CHAPTER VI 
HOW TO MAKE AN INCOME 
capital would be required to bring in an income of £400 
per annum from poultry. It was one of those innocent 
questions which show that the questioner is a very innocent 
person. 
What amount of capital would be required in any business 
to produce £400 a year? Obviously nearly everything depends 
upon the capability and character of the man taking up the 
business. A clever man well up in the work would need a smaller 
sum than a clever man who had to learn the business. Some 
men are so stupid or careless, or both, that they could never 
make £400 per annum, no matter what amount of capital they 
employed ; they would be much more likely to lose their money. 
Perhaps there have been a larger percentage of failures in the 
poultry industry than in any other business. The reason is not 
that poultry-keeping is less lucrative than other businesses, but 
rather because the class of person that has gone into it has 
not sufficiently realised that poultry-keeping is really a skilled 
industry. 
It was once said to me that people who have failed at every- 
thing else take up poultry, and no doubt there is some truth in 
the remark. Now, if there is any business that people should 
shun who have failed at everything else it is the poultry business. 
I know of nothing that, apart from skill and knowledge, requires 
such attention to detail, such unremitting care and watch- 
fulness, as the rearing, feeding and housing of poultry for 
profit. 
Any intelligent person may, with little knowledge, keep a few 
fowls profitably, but when one attempts to earn one’s whole 
51 
A CITY MAN once wrote to me asking what amount of 
