CHAPTER XII 



SMALL POTATOES AND 

 THOROUGHBREDS 



Just what connection exists between the two 

 may not be at first apparent, but it is to be hoped 

 will become so. As I linger before arising this 

 Spring morning my mind reverts to the development 

 of my small potatoes into large potatoes. My small 

 potato business chances to be the poultry business, 

 but the same concentrated counsel applies to all 

 beginnings — Go Slow! Especially go slow if you 

 are a novice, if you cannot afford to be in the losing- 

 class, if your ready cash with which to gamble is 

 limited in amount. For of course the whole thing 

 is a gamble, or at least calls for extreme caution. 

 Many beginners, whether with hens or what not, 

 labor under the delusion that big expenditure spells 

 big profits. Never was there a more egregious 

 error ! Women are less liable to err in this respect 

 than men but on the other hand rarely keep accurate 

 books, so that their ideas of Profit and Loss are, to 

 say the least, hazy. But of this more later. 



On rising just before "sun-up" I take a glance 

 out of the window, as behooves a careful rancher, 

 and am immediately possessed of the spirit of evil — 

 or, to put it more decorously, with a sense of futile 

 irritation. Painted ribbons stretching in placid, 

 parallel lines across a sky of unpaintable azure 



