When farmers in America began to keep larger stocks of fowls, the most common practice nearly everywhere was to increase the general flock until there were far too many fowls on the land that they would usually forage over. Under such conditions fowls on the farm were not profitable. They damaged every crop to which they had access, and made the farm most unsightly in the vicinity of the dwelling house. Then some farmers would reduce the flock and return to the old practice of keeping only a few dozen hens, while others would adopt the city plan of building houses with many compartments and keeping the fowls yarded in small flocks. This plan was usually abandoned within a few years, because, while it worked very well in the winter, when the farmer had time to give the hens extra care, they were not as well off in the summer, when the farmer had to give attention to his field crops first. Such was the usual course of development of farm methods of managing fowls. [Illustration: Fig. 98. Stone poultry house about two hundred years old, on farm of F. W. C. Almy, Tiverton Four Corners, Rhode Island] [Illustration: Fig. 99. Rhode Island colony poultry house for thirty-five fowls] [Illustration: Fig. 100. Colony poultry houses on Rhode Island farm] =The colony system.= But occasionally a farmer whose flock had outgrown its accommodations as one flock would divide it, moving a part to another place on the farm, and so was able to maintain the increase in numbers without adopting laborious methods. This idea was carried out most systematically and most extensively in the vicinity of Little Compton, Rhode Island, where the Rhode Island Red fowl originated. The first settlers in this part of Rhode Island built large stone poultry houses like that shown in Fig. 98. Some of these old buildings are still used for poultry. This district is most favorably situated for poultry keeping. The snow rarely lies long, and the birds can be outdoors nearly every day in winter as well as in summer. Being near the fashionable summer resort of Newport, the farmers here early found a large demand for their eggs and poultry at high prices in the summer time, when in many places the prices were low. Then in the winter they could send eggs to Boston and Providence, which were the best markets in the country for this class of produce. So these farmers had every inducement to devise a practical method of indefinitely increasing their stocks of fowls. The plan which they adopted was very simple. Small houses, which could easily be moved from place to place with a two-horse team, and which would accommodate from twenty-five to thirty-five fowls, were made and distributed over the farm. Sometimes these houses were placed in pastures not suitable for mowing or for cultivation and remained there permanently, but as a rule they were moved from time to time to suit the rotation of crops on the farm. As the number of these houses on a farm