PROFITS IN POULTRY 1 5 



At first glance, this idea may seem paradoxical. 

 It is not so, however, because the reasons which render 

 the business an uncertain venture to the one class arc 

 an entirely different set from those which render it an 

 unwise opening for the others — just as their object in 

 attempting it is different. Those who know anything 

 at all about the risk, the difficulty, the anxiety, the 

 work connected with poultry raising as a means of 

 support, will need no words to convince them of the 

 folly of entering upon this work without capital, expe- 

 rience, or means of support while the latter is being 

 acquired. Yet it is the poor in our cities, who are 

 straining their eyes for some means of getting a bare 

 living, who are the most frequent inquirers — at least 

 that has been my experience. 



It is just because the farmer has his living assured, 

 whether the poultry flourish or die ; and it is because 

 the wife and children can put into the work time which 

 has no commercial value, and which is not the one 

 thing which stands between the family and absolute 

 starvation, that the farm is pre-eminently the place for 

 poultry raising. This wholly aside from the patent fact 

 that here, of all places, is room to give the flocks 

 proper chance for full and best development. The 

 farmer's family are of all the people in the world best 

 fitted in every direction for this work. 



Those who live on the farms, yet still believe that 

 there is no money in poultry, or who believe that it 

 needs someone with ready money to hand to make 

 poultry really pay, should consider one fact which they 

 almost invariably overlook. This is, that the man with 

 an income and no farjn must spend that income in 

 acquiring the things which the farm furnishes ; and if 

 he throws up a paying job of any sort to keep poultry, 

 that poultry must pay him a surplus equal to that 

 which he before received, and which was his own 



