GETTING AHEAD 95 



some were making money at it started a burning hen fever in 

 hundreds of young and old people anxious to make a lot of 

 money quick. Clerks and society women from New York 

 moved into the suburbs on small farms and began to try to 

 make realities of their dreams. Not accustomed to manual 

 labor, they made a sorry mess of it. Writers of that period 

 tell of chicken gentlemen and ladies who went about their 

 daily round of duties with their delicate hands carefully pro- 

 tected by kid gloves. It did not take long for the end for such 

 experimenters to arrive. They returned to the great city 

 sadder, but wiser. The squab industry has suffered also the 

 past five years from such treatment. Many have played 

 with it as a child would with a new toy, giving up their 

 pigeons in a few months at the slightest discouragement. 



The past six years are strewn with the wrecks of imitation 

 squab advertisers and their guarantees. Every spring, when 

 demand for breeders is greatest, some of these come to life 

 again, or new ones crop up, and they get what harvest they 

 can, many of them selling what they can pick up in the way 

 of culls, such as we ourselves sell to Faneuil Hall marketmen 

 to be killed. These advertisers start advertising in January 

 and by June they have quit. 



The following, from the pen of an old poultry writer, 

 appeared in a farm periodical of large circulation in January, 

 1907: " So far, every attempt made in this country to estab- 

 lish a large poultry (chicken) farm has been met by failure. 

 The extensive and successful plants of today are the outcome 

 of a small beginning and a gradual growth. True, the main 

 cause for failure has been the lack of experience; men have 

 undertaken work for which they were not qualified." 



So it is the rule with squab and poultry failures, especially 

 women, to blame everybody but themselves. Such persons 

 learn bitterly that experience is indeed a factor. 



The place and flock of the one who fails with squabs tell 

 their own story. The drinking fountains are seldom washed, 

 the pen is seldom cleaned and the place has a run-down look 

 generally, sometimes being positively filthy. The grain is 

 bought and fed on the catch-as-catch-can principle with no 

 provision for variety. The cheapest grain is bought, or it is 

 ignorantly bought, and may be full of weevils, or sour. The 

 owner of such a place generally matches the place. 



