68 LL5SONS IN POULTRY KEEPING SECOND SLRILS. 



A young man just out of college was ordered by bis physician to get into some outdoor 

 occupation for a few years. He had been interested in poultry as a boy, and concluded to 

 go into the poultry business long enough to make a fortune and retire. In due course of 

 time he discovered that the possibilities of wealth in poultry culture were much overrated, and 

 that educational qualifications representing expenditures which would make a neat little 

 capital were not at all essential in the routine work 'of the poultry yard. He decided that he 

 would make more by taking up a line of work more in keeping with his educational training, 

 and began to arrange his affairs accordingly. Qircumslances diverted him from the original 

 plan and gave him a connection with a poultry paper, starting him in a line of work which he 

 found very congenial and reasonably remunerative. 



A farmer's boy interested himself to. poultry, earned a considerable part of the money to 

 defray his expenses at college by keeping poultry, and, having graduated from college, con- 

 tinued poultry keeping as a means of earning the wherewithal to pay for a professional educa- 

 tion. Shortly after he had returned to the farm he was offered the position of manager of a 

 large poultry plant. After a few years spent here he got into poultry journalism, and is now 

 editor of one of the papers ranked among the best. -Even before his college days his contribu- 

 tions on poultry topics were read with interest and profit by many who might have skipped 

 them had they known how few years the writer numbered. As another juvenile expert once 

 remarked to a veteran whom he had bested in a discussion who tried to overawe him with 

 years and " experience," " Some people get a great deal more experience in a few years than 

 others do in a lifetime." 



Two physicians in the same city became interested in fancy poultry. Each had a good prac- 

 tice. Both took up poultry for recreation. One has continued to keep a few tine fowls, get- 

 ting much satisfaction and a little profit from them, but never allowing them to interfere in 

 any way with his professional duties. I doubt whether as much as one per cent of his patients 

 know that he has any interest in poultry. The other developed "hen fever" in a virulent form. 

 He crowded his premises with fowls of different varieties, making all sorts of queer coops and 

 houses for them. He neglected his practice. Patients who came to the office at his residence 

 frequently had to wait while he attended to the poultry. Some complained that he came to 

 them from fche poultry yard with odors, feathers, or other evidence of his having been in that 

 locality still about his person. This may have been an exaggeration. It is certain, though, 

 that he gave many patients the impression of being more interested in bis fowls than in their 

 ailments. This was a fatal error. The ailing man or woman is of all persons most resentful 

 of any lack of concern for their welfare especially in one to whom they come for healing. 

 His practice began to fall off. As his income dwindled, instead of taking steps to reestablish 

 himself in his profession, he began to think of his poultry as a possible source of income. The 

 last I knew of him he was still struggling to make poultry pay, and of his once fine practice 

 little was left. 



A master mechanic in a New England city has been identified with a certain breed of fowls 

 for, I think, nearly forty years. He breeds a hundred or two every year, and makes two or 

 three hundred dollars on them, without letting his poultry interests interfere with his regular 

 business. He visits a few of the best shows every season for a day or for several days, as 

 business cares permit. He meets a number of men interested in his fancy, competes with them 

 in the shows, and enjoys their company. His sales of eggs and stock keeps him in correspond- 

 ence with people all over the country. His poultry is a profitable and pleasant diversion. 



A/;ity newspaper man interested in poultry started a poultry farm in a small way, and, 

 quite naturally, as he learned more and more of poultry culture began to disseminate his 

 knowledge through such channels as were available. In one of these channels he found an 

 opportunity for a special engagement out of which grew one of the leading poultry journals of 

 the period. His connection with this and subsequently with other poultry journals, and work 

 as a poultry lecturer have been combined with poultry keeping with results as to income which 

 are apparently good enough to keep him from returning to regular newspaper work. 



