WHAT BRANCH OF THE BUSINESS? 
ing incomes of several thousand dollars per year, but these 
are old breeders and well-known men. 
There is another type of poultry fancier who is more com- 
mercial in his methods, but whose work lacks the personal 
enthusiasm and artistic touch of the regular fancier. I refer 
to the band wagon style of breeder who gets out a general 
catalog in which are pictured acres of poultry yards with 
fences as straight as the draughtsman’s rule can make them. 
Such men do a big business. They may carry a part or all of 
the breeding stock on a central poultry plant and farm out the 
eggs, contracting to buy back the stock in the fall, or the 
poultry farm may be a myth and the manager may simply 
ene of the neighboring farmers who raise it under 
contract. 
The system is naturally disliked by the higher class fan- 
ciers, but the writer must confess that any system which gets 
improved stock distributed among the farmers is worthy of 
praise. These types of poultry farms have been more largely 
carried on in the West than in the East, owing to the fact 
that true fanciers are thicker in the East. There is undoubt- 
edly still plenty of room for band wagon poultry plants in 
the West and especially in the South. i 
As adjuncts of this business may be mentioned the sale of 
a line of poultry supplies and the handling of other pet stock, 
such as dogs or Shetland ponies. In this case the advantage 
of such additions depends upon the fact that the greatest cost 
is that of advertising, and, if anything that will be associated 
in the buyer’s mind with the main article be added to the 
catalog, it will result in additional sales at a low rate of ad- 
vertising cost. 
Egg Farming the Most Certain and Profitable. 
We have now discussed all the branches of the poultry busi- 
ness save that of egg production, and the result of our review 
indicates that most of these fields are either of limited oppor- 
tunities or that they present obstacles in the very nature of 
the work that prevent their being conducted on a large scale. 
Egg production is undoubtedly the most promising and 
profitable branch of the poultry industries. The chief reason 
that this is true is to be found in the fact that the most diffi- 
cult feature in chicken growing is the rearing of young stock 
through the brooding period. Now, as the eggs laid‘by a hen 
are worth several times the value_of her carcass, it stands to 
reason that once we succeed in rearing pullets, egg farming 
must be the most profitable business to engage in. 
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