POULTRY FARMING IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2248, 17 June 1881, Page 4

POULTRY FARMING IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND.

r*‘ Field.”] That truth will ultimately prevail there can be no doubt, nevertheless, error has an amount of vitality that far exceeds that of a cat with all its fabled lives. It is in vain to tell the credulous believers in the existence of French poultry farms that there are no such establishments. The probable reply would bo, “ Why everyone knows that the large amount of eegs that we receive from France must come frem the poultry farms.” Acting on this belief many persons are induced to expend capital in establishing poultry farms which come to grief in a few months. Some publications bearing on this question have recently made their appearance. In tte current number of “Macmillan’s Magazine” is an article by a lady, Miss Jane Ohesney, who has recently been investigating, at some very considerable amount of trouble, the part poultry keeping plays in the social economy of Normandy, plunging into out-of-the-way regions and interviewing the people herself, ro as to learn all that she could on the poultry question. As the result of her investigation, she writes :

" The more I saw the more I became convinced that the great bulk of the poultry which is imported from Normandy come*, not from the great arable land* of the Yexin and other grain-producing district*, but from the .pastoral valley«, and i* reared, not upon the large farms, but in the mug homesteads—by

the small cultivators, in short, who produce fowls in small numbers but in constant su:oesion. As a matter of course, however, poultry is reared everywhere—the large farm will have its hundreds, and the smaller one its fifties; but the farmer’s wife, who has a large household to provide for, consumes her own produce, and rarely sells. She keeps poultry as a convenience and as a main point of economy, but as a general rule does not rear for the market. On the contrary, she very often buys young chickens to increase her stock from those who make hatching their business. Now and then, however, the mistress of a large farm will devote herself very much to poultry-keeping, and find the doing so extremely profitable; but in that case she usually prefers selling eggs to fattening fowls, only carrying on the latter business to the extent of utilising whatever food would otherwise go to waste. On such a farm as this you may see, if you can get them called together, something like four or five hundred hens, and in the spring time perhaps half that number of ducks and geese, while later there will probably bo a goodly number of turkeys.” Our authoress then describes the poultry markets at the fairs in the towns of Normandy, stating that no special breed is usually affected, but that “At St. Pierre sur Dives and other great poultry centres, there are particular fairs at which chickens hot twenty-four hours old are sold in thousands to those who make it their busiuess to rear them ; while in autumn young turkeys are bought up in great numbers by the large farmers, and turned out upon the stubbles to carry on the preliminary fattening processes with great economy and little trouble to their owners. In the neighborhood of Formerics, for instance, droves _of three hundred turkeys may be seen feeding together in this way in charge of a child.” After speaking of the large number of ducks reared and kept in appropriate localities, Miss Ohesnoy concludes by stating that she believes there is nothing to prevent our succeeding as well as our French neighbours, provided always we use the same amount of care, thrift, and adaptation to our surroundings that they do. In the recent number of the journal of the Bath and West of England Society, Mr Tegetmeier has on article on poultry farming in in which he states that recently _ “ Several practical agriculturists have been investigating the progress and present state of agricnltnre in France ; and the result of their inquiries, pursued in the vorious departments for several months, is that there are no large poultry farms whatever in France. There are several establishments where large numbers of chickens are hatched and sold at once to the peaeant proprietors, being sent away by rail in small boxes as soon as they are able to travel. This can bo readily done, as they require no food for twenty-four or thirty hours after being hatched, during time they are digesting the yolk which is drawn into the intestines at the end of the period of incubation.

“ In the ordinary farms ia France, even those in the best poultry districts, from 200 to 300 head of fowls are kept at one homestead; if a larger number are maintained in one spot, the ground becomes tainted, and success in rearing the chickens is almost impracticable ; consequently, amongst the smaller peasant proprietors, almost all of whom keep fowls, there is a constant competition to obtain fresh ground for their poultry. “ In the chief poultry-producing districts the chickens are generally hatched under young turkey hens, about two dozen eggs being placed under each hen. When those are hatched, a second batch of eggs is given to the hen, and this is sometimes repeated a third time, or even a fourth time.” “ The chickens, when hatched, are given in large numbers, sometimes as many as eighty, to another turkey hen. Coops are rarely seen, but the hen and her brood ore driven along the road or to some covert by the old women, who carry their work, and watch their charges all the day long.” “The chickens, when mature, are fattened on barley meal, and what is still better, buckwheat meal, and being usually of fine boned white-skinned varieties, such as Houdans, La Fleohe, or Laßresso breeds, realise high prices in the markets. Oaponising is often had recourse to.” With regard to breeding for the London markets, the writer is very outspoken. He says:— “ A farmer sending a few birds at a turm to a London salesman cannot rely on receiving back a satisfactory return. In fact, I never heard of one who did so; and unless some more direct channel of communication between the poultry producer and the consumer than now exists is established, I do not see that the sending of poultry in small numbers to the metropolitan markets, is ever likely to pay. The system that appears the most promising is that of the sale of the young birds alive to those who make a business of fatting.” Exposure of the large poultry-farm fallacy is not confined to France or England. From the American “ Poultry Bulletin ” for November, 1880, we take the following;— "If anyone can make a handsome income by breeding fowls on a large scale, we are glad of it. Undoubtedly, there has been a goodly sum of cash earned in this manner. But these Munchausen yams of 50,000d01s net yearly income from wholesale poultry breeding, need to bo taken with several [large grains of salt. Six times in the past fortnight we have soon the statement that certain large poultry establishments netted their proprietors from 50,000d01s to 80,000dols per annum. The simple facts are—this is a lie that should have long ago been nailed. All of those concerns, of which snob glowing accounts have been given, so far from returning princely revenues, are either on the brink of failure, or have utterly collapsed, while the 50,000d0l story has been travelling—some of them before it started. We don’t say this, of course, to deter anyone from trying poultry farming, but truth, not flaming lies, is what this matter calls for.”

We will not add any words of our own, which would form but an anti-climax to the outspoken indignation of oar American contemporary.