62 



LESSONS IN POULTRY KEEPING SECOND SERIES. 



House for " Winter Chickens" on a " South Shore " Farm, H. D. Smith, Norwell, Mass. 



liired another manager, who was able to make a better financial showing, yet not, as I judge 

 from the fact that he remained but a few years, good enough to be encouraging either to him 

 or to the proprietors. The plant represents too much dead capital, and its manager, however 

 competent, would always find himself handicapped in various ways. I am not able to say in 

 just what condition the plant now is, but there is little likelihood of its ever being made 

 profitable enough to wipe out the heavy deficits of its earlier years and leave its owners square. 



A good many years ago there were two brothers, young men and unmarried, who jointly 

 bought a little farm away back in the hills in central New York. They had but little money to 

 pay down. Together they worked the farm in summer. In winter one ran the farm and the 

 other taught the distri/zt school, assisting with the chores mornings and evenings. The$ went 

 on this way for several years, making a bare living and just keeping up the interest on the 

 mortgage,on the farm. 



As they worked together they used to discuss various methods of making the farm more 

 profitable. Their attention was finally drawn to the possibilities of profit in poultry, and after 

 talking It over they concluded to go into the poultry business? Oh, no; to keep strict 

 account for the little flock of fowls they had on the farm, and see for themselves what they 

 could make from a small number. 



The flock consisted of less than a score of ordinary fowls. The profit on this flock was so 

 satisfactory that they increased the flock, abjout doubled it. That was still a small flock, not 

 at all up in numbers to the ideas of the average beginner of the number with which it is worth 

 while to make a start. The third year they increased in about the same proportion, the flock 

 being still below the hundred mark. After that the same rate of increase made large additions 

 to the flock every year. They began to get into thoroughbred stock; went to local shows and 

 won prizes; went to New York and won more prizes, and began to sell eggs for hatching and 

 exhibition and breeding stock at high prices. Money began to be easier with them. They left 

 the small farm and bought a larger and better one more conveniently located. The profits on 

 poultry gave them the means to enlarge other farm lines. 



