XXXIV 



THE BEGINNER'S FOES AND HIS FRIENDS 



Systems, and Gullibility — "A Dollar a Sell" — How 

 Things Hinge Together — A Basic Fact and Geometri- 

 cal Progression — False Premises Insure False Con- 

 clusions — One Square Foot per Bird — "Books" 

 which are not Books — The Weak Spot — A Safe 

 Place to read "System" Books — Conservation of 

 Common Sense — Good Germs and Bad — First Aid 

 to the Beginner — Good luck to the Beginner ! 



No undefended Beginner who comes under the zone 

 of influence of any poultry or farm paper, in these modern 

 times, is safe from the "germ " which riots through the 

 systems of the inoculated, to the sure end that they in- 

 vest in one or several " System " books. System — just 

 plain system — is such an indubitably good tJting, such 

 a rock foundation of a successful poultry business, that 

 it deserves every laudatory adjective in the average 

 vocabulary. But " Systems," in the specific, modern 

 poultry-world sense, are in the most nauseating bad odor 

 with all but the gullible. The chief openings to gulli- 

 bility are ignorance and curiosity. These, then, the 

 " Systems " set out to capture. " None other need 

 apply " would be a most excellent wording of their atti- 

 tude toward the world. 



Some one writing in an agricultural paper sounds the 

 warning thus : " Be careful from whom you buy. Have 

 nothing to do with those whose promises are obviously 

 impossible. If a man advertises that his flock has 



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