HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 267 



6,250,000 hens and an income of $3,750,000 

 from the sale of cockerels ; and your fifth year 

 will give you 312,500,000 hens and an income 

 from the cockerels of $187,500,000. Still leav- 

 ing all old stock out of account, you see ! We 

 throw them in for good measure, so nobody 

 may charge us with being too visionary. 



From one hen, bought only five years ago! 

 Aren't you glad now that you didn't start 

 with more? If you'd started with a couple of 

 dozen, perhaps the increase would be more 

 than you could manage. Yes, one hen is 

 enough for a beginning, if she's a hen of the 

 right kind. 



No doubt you'll want to stop at the limit of 

 your fifth year's flock of 312,500,000 hens. 

 That's as many hens as you'll feel like caring 

 for. In fact, you'll have to stop there ; for if 

 you had a fifty-fold increase in your sixth year 

 you'd have 15,625,000,000 hens. You see 

 where the trouble would start then. If you 

 fed each hen only a bushel of grain in a year, 

 your flock would eat up about four times as 

 much wheat and corn and oats and other grains 

 as all the farms of the United States produce. 

 That would be awkward. Never mind. Sup- 

 pose you do have to stop there and just main- 



