Personal Experiences 35 



Poultrymen often balance rations correctly by accident 

 and are very successful for a while, but as their success is 

 the result of an accident they remain in ignorance of the 

 facts and later frequently meet with failure. 



I had gone nearly three years wtihout making anything. I 

 had learned a little by experimenting, but it takes money to 

 live and I did not have much left. After renting a place near 

 San Francisco I bought several hundred hens and had visions 

 of making money rapidly on account of the 'better price I 

 received for eggs. I was now going to reap the benefit of 

 the knowledge I had gained. 



I bought the same meat from the same firm that I did 

 before and mixed it the same way, as follows: 



% Bran, 



% Middlings, 



Yi, Beef, Blood and Bone, 



Wheat, Green food. 



While I was congratulating myself on the location I had 

 obtained and on the fact that, as far as keeping my hens in 

 excellent condition was concerned, I knew the poultry busi- 

 ness, and because I was getting 60%' of eggs a day, I came 

 out of my dream and began to think that in the matter of 

 making hens lay I knew nothing about the poultry business 

 at all. 



Work? Why, I never stopped working. I carried on my 

 back the finest kind of green food from the vegetable gar- 

 dens along the ocean to my little poultry farm two miles 

 distant. Later, after several years of failure and my capital 

 entirely exhausted, I obtained a position in San Francisco 

 for* six months of the year; every morning I would take the 

 train at 6 A. M., ride ten miles, then walk one mile and work 

 in steam and water for eighteen and twenty and many times 



