20 $4223.00 PROFIT IN ONE YEAR 



Hens or Horses? 



Mrs. George L. Russell, of Chilhowee, Missouri, said something of 

 intense interest in the "Fruit-Grower" a couple years ago. She compared 

 hens with horses and started out by asking a few questions. 



"What if the whole flock should be stolen? What if a storm comes 

 and kills every hen on the place? What if they all get sick and die? 

 You will admit none of these things are likely to take off the whole 

 flock. But granted they do, why, then, we have not lost any more capital 

 invested than we have when one mare lies down and dies. And should 

 these calamities befall a flock of chickens, with a comparatively few dol- 

 lars one can start over and in one spring raise enough pullets to fill the 

 laying house. 



"It is much easier to raise a few dollars to buy a flock of hens to 

 start over than it is to raise enough money to buy one good brood mare. 



"If we were in the commercial egg farming business, this would be 

 a story of larger profits, but as we are only farmers, the chickens are 

 considered just one of the many farm crops, the same as hogs, cattle, 

 oats, wheat and corn. 



"As is the case on the majority of the farms, the farm woman cares 

 for the chickens. It is a real pleasure to me to do this. In fact, I 

 cannot find the time to spend with them that I would like to, as there 

 are many other duties, besides being a mother, to attend to on the farm. 



"The work with my chickens commenced with a worn-out hen house, 

 surrounded by a dense plum thicket, where there was small chance of the 

 sunlight ever appearing. You have all seen such houses with a row of 

 nests and a path in front, the roosts occupying almost the whole interior, 

 leaving no place for the hens to scratch and exercise. 



"Even with this poor equipment, the hens paid $112.00 the first year. 

 This astonishing fact was hardly believed by my husband, but the figures 

 were there to prove it, and he at once became interested in the chickens, 

 building them a new house that fall." 



My chickens gave me pleasure as well as increased my bank account. 

 I mated up my first pens about February 1. My chickens had been lay- 

 ing all fall and winter, so the eggs were in splendid condition to in- 

 cubate early. I set my incubator about February IS and had my first 

 chicks hatched from eggs from my own breeding pens, early in March. 

 I commenced shipping hatching eggs the latter part of February. At the 

 end of my first fiscal year, which ended August 1, 1907, I found I had 



