No, the well-yarded hen has by all odds the best of it. The wonder is
that, with three-fourths of the poultry at large and making its own
living, hens still furnish a product, in this country alone,
$100,000,000 greater in value than the whole world's output of gold. Our
annual production of eggs and poultry foots up to $280,000,000,--$4
apiece for every man, woman, and child,--and yet people say that hens do
not pay!
Each flock of forty hens at Four Oaks has a house sixteen feet by
twenty, and a run twenty feet by one hundred. I hear no complaints of
close quarters or lack of freedom, but I do hear continually the song
of contentment, and I see results daily that are more satisfactory than
those of any oil well or mine in which I have ever been interested.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
SPRING OF '97
Sam began to make up his breeding pens in January. He selected 150 of
his favorites, divided them into 10 flocks of 15, added a fine cockerel
to each pen (we do not allow cocks or cockerels to run with the laying
hens), and then began to set the incubator house in order.
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