Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1911-04-21
ruth CAMERON HAS views
on RAISING CHICKENS
Tells Of!.thG Woman With
Fifty Hens

Some weeks ago L 1ncluQed among
other suggestions of unusual occupa-
tons for women a letter received from
woman who had been very success
full in raising hens.
This woman said that she had fifty
five hens, averaging four dozen eggs a
day, that her feed and supplies aver
aged $3.50 a month, and that she sold
the eggs at 40 cents a dozen the year
around to a regular customer who
called for them.
This letter called forth the follow
ing protest, presenting the other side
of the picture, which l think fairness
bids me publish:
My Dear Miss Cameron-Your talk
on hens and eggs in yesterdays paper
is perfectly absurd, wherever you got
it from. The poultry business is an
all-year-round business, and there
probably are not fifty-fve hens in the
country who will average 4S eggs per
day. If one had flock that would do
that the eggs would sell at a great big
price for setting purposes. Go to a
practical poultry man and see if his
books will show much over an average
of $50 eggs per hen a year.
Then the feed expense is way off.
1t figures up at SO cents per year a
hen. No one can feed for that Fur
thermore, you allow nothing for hous-
es, nothing for labor or casual losses
and where, oh, where can you find a
market that viii pay 40 cents a dozen
the year round? Please tell me, for |
grow eggs for a living and really
would like such a market myself
81 am afraid your article will in
fiuence someone ignorant of the bust
ness to start to get rich on a few hens,
with dark failure for a result. For
the right kind of woman poultry keep
ing is a congenial and fairly profitable
business Take one season with an
other, with business ability and econ
omy all along the line one should
clear from a dollar to dollar and a
quarter per year on a hen. Of course
experts growing fancy stock can do
more, but the average woman seeking
"a livelihood is not poultry expert,
and would have to depend on selling a
good quantity of eggs for family use.
Such a woman could manage probably
five hundred hens and raise some
chickens to sell"
Another idea for the woman who wants
some unusual method of earning mon
ey is thus suggested by a reader.
"A woman who lives near a school
house would no doubt find a number
of teachers who crave a hot lunch at
noon, but who have no time to seek
it. If hot, homemade, tray lunch
were brought to these teachers own
class-rooms at reasonable figure, say
25 cents, they would doubtless be glad
to patronize the person who could sup
ply them"
A woman whom l know has worked
up quite a successful business as a
renOvator.
That term covers a good many kinds
of work, 1t includes putting in fresh
yokes to dresses, remodeling sleeves
and cuffs, and minor details into style,
doing fine mending, taking spots out of
delicate fabrics, curling feathers,
cleansing white gloves and many sim
liar operations too numerous to men
ton
This woman also makes fitted under
wear for people who like homemade
underclothing, and few plain shirt
waists, but the most of her time is
taken up with the renovating.
She happens to know a good many