Fowls are better off kept in yards; in fact, they must be so restrained if the highest egg records are to be reached. In way back times, it was considered a great detriment to yard fowls, but for some years past professional poultry-keepers have yarded their fowls, because they found it was the only way to reach the top notch. Even now the general farmers still adhere to the free range idea, and I am convinced that it is not purely because they think it necessary, but it saves feed and other bother. It has been estimated that a flock of common dunghill hens, such as are seen in the average farm, lay in a year less than a hundred eggs each. The figures are eighty to ninety. Farmers who have become breeders, and who thus give the hen decidedly more consideration, and still adhere to the free range system, have increased this yield to one hundred and fifty and better. Breeders who have followed the strictly up-to-date methods, and have yarded their layers, have obtained an average of one hundred and seventy-five eggs, and some have even reached the two hundred mark. Please note that I say fowls or hens, and I do not mean this to include growing chicks. The line must be distinctly drawn between the two. The range cannot be too extended for growing stock. What we strive for in growing chicks is frame, on which later we intend to put flesh. This frame can only be built by food, and plenty of it, converted into bone and muscle by exercise. After the chick has made the frame, we can safely yard her and put on the flesh, and thus convert her into a money-earning machine. The advantages gained by yarding stock are manifold. First of all, by confining stock to a certain space, we are sure they eat the food provided and in the quantity we mean them to have. Feeding layers to produce eggs is becoming every year a more delicate operation. Formula after formula is tried by different breeders, as an experiment, with the hope of increasing the egg yield. If we can force each hen to lay ten a year more, it means a considerable increase of the total of the flock, and a better return in dollars and cents to the breeder. Yarding stock is a means toward this end. The food fed is converted, as we mean it to be, into eggs, and not into muscle. It is decidedly more troublesome to care for stock in this way, and necessitates additional labour and expense, but we are looking for the increase all the time, and are thus continually hoping to be compensated for the extra trouble.