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DIVERSITY 

 V n*. :*.. 



PROFITS IN POULTRY. 



CHAPTER I. 

 POULTRY RAISING. 



No other business connected with agricultural pursuits, 

 seems so attractive as poultry farming. Even those who 

 fail in the business and retire from it, aver that they are 

 certain they could succeed in a new trial. At the start, 

 the general idea is that the business consists of throwing 

 out corn to a flock of hens with one hand, and gathering 

 eggs with the other. But while this may be true in some 

 cases, it is very different in others. The expert poultry 

 raiser may perhaps meet with no difficulty, and all may 

 go on smoothly, but the novice is in trouble from the 

 first ; the eggs are few, and the chicks die. One may 

 easily keep ten or twelve fowls with profit, who could not 

 double or treble this number successfully, because with a 

 large number all the difficulties which arise, such as 

 want of cleanliness, the presence of vermin, impure air, 

 and risk of infection, increase in a much larger ratio than 

 does the number in the flock. But if one has succeeded 

 with a small flock, there is no reason why he should not 

 be able to do so with several flocks, if each is kept in just 

 the same manner as the original one. Afterwards the 

 flocks may be enlarged, but as this is the very point on 

 which most of the younger poultry raisers fail, the great' 

 est caution should be observed in adding to the number 

 of fowls kept in each coop or house, or yard. 



