Poultry : a practical guide to the choice, breeding, rearing, and management of all descriptions of fowls, turkeys, guinea-fowls, ducks and geese for profit and exhibition / by Hugh Piper.

  • Piper, Hugh.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Poultry : a practical guide to the choice, breeding, rearing, and management of all descriptions of fowls, turkeys, guinea-fowls, ducks and geese for profit and exhibition / by Hugh Piper. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/208 (page 4)
    “It becomes/’says Miss Harriet Martineau, “ an interest- ing 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 pent- house, 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 increase in the country generally, and even among cottagers ; but the prevailing idea is of competition as to races and specimens for the poultry-yard, rather than of meeting the demand for eggs and fowls for the table.” With the exception of prizes for Dorkings, which are chiefly bred for market, our poultry-shows have always looked upon fowls as if they were merely ornamental birds, and have framed their standards of excellence accordingly, and not with any regard to the production of profitable poultry, which is much to be regretted. Martin Doyle, the cottage economist of Ireland, in his “ Hints to Small Holders,” observes that “ a few cocks and hens, if they be prevented from scratching in the garden, are a useful and appropriate stock about a cottage, the warmth of which causes them to lay eggs in winter—no trifling advantage to the children when milk is scarce. The French, who are extremely fond of eggs, and contrive to have them in great abundance, feed the fowls so well on curds and buckwheat, and keep them so warm, that they have plenty of eggs even in winter. Now, in our country