POULTR?-CRAFT. IL 
gardening, dairying. The reasons for this are similar to those which lead to 
diversified farming. It is often found that a stock of poultry can be handled, 
in connection with some other occupation, with greater profit than would 
come from giving more attention to the other occupation, or from an exclusive 
poultry business. A good example is where a milkman finds his income too 
small for his living, and the demand for milk not great enough to justify 
increasing his herd. In such a case a man of judgment combines with his 
established business another, profits from which will round out his income. 
Poultry keeping is well adapted to such combinations, and is well worth the 
consideration of anyone so situated that he must combine two occupations. 
It should be added that such combinations ought to be made only in the 
extreme cases; that is, where the business is so small that one can give per- 
sonal supervision to every part of it; or where, as on some large stock or fruit 
farms, there is an opportunity to keep fowls on ground used partly for other 
purposes, and on a scale large enough to warrant the employment of a skillful 
poultryman. Attempts to combine poultry keeping with other occupations. 
when there is more work than the proprietor can personally do or oversee, 
and less than will make it worth while to engage an expert poultryman, 
almost uniformly result in losses. 
8. Poultry Keeping as an Employment.— As an employment poul- 
try keeping offers, to both skilled and unskilled labor, opportunities similar to 
those afforded in other, lines.of animal and plant culture. Wages for skilled 
labor vary, depending on the size of the plant, the ability of the man, the 
amount of responsibility assumed. A fair average of the wages paid poultry- 
men who attend to and partially supervise the work on a plant, but have noth- 
ing to do with financial management, is $60 a month, or $40 and board. 
Those who take complete management receive more — sometimes much more. 
Unskilled laborers on poultry plants are paid, in any given locality, about the 
same as farm and dairy hands in that locality. One wishing to estimate the 
zns and outs of poultry keeping as an employment, may consider it in this. 
way: Ina year an expert poultryman will earn about the same as the average 
mechanic of the same relative degree of skill. He will have steadier work at. 
a lower rate of wages, will work longer hours, have less leisure. There will 
be little danger of his being at any time long out of work. The demand for 
expert poultrymen is likely to continue in excess of the supply. 
9. The Poultry Business as an Investment.— Many people are 
looking to poultry keeping as an investment for surplus funds. The profit- 
ableness of such ventures will depend — first, on the judgment shown in select-. 
ing a location, determining what branches of the business are to be followed, 
and choosing a manager; next, though to a less extent than in the case of 
one whose all is invested in his business, on the influence of the conditions 
mentioned in 43. The man who has capital to back him can weather 
