HOW TO MAKE AN INCOME 55 
money will come back. A little is coming back now. Next 
year the farm will not only be self-supporting but it will support 
him and his family as well. 
Despite the price of poultry food, and it is unconscionably 
high there is money in eggs. But let those who mean to make 
a start be warned that it is not a business for a lazy or a careless 
man. Only the industrious and the persevering can make it 
pay. The beginner must do all the work himself until he 
approaches a thousand adult birds. Then, and not till then, 
must he pay an assistant. He must work hard and work long 
hours. 
The Summer Time Bill will not help him. He must borrow 
light from the stars. 
It is a great responsibility to advise anyone to start a new 
business, and yet I am constantly being asked by correspondents 
whether they should take up poultry-farming. 
Failures are more numerous in poultry-farming than are 
successes—not because it is really a difficult business, but because 
everyone—everyone who has not tried it—thinks it is so easy 
and so simple. If people would only realise that egg-production 
and the rearing of chickens require far more attention, more skill 
and more knowledge than, say, the running of a grocery business 
—if aspirants to poultry-farming only realised this, there would 
be less danger of failure. 
With this proviso I may proceed to deal with the letter of a 
correspondent, who writes : 
‘“*T am anxious to get a little advice about poultry-farming. I 
am seriously thinking of starting a small farm, in which I want 
to get a living for myself, wife and two children—a girl of 15 and 
a boy of 14. I have been in London some 15 years, but was 
brought up in a Midland village. I have a small sum of money— 
about £200. Can I start on this amount with a fair prospect of 
making a living ? 
“T have thought I could run 200 fowls with this sum, say, 
100 White Leghorns, 50 Minorcas, and 50 of another good breed. 
