CHAPTER I. 
POULTRY FARMING AND WHAT IT MEANS. 
POULTRY KEEPING as an industry is so important a subject 
that at the commencement it is necessary to outline just what is 
meant by the term ‘‘ POULTRY FARMING.” As the term is gener- 
ally used we think of it as meaning an exclusive business, as fruit 
growing or grain farming; with this idea of the subject before us 
the outlook is not always the brightest. 
Does it pay?—The general belief is that poultry farming does 
not pay, and this is only too true in many cases when the term is 
applied in the sense outlined above. There is no branch of animal 
husbandry in which so many experimental starts have been made 
and which have resulted in total ruin as in poultry farming. This 
is probably due to at least two causes: (1) Beginning with too 
large an investment of capital and stock which requires an immense 
amount of energy and money to keep running; or (2) in many 
cases the business has been ruined at the outset by the inexperi- 
ence of the promoters who were made to believe, by misleading 
statements and fascinating statistics, that poultry keeping is the 
quickest road to a large fortune. While there are many large, 
exclusive poultry farms which are paying good dividends, and 
this number is constantly on the increase, yet the true meaning 
of the term poultry farming does not lie in this phase of the work. 
How, then, is the greatest chance of success to be attained? 
It-is by considering poultry keeping as a branch of the farmer’s 
operations and making it one of the many departments of his 
work. Such a combination brings him continuous profit and pleas- 
ure. The large, exclusive poultry plants should be left to those 
who have had years of experience in the care and management of 
birds as well as the sale and marketing of the products. By start- 
ing the business as a branch of general farming, experience will 
come as the work goes on, and a careful and systematic increase 
in the size and production of the plant can be arranged so that the 
poultry keeper can measure his capacity for large things as the 
increase accumulates. It is with this thought in view that the sub- 
ject of poultry farming is approached, the object being to show 
farmers and amateur poultry keepers that in poultry keeping there 
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