HOW TO MAKE AN INCOME 53 
on a modest scale and build up a business out of profit and 
experience. 
I have said that any fool can keep chickens, but it takes a wise 
man to make chickens keep him. The foolish, of course, dis- 
appear, and only the wise remain. That is why most poultry- 
farmers are ‘“‘ knowledgable ”’ men. 
Poultry-rearing is more or less a skilled industry. It is “ more ”’ 
if you take up all branches, including fancy breeding ; it is “‘ less ” 
if you take up egg-farming only. 
In the production of eggs only, special skill is not absolutely 
necessary to a beginner, but it goes without saying that the more 
skill one possesses the more certain is one to succeed. 
Two SuccEessFUL MEN 
Let me give a couple of illustrations where two men with a 
very limited knowledge took up poultry-rearing when war broke 
out, and look like making a success of it—one, a city man past 
the meridian of his years, and the other a young, energetic, 
professional man. 
The case of the elderly city man looked very doubtful. When 
he resolved to begin poultry-farming he could not have named 
three varieties of fowls. He had certain general (and vague) 
ideas about feeding and housing, but had never used an incubator 
in his life. Before committing himself to his new career he read 
some of the best literature on the subject, and before actually 
taking a farm he had a fair theoretic knowledge of poultry, and 
that was all. 
His capital was strictly limited, and he was compelled to begin 
in a small way. He was aiming at £400 per annum, but was 
content to accept a fourth part of that sum the first year. 
He began with a few pullets, and in the spring of last year 
he started to incubate. Naturally, he made mistakes, and the 
mortality among the baby chicks was twice as high as it ought to 
have been. But he profited by his experience. He had a trained 
business brain, and he used it. He did not repeat his mistakes. 
