As the poultry industry moved to high-density confinement, practical, scientifically based books for raising modest numbers of chickens became as rare as hen's teeth. Poultry books began to segment into weighty tomes for PhD's and light, well-meaning works that revive all the 19th-century supersitions that our forefathers worked so hard to debunk.

Fortunately, we can find what we need by turning back the clock and putting the best books back into print.

This book, the 9th edition of Poultry Production, is from 1961: old enough that smaller flocks, free range, and...