National Agricultural Library

Poultry-Keeping For Pleasure & Profit: What To Do, And How To Do It

Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Company. London

I have frequently been asked to give my opinion on poultry-rearing in Great Britain as a means of counteracting, at all events to some extent, our imports. The sum annually paid out of England for poultry and eggs is L8,000,000. In venturing to respond to the invitation thus addressed to me by many who have noticed my successes as an exhibitor of a cross-bred fowl, from pure Indian game and Dorking, a breed which I recommend as the very best for table purposes, I may premise that as an enthusiast in the British cause I have had the fullest opportunities of putting my theories to a test. Some distinctly original experiments were carried on for me some years ago under the direction of my eldest son, at Iville Farm, Baynards, near Horsham, Surrey ; and I think I may fairly claim that the awards given at Birmingham, Barnstaple, Nottingham, Glossop, Guildford, Plymouth, Hanley, Islington, and the Crystal Palace, for pure Indian game and the cross-breed mentioned, entirely justify the utilitarian results of my method of selecting poultry for cross-breeding purposes, with the final object of improving our native supplies.