms, grubs, flies, beetles, insects, larvæ, &c., which they devour, as incalculable; and the same may be said as to their destruction of the seeds of weeds. They also consume large quantities of kitchen and table refuse, which is generally otherwise wasted, and often allowed to decay and become a source of disease, or at least of impurity.

The enormous prices paid at the poultry shows of 1852 and 1853 for fancy fowls gave a new impulse to poultry-keeping; and many persons who formerly thought the management of poultry beneath their attention, now superintend their yards. Mrs. Ferguson Blair, now the Hon. Mrs. Arbuthnot, the authoress of the "Henwife," whose experience may be judged by the fact that she gained in four years upwards of 460 prizes in England and Scotland, and personally superintended the management of forty separate yards, in which above 1,000 chickens were hatched annually, says:—

"I began to breed poultry for amusement only, then for exhibition, and lastly, was glad to take the trouble to make it pay, and do not like my poultry-yard less because it is not a loss. It is impossible to imagine any occupation more suited to a lady, living in the country, than that of poultry rearing. If she has any superfluous affection to bestow, let it be on her chicken-kind and it will be returned cent. per cent. Are you a lover of nature? come with me and view, with delighted gaze, her chosen dyes. Are you a utilitarian? rejoice in such an increase of the people's food. Are you a philanthropist? be grateful that yours has been the privilege to afford a possible pleasure to the poor man, to whom so many are impossible. Such we often find fond of poultry—no mean judges of it, and frequently successful in exhibition. A poor man's pleasure in victory is, at least, as great as that of his richer brother. Let him, then, have the field whereon to fight for it. Encourage village poultry-shows, not only by your patronage, but also by your presence. A taste for such may save many from dissipation and much evil; no man can win poultry honours and haunt the taproom too."

For those who desire to encourage a taste for poultry keeping in young people, and their humbler neighbours, we would recommend our smaller work on the subject as a suitable present.[1]

"It becomes," says Miss Harriet Martineau, "an interesting wonder every year why the rural cottagers of the United Kingdom do not rear fowls almost universally, seeing how little the cost would be and how great the demand. We import many millions of eggs annually. Why should we import any? Wherever there is a cottage family living on potatoes or better fare, and grass growing anywhere near them, it would be worth while to nail up a little penthouse, and make nests of clean straw, and go in for a speculation in eggs and chickens. Seeds, worms, and insects go a great way in feeding poultry in such places; and then there are the small and refuse potatoes from the heap, and the outside cabbage leaves, and the scraps of all sorts. Very small purchases of broken rice (which is extremely cheap), inferior grain, and mixed meal, would do all else that is necessary. There would be probably larger losses from vermin than in better guarded places; but these could be well afforded as a mere deduction from considerable gains. It is understood that the keeping of poultry is largely on the