One of the first small pen poultry houses used many years ago with portable yard, 

 showing experiences that led up to the present "Weeks System" 



spending a small fortune, and then the cost of lifting was too much. 

 In the second place, while the soil was good for trees, it was worthless 

 for vegetation. 



In the third place, I bought about ten times as much land as I 

 could thoroughly work. These three mistakes have caused the failure 

 of more poultrymen than any other cause. I did not then know that 

 if I had chosen a spot lower down nearer the bay that I could have 

 had an abundance of irrigating water and fertile soil. I did not then 

 know that I must have these two things in California to make hens 

 pay. So I bought ten acres in the wrong place for poultry, as many 

 another has done. I paid $1400 for the ten acres, paying $400 down 

 and going in debt $1000. I only had $1275. This left me $875 to put 

 in my well, build a house to live in, and start the poultry business. 

 Of course the land was cheap, but some land is dear as a gift for poultry 

 raising. The old theory that any cheap land will do for the poultry 

 business is a fallacy. I could not make hens pay on this cheap, 

 unirrigated land, and in after years have made hens pay handsomely 

 on land at $1000 per acre. 



I went to work on this bare ten acres of land $1000 in debt and $875 

 cash to develop improvements. Out of this I must have incubators, 

 brooder house, a place in which to live and well for water. 



Step by step in this story I want to tell of all the mistakes I made, 

 as well as of the good things learned through experience. 



There is no use in any reader making the same mistakes that I 

 made. Also you can appropriate all the truths discovered through all 

 these fourteen years experimenting. If you can begin where I leave off 

 you have gained so much time. 



My first building was designed as a brooder house with a sort of 

 flat above in which to live. In one of these five rooms above I built a 

 1200-egg incubator after the Cyphers plan. The whole space below, 



