America whenever I was able to get just what I wanted, regardless of the 

 price, and I never lost money in doing so, for the big Eastern breeders have 

 engaged eggs of a famous winner from me before I saw the bird myself, and 

 I have always had a steady sale for my best at alf times in California. 



My experience in raising poultry has been to me a most interesting one. 

 From the very first I have taken not only a keen interest but a great delight 

 as well in this work. It has been this joy in the work that has prompted 

 me to build up my ranch from a very modest beginning to the big specialty 

 ranch it is now. I now have one hundred breeding pens and my fattening 

 plant has a capacity of 5,000 birds every three weeks. How my efforts 

 have borne fruit you may guess, when I tell you that this extensive estab- 

 lishment has grown up from my modest beginning with three chickens, 

 it has proved not only pleasant but profitable and my zeal has kept pace 

 with my experience and understanding of the business. 



I take a keen delight in conducting my business, and it is not from 

 necessity but from choice that I myself buy all the supplies, hire the needed 

 help, superintend the construction of new buildings, attend to the mixing 

 of grains and the grinding of feed, prepare my own remedies for sick fowls 

 and treat them when ill. All this fills in a busy life — a life in which these 

 healthful pursuits carried on mostly out of doors are the greatest charm 

 as well as a source of profit, yielding me a clear gain of $5000 in only 

 fifteen months. 



A Woman's Triumph On a Ranch 



HRS. B. P. BUCKINQHAn. 



SOME months ago, in response to repeated requests from various per- 

 sons, I told in a former number of this magazine, "How I came to be 

 a fruit-grower." Since then I have been asked to say something 

 regarding my experience after acquiring my land and planting my 

 trees. In the former article I closed with the statement that I com- 

 menced with the intention of planting twenty acres, but, carried on by 

 my growing enthusiasm, I did not stop until one hundred and forty acres 

 were covered with trees and vines. 



After the land was bought and there was no retreat a reaction began. 

 I would go and look at the great field where nothing was to be seen on the 

 brown earth but some short sticks not as high as my knee, without a single 

 leaf, then go home and toss and turn hour after hour at night, possessed by 

 the thought that I had done a most unwise thing. If I slept, I dreamed of 

 endless rows of tiny black twigs that would stand there year after year, 

 silent witnesses to the folly of a woman who had wandered from her sphere 

 and was being justly punished for it. When the rain fell and the warm sun 

 began to shine again and the buds to swell, and finally when the tiny black 

 twigs were covered with tender glistening leaves, my delight and pride were 

 boundless, and I forgot my former doubts and despondency. 



I found kind neighbors who were willing to instruct me, but lack of con- 

 fidence made me afraid to undertake the cultivation of the ground and care 

 of the trees and I engaged a superintendent. He was six feet eight inches 

 tall and I think I must have decided he would save me in step ladders when I 

 might need them for fruit picking. My little trees had been planted in a field 

 where wheat and barley had grown for thirty years. The sun was warm and 

 the volunteer wheat and barley sprang up and grew strong and tall as though 

 not to be superseded by those interlopers. Presently the tops of the little trees 

 were completely hidden, I could see one head of barley nod to another a 

 rod away, and hear them say, "we'll show them what will grow here." All 

 about the borders and through the fields the yellow poppies and purple lupin 

 bloomed. Clumps of sweet elder sprang up as if by magic, making a beau- 



