HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 265 



easy to find. Lots of poultrymen advertise 

 that kind of stock for sale. And she won't 

 cost much. You'll be able to find a corking 

 good hen and a rooster from a pedigreed, 

 strong-laying strain as good birds as any one 

 need have as a foundation for a commercial 

 poultry business for a ten-dollar bill. You 

 may find cheaper stuff if you wish; but that's 

 cheap enough. 



All right. You start with your one hen, 

 and she starts laying. If she lives up to her 

 family standard, she'll lay you two hundred 

 eggs in the first year. Now you set those eggs. 

 This high-grade bird can't hatch them herself, 

 for that would interfere with her laying opera- 

 tions ; and you can't manage a one-hen egg out- 

 put very well with an incubator. That needn't 

 bother you, though. You can get a few scrub 

 barnyard hens to do the first year's hatching 

 and brooding. When that season's work is 

 done, you can sell the scrubs off and begin 

 with incubators next year. 



With two hundred eggs, theoretically you 

 ought to have two hundred chickens. But not 

 all the eggs will hatch; and then besides 

 there'll be some losses of young chicks by acci- 

 dent and disease. It doesn't do to expect too 



