6 EGGS AND POULTRY 
thousand dollars a year? Then figure that 
your plant will have to number 1000 to 
1500 hens. On this basis you should be fair- 
ly safe and could then study the special 
methods used by these experts who make 
the vaunted large profits, building your bus- 
iness and dividends up to these higher es- 
timates. 
You must understand that the poultry bus- 
iness, at least the table egg branch, is a bus- 
iness made up by the multiplication of small 
units; that you are not in the line of high fi- 
nance but engaged in producing and selling 
very small things. Eggs are sold at 2 to 5 
cents each provided you are so fortunate as 
to sell any at 5 cents. Even if you do you 
will find at that time they are worth the price, 
as it is simply the lack of supply that raises 
the price. 
The ordinary, good hen will not average 
much better than one egg in three days the 
year round when kept in large flocks. Aver- 
aging these eggs at 2% to 3 cents each, you 
will find your hens manufacture about I cent 
a day. Isn’t this a small business? It is 
only in numbers, therefore, that you can ex- 
pect to obtain a fair living. The young man 
expecting to reap a harvest from chickens 
