Poultry: A Practical Guide to the Choice, Breeding, Rearing, and Management of All Descriptions of Fowls, Turkeys, Guinea-Fowls, Ducks, and Geese, for Profit and Exhibition.

A passionate Victorian argument for the backyard poultry flock as both profit center and practical necessity. Hugh Piper writes with the conviction of a man who has seen too many farmers overlook the goldmine in their own barnyards, arguing with sharp economic logic that fowls, properly managed, outperform other livestock in returns per acre. This is no dry manual but a businessman’s manifesto for the smallholder, the cottage-dweller, the enterprising farmer who has dismissed chickens as mere farmyard afterthoughts. Piper covers everything from constructing housing that balances economy with function, to selecting breeding stock, to calculating exactly how much grain yields how many eggs, to the surprising value of geese in pest control and land management. For modern readers drawn to heritage breeds, homesteading, or simply curious about how our great-grandparents fed themselves, this guide offers both practical wisdom and a fascinating window into an agricultural world that valued self-sufficiency and systematic thinking.