PROFITS IN POULTRY. 
CHAPTER I 
POULTRY RAISING. 
No other business connected with agricultural pursuits, 
seems so attractive as poultry farming. Even those who 
fail in the business and retire from it, aver that they are 
certain they could succeed in a new trial. At the start, 
the general idea is that the business consists of throwing 
out corn to a flock of hens with one hand, and gathering 
eggs with the other. But while this may be true in some 
cases, it is very different in others. The expert poultry 
raiser may perhaps meet with no difficulty, and all may 
go on smoothly, but the novice is in trouble from the 
first; the eggs are few, and the chicks die. One may 
easily keep ten or twelve fowls with profit, who could not 
double or treble this number successfully, because with a 
large number all the difficulties which arise, such as 
want of cleanliness, the presence of vermin, impure air, 
and risk of infection, increase in a much larger ratio than 
does the number in the flock. But if one has succeeded 
with a small flock, there is no reason why he should not 
be able to do so with several flocks, if each is kept in just 
the same manner as the original one. Afterwards the 
flocks may be enlarged, but as this is the very point on 
which most of the younger poultry raisers fail, the great- 
est caution should be observed in adding to the number 
of fowls kept in each coop or house, or yard. 
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