426 THE BEGINNER IN POULTRY 



one " to hatch all the eggs from any specified number 

 of hens, and raise all the chicks therefrom. 



How are you, on your small city lot, going to handle 

 these 3000 birds, assuming that you hatch and raise 

 them ? Have you capital enough for the feed ? For the 

 supplies ? It will take hundreds of dollars. Have you 

 time enough and strength enough to spare for all this work ? 

 Have you figured that 3000 fowls need 300x3 square feet 

 merely to stand on; while your lot, if it be 25 feet by 100 

 feet, one fourth occupied by a (small) house, has only 1 875 

 square feet to offer? Or, if you discount the laying and 

 the hatching, etc., till you have only 1875 birds, or even 

 sell down to 1000, do you think they will keep in health in 

 such conditions, even though you strain your good back- 

 bone through continual spading and cleaning, in addition 

 to the regular work of feeding and watering ? Come, now, 

 do you really desire earnestly to spade that entire city 

 lot of yours, every day of your life ? That is a part of 

 the requirements of the " System," and if you don't 

 follow the rules, you release the " party of the first part " 

 from the responsibility for your failure. 



If I speak feelingly in this matter, it is because I have 

 on my desk as apart of the day's mail a series of questions 

 from a man in the largest city in the United States, 

 all about starting into back-yard poultry raising as a 

 money-making business. He tells me a lot of facts (?) 

 about several" breeds, which betray his ignorance, and I 

 see his finish before he begins ! Upon what other busi- 

 ness would a sane man expect to enter, when every 

 possible condition was utterly unfavorable? And in 

 connection with what other would he part with his 

 common sense before entering upon it ? 



