268 HOW TO LIVE IN THE COUNTRY 



months of the year. You have only to add cassava 

 and sweet potatoes, which you can grow in unlimited 

 supplies. Always pet your biddies; talk with them 

 as if they understood you, allow no one to scare 

 them, and they will soon be much more manage- 

 able. Kill the crazy ones that fly and yell if you go 

 near them. The tame ones are the best layers and 

 you will be taking your basket of eggs to market 

 twice a week from twenty hens and bringing home 

 instead what groceries you need. I should like to 

 make some figures here concerning broilers and eggs, 

 but all of these estimates are dangerous. I simply 

 think that with common sense and study of condi- 

 tions, raising fowls is a capital way of beginning 

 home life in the country. 



Now consider the bees, with honey from sixteen 

 to twenty cents a pound, and twelve to fifteen hives, 

 on a place of ten or fifteen acres. From these hives 

 with ordinary care, provided you have basswoods 

 and wild cherries blossoming near by as well as a 

 few acres of berries and fruit trees, you will take 

 up from six hundred to a thousand pounds of honey 

 annually. You may figure out the income according 

 to the market that you have, but my estimate would 

 be, after deducting one hundred pounds for home 

 use, one hundred and twenty-five dollars clear in- 

 come for the balance. 



This does not count in the incalculable benefit de- 

 rived from the bees in pollenizing your fruit. Place 

 no credit in the rumors that they damage your fruit 



