260 PQ UL TR r- CRA FT. 



The largest business in fancy .poultry in this country brings its owner a gro*s income 

 approaching $25,000 a year. Probably no other breeder .does a business much more than 

 half *s large as this, though there are several selling more than $12,000 worth of fowls 

 and eggs a year. The figures representing the net income the "actual .profits in these 

 cases are not given out, but without doubt in some years the profits amount to fully 

 2 5 per cent of the gross sales. In other years the profits on this large volume of business 

 may be much smaller. The average it probably considerably less than 25 per cent of 

 sales. 



The gross safes on -some of the largest practical poultry plants are very much greater. 

 There are at least several farm* which sell more than $50,000 df produce annually, and 

 which in the test year* probably net the owners $12^000 to $15,000. 



From sudh results as these we 'have all grades downward to the man who makes a bare 

 living, and the other who makes less than a living and plods along, going deeper and 

 deeper in debt until credit and courage are bdth exhausted. 



It is .plainly evident to -anyone in touch with the industry, however, that the propor- 

 tion of those who go into the business and stay is steadily increasing, and that graduall y 

 the business is being placed on a better basis. Indeed the proportion of persons whose 

 interest in poultry -is a serious and dignified interest ha*s so much increased that the 

 whole tone of the poulfery press is changed, and where a dozen years ago many poultry 

 journals contained a good many articles which were hardly more than frivolous, that class 

 of matter is now rarely met with in their columns. Much that is of little value is *till 

 published, but with serious purpose. 



The general public, unfortunately, is in somewhat of the same mind about interest in 

 poultry that the cheerful '-chicken crank of years ago displayed. Still the public, like the 

 poultrymen, !rn*kesiprogres*,and it is not too much to expect that another decade ot such 

 progress as the last has seen will make a radical difference in the attitude of the general 

 public toward those who are interested in domestic poultry. This is to be desired not so 

 much on account of the poultrymen who are but little concerned as to what others may 

 think about their interest in fowls, as because failing to appreciate the extent of the 

 industry and the demands which it makes on the brains of those -who engage in it, the 

 average outsider is apt, when toe refeat* to it, to do *o in terms which do his intelligence 

 no credit, and often make ttfm ridiculous in the eyes of well informed persons. 



