618 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



"At last I went to the neighbors and told them I would do sewing, wash- 

 ing, or anything I could do and take in exchange flour, meat, lard, corn, 

 oats, or anything they felt disposed to let me have for the table, or to 

 feed my pigs and poultry. In this way I managed to get along for I could 

 get all the work I could do. I put in extra hours at night when every 

 one else was in bed. I tried to raise a large flock of chickens, and suc- 

 ceeded in doing so. Then I built a w-arm hen house from straw and poles, 

 which was so warm that my hens laid all winter. I fed them cabbage, 

 beets, turnips, squash, onions, for I knew to produce eggs in winter I would 

 have to make conditions as near like those of the warmer months as pos- 

 sible. I also fed corn, oats and some small potatoes. I never let them out 

 on cold days, and the result was by January I was getting enough eggs 

 to pay all my living expenses and feed for my cows, pigs and poultry. Eggs 

 were eighteen cents per dozen and corn only fifteen cents per bushel. 



"There were no incubators in those days. If any one had hatched 

 chickens by artificial methods they would have been arrested for witch- 

 craft. There were no poultry journals published, the agricultural papers 

 never said a word for old biddy (she wasn't worth mentioning) ; there 

 were no fanciers to bring out new strains of superior quality, both for 

 the meat and the egg production. You can readily see how I was handi- 

 capped. I had nothing to help me, but had to learn everything by practi- 

 cal experience, persistent effort and . investigation, but after I once got 

 started I lived as well and as independent as any one that lived on one 

 hundred and sixty acres of land. 



"After my second marriage there was a stringency in money matters, 

 poor crops and hard times came and we were about to lose our home when 

 my husband was taken sick. I then went into the poultry business in 

 earnest, and made my first incubator. I would hatch about 5,000 chickens 

 in one season (I do not think anything of hatching half that many in one 

 day now). I began to improve my breeds and at last settled on the Barred 

 Plymouth Rocks for meat production and Single Comb Brov.n Leghorns 

 for egg production. At first, when my poultry brought me twenty-five dol- 

 lars a month I thought I was doing well, but now my eggs, broilers and 

 fowls that I sell for breeding purposes will bring me three hundred dol- 

 tars a month, in the busy part of the season. Then I cannot fill nearly all 

 my orders. After my success got into the papers, I would receive hun- 

 dreds of letters from people interested in poultry, asking all sorts of ques- 

 tions. I tried to answer every on but found I could not do so, and con- 

 duct my business. So I had a book published, telling just what and how 

 I w^ent to work to obtain the best results. I had only a thousand pub- 

 lished and these were sold in four months at $1.00 each. This money I 

 gave to my boys to attend college, a good starter. Then I sent them what 

 they needed from the sales of my eggs and poultry. 



If I had only known then what I know now it would have saved me 

 many tears and disappointments. There is big money in poultry if anyone 

 will only attend to it as they would any other enterprise, but most people 

 leave them to take care of themselves too much, then say there is no money 

 in it. There is also pleasure connected with the poultry business. It isn't 

 all drudgery. Neither is there a more healthful occupation than raising 

 poultry. 



