POULTRT-CRAFT. n 



gardening, dairying. The reasons for this are similar to those which lead to 

 diversified farming. It is often found that a stock of poultry can be handled, 

 in connection with some other occupation, with greater profit than would 

 come from giving more attention to the other occupation, or from an exclusive 

 poultry business. A good example is where a milkman finds his income too 

 small for his living, and the demand for milk not great enough to justify 

 increasing his herd. In such a case a man of judgment combines with his 

 established business another, profits from which will round out his income. 

 Poultry keeping is well adapted to such combinations, and is well worth the 

 consideration of anyone so situated that he must combine two occupations. 

 It should be added that such combinations ought to be made only in the 

 extreme cases ; that is, where the business is so small that one can give per- 

 sonal supervision to every part of it ; or where, as on some large stock or fruit 

 farms, there is an opportunity to keep fowls on ground used partly for other 

 purposes, and on a scale large enough to warrant the employment of a skillful 

 poultryman. Attempts to combine poultry keeping with other occupations 

 when there is more work than the proprietor can personally do or oversee, 

 and less than will make it worth while to engage an expert poultryman, 

 almost uniformly result in losses. 



8. Poultry Keeping as an Employment. As an employment poul- 

 try keeping offers, to both skilled and unskilled labor, opportunities similar to 

 those afforded in other lines of animal and plant culture. Wages for skilled 

 labor vary, depending on the size of the plant, the ability of the man, the 

 amount of responsibility assumed. A fair average of the wages paid poultry- 

 men who attend to and partially supervise the work on a plant, but have noth- 

 ing to do with financial management, is $60 a month, or $40 and board. 

 Those who take complete management receive more sometimes much more. 

 Unskilled laborers on poultry plants are paid, in any given locality, about the 

 same as farm and dairy hands in that locality. One wishing to estimate the 

 ins and outs of poultry keeping as an employment, may consider it in this 

 way : In a year an expert poultryman will earn about the same as the average 

 mechanic of the same relative degree of skill. He will have steadier work at 

 a lower rate of wages, will work longer hours, have less leisure. There will 

 be little danger of his being at any time long out of work. The demand for 

 expert poultrymen is likely to continue in excess of the supply. 



9. The Poultry Business as an Investment. Many people are 

 looking to poultry keeping as an investment for surplus funds. The profit- 

 ableness of such ventures will depend first, on the judgment shown in select- 

 ing a location, determining what branches of the business are to be followed, 

 and choosing a manager ; next, though to a less extent than in the case of 

 one whose all is invested in his business, on the influence of the conditions 

 mentioned in ^3. The man who has capital to back him can weather 



