GETTING AHEAD 95 
some were making money at it started a burning hen fever in 
hundreds of young and old people anxious to make a lot of 
money quick. Clerks and society women from New York 
moved into the suburbs on small farms and began to try to 
make realities of their dreams. Not accustomed to manual 
labor, they ‘made a sorry mess of it. Writers of that period 
tell of chicken gentlemen and ladies who went about their 
daily round of duties with their delicate hands carefully pro- 
tected by kid gloves. It did not take long for the end for such 
experimenters to arrive. They returned to the great city 
sadder, but wiser. The squab industry has suffered also the 
past five years from such treatment. Many have played 
with it as a child would with a new toy, giving up their 
pigeohs in a few months at the slightest discouragement. 
The past six years are strewn with the wrecks of imitation 
squab advertisers and their guarantees. . Every spring, when 
demand for breeders is greatest, some of these come to life 
again, or new ones crop up, and they get what harvest they 
can, many of them selling what they can pick up in the way 
of culls, such as we ourselves sell to Faneuil Hall marketmen 
to be killed. These advertisers start advertising in January 
and by June they have quit. 
The following, from the pen of an old poultry writer, 
appeared in a farm periodical of large circulation in January, 
1907: ‘‘ So far, every attempt made in this country to estab- 
lish a large poultry (chicken) farm has been met by failure. 
The extensive and successful plants of today are the outcome 
of a small beginning and a gradual growth. True, the main 
cause for failure has been the lack of experience; men have 
undertaken work for which they were not qualified.”’ 
So it is the rule with squab and poultry failures, especially 
women, to blame everybody but themselves. Such persons 
learn bitterly that experience is indeed a factor. 
The place and flock of the one who fails with squabs tell 
their own story. The drinking fountains are seldom washed, 
the pen is seldom cleaned and the place has a run-down look 
generally, sometimes being positively filthy. The grain is 
bought and fed on the catch-as-catch-can principle with no 
provision for variety. The cheapest grain is bought, or it is 
ignorantly bought, and may be full of weevils, or sour. The 
owner of such a place generally matches the place. 
