The Southern farm gazette. (Starkville, Miss.) 1895-1909, 1902-06-15
Suggestions to
Beginners !" J.. p Culture.
Creep Before You Try to Walk:
Begin Right, Then Go Ahead
BY WILDER BROS, PETRoS. TENN
written for Southern Farm Gazette.

AS the season for hdtching the
young is is here, many persons
the world over are thinking of
entering tine poultry business
some for pleasure and a greater
number for pleasure and the
goodly profit com bined. Nat
urally the first question with
these good people is, "How shall
l begin and with what variety
or varieties!' and in most cases
the thought that enters the be-
ginners mind first is varieties"
which in our opinion is a grand
mistake. We believe that the
poultry fanciers generally who
have made suscess in the poul-
try business, will heartily agree
with us in this article.
We have in the past 7 years
sold and shipped eggs and birds
to all parts of the country.
The average beginner first
runs against an advertisement
in the journal, where 10, and
probably 20 varieties of fowls are
adver tised, so he sends for this
firms large catalogue, and on
arrival of same he carefully opens
and examines, first the large pic
ture of the different fowls, then
he reads the good things of each
variety, beginning on the first
cover and fastening through to
the last word on the back, which
ends up by saying "order quick"
etc, an: by this time the begin
ner has the ''hen fever" bad, and
don't know how many of the diff
ferent breed he wants as they
all seem to be the best. So he
settles his mind on about a half
dozen varieties, and as he has not
studied any certain variety, and
read very few journals, also for
!. gotten much OF what he read. he
AM now IN a fix. He has half
:anAaas, varities of fowls. and knows
with o'ttle about mating, feeding.
.iylcrd,ind how to build houses for
etheir 'alth and comfort of his
{theiHl So he goes on for a short
3theY tsnly and soon finds that he
wolf lade a mistake in entering
HeHy POULTRY business. He never
km&T.: thinks how he began, but
r. gives the poultry business a
H.urse.
Now if this beginner had taken
some of the leading poultry jour
nails of our country. read hem
closely and carefully, and re-
membered just one-half the adj
vice of the experienced, success
full poultrymen, men that have
made their fortunes out of the
hen, and then followed their adj
vice. in general, sent to some re-
llablh breeder, bought few set
tmgs OF eggs, or pen Or two of
some up-to-date in show points,
and bred-to-lay variety oil solid
colcsed fowls, studied them.
learned all about them, and fully
mastered them, he would likely
have been a leading fancier to-
day. Handsome profits would
have been his and he would have
been able then to take up a va
riety of parti.colored birds and
handle them successfully. The
poultry business is one that, to
get it's goodly profit. takes steady
work and plenty of it, as does
1 any other business.
We will now endeavor to give
you our experience from begin
ing to date.
When we fell in love with the
poultry bushes, which was in
our boyhood days down on the
the farm" in an old log house,
with a rail fence Enclosure, as
well as a big pile of logs in front
of the house to be sawed into
) back logs and stove wood at leis-
ure, we boys claimed few scrub
biddies, a general mixture and
which got very little feed, care
and attention. In fact, thew O,