CHAPTER II 



THE START 



Well begun is half done; and this saying holds true nowhere 

 more than in the poultry business. A bad beginning in poultry 

 culture usually means a bad ending. The most common fault to be 

 avoided is that of beginning on to large a scale. Better success with 

 a trio, than failure with a thousand; and the man who begins with 

 a thousand birds, or even with a hundred, if a tyro, almost invariably 

 meets with failure. 



The reason why so many fail at the outset is that they begin 

 with inflated ideas. They read the Munchausen tales told by irrespon- 

 sible knaves, exploiting some fabulous "strain," and having no knowl- 

 edge of the facts in the case, they fall easy victims. They read, and 

 believe, the stories told by various "system" men describing in rosy 

 colors how profits running from six dollars upward per hen can be 

 made by wholly inexperienced people; they pay their hard-earned 

 money to alleged poultry "schools" for the purpose of learning by 

 mail, in their city homes, "how to conduct a large poultry plant"; 

 they figure, unwisely, that if a single hen pays yearly a legitimate 

 profit of even $1.50, a thousand hens will pay correspondingly. All 

 these things lead to failure. There is no royal road to success in 

 poultry culture. The way to learn to raise poultry is to raise poultry, 

 and by that is meant from small beginnings. Do not start with the 

 idea of making a fortune immediately. Mr. U. R. Pishel, whose stand- 

 ing today financially is of the highest, started with a dozen birds. He 

 "felt his way," treated his customers right, and grew as his business 



