Evening star., 1914-08-15

hood became very annoy
vegetables. but 1 insist that even
small fruits should have drought in
surance' of some kind. Especially
would this be desirable in the case OF
Strawberries, Of which Jane plans to
have an acre. 1t seems to me the
thing to do. granting the aAA2tion of
James program. would be to install a
plant to irrigate the acre Of strawber-
ries. and then to extend the system
after its financial practfcability had
been demonstrated.
Flipfops Part of It.
1t may seem to the reader that we
are doing a lot ot f1ipfiopping out at
sunny Knoll in the matter of plans to
be followed But it should be re-
membered that j started out to give,
and give truthfully. day-to-day and
week-to-wee account of our expert
ences and l can't leave the fipf1ops
out and still be truthful Until the
first of last March we were absolutely
| without experience in country ltfe,'
and a lot of our preconceived opinions
have been rudely shattered by the
reality of things that are.
| Nothing could serve better than chick
| ems to illustrate how views may change.
]
wildly enthusiastic on the subject of hens.
! We had read lot of literature about
folks who kept a couple Of thousand
| 'biddies and cleared $6.15 per year on
each of them. 1t looked as easy as going
| out and picking golden eagles Off the
| trees and We felt really sorry for the
Rockefellers and Morgans, who were
soon to find themselves classed as just
/ fairly well off, But as we got deeper
into the subject doubts began to assail
| us. After we had progressed beyond the
| fortune on back lot literature of peo-
| pie who had incubators and brooders and
stock and Matching eggs for sale. we
! learned that a whole lot of men who
| had dollars to invest where we had only
! cents had gone in for chickens and had
gone broke. All over the country. and
/ especially in the eastern states. there are
wrecks of chicken farms. The former
proprietors of some Of them, once COM
| paratively wealthy. are now selling news
| papers or eking out a livelihood in some
| other humble capacity.
| What was the answer? We asked our
selves. These things raised missiving in
my mind. which you may remember
voiced in some of my earliest letters But
there stood out the fact that there are
men who are making money making for
vinced that there was concealed some
where 'nigger in the woodpile," and l
believed l promised that if l discovered
his hiding place l would expose it instead
seems to prevail as to his whereabouts.
Not Concealed Niger"
Well. I think 1 have found him. Only
he isn't a ''nigger'' at ALL He's an age
! old human attributable desire to get
something for nothing. Or if that is put
ting 1t little too strong, he's the very
human aspiration to get rich quick.
Chickens are not a medium with which
one may take a "shoestring and run 1t
| into fortune overnight. The man who
goes into the poultry business expecting
| to clear $675 per year per hen has just
as much chance of winning out as has
the .come-on'' who dickers with the
greengoods man or the victim who fails
for the Spanish prisoner game that
has been worked on gullable Americans
for the past half century. And the fel-
low who undertakes to make fortune
keeping chickens on the back lot Of his
city home has fully as much chance OF
winning it as has the small boy VINO
sets out to lind the pot OF goid a. .ne s
/ end of the rainbow There may be pot
of gold at the end of the rainbow. but
! if it has been found by any OF the leglons
who have sought it. the fact remains to
be officially recorded. !.
But there is money in chickens, and l
am satisfied it can be gotten out Of them.
Not however, at the rate OF SO. IS per hen
per year Any man who ngures ms
| chicken venture on the basis OF making
| 81 per hen per year, and doesn't try 10
do too much the first year. mas e,san. reason
! able chance of success His investment,
! then, will average in safety with otner
| commercial enterprises which nave the
| possibility of large profit, but lack tne
| insurance of principal that goes with gilt
| edge securities
| Under exceptionally favorable circum-
I stances. his books at the end Of year
NAV show that he has cleared $1.23 or
! 81 80. or even 81 per hen. The latter is
| an outside figure, and, as in the case OF
| = miner digging low-grade ore, should
| he reckoned as a pocket" something
that might never be struck again.
| Essentials Of Success.
| Given easy reach of a good and unfaii-
ing market from ten to twenty acres OF
suitable land and capital sufficient TO
500 the venture through three unprott-
able wears, q chicken farm is as sound a
business venture as selling dry goods OF
| groceries or any one of numerous COM
mercial activities But the poultrymar
! sbo,,ld have as thorough a knowledge o.
| his business as has the man who seils
| clothing or linen or potatoes or nsh. II
! he hasn't woe betide him!
| And so. though we have wandered 1ai
afield from our original program. have
followed devious paths and hirted WITT
Grange gods we have about gotten back
70 our starting point. We think we nave
put aside all our illusions and are m
frame of mind to get down to brass tacks
With the drought looming large on ou,
Ibucolic horizon. the chicken game seeii'
about the safest one We can tackle.
| The die is not finally cast, Dut was
down deep / feel there isn't any oouo
how the dice are going to fall we arr
doing our figuring in minimums. al,
still insisting on one acre to begin VII,
as a market garden, from which l snai
expect to realize 800 profit. not countIne
NV own labor The twenty-acre piece ao
ioinjng is the only additional land tt
he had right now, so we are estimatn.
for four cows which ought to clear u
$40 each. still not counting my own labor
The chicken plant is put in at 800 hens
clearing 81 a year each Jane Is ready u
staLa her reputation on clearing 800
YEAR from jellies and preserves. not TOT
getting apple butter. over and ABOVE .ns
cost Of materials and growing and buying
the fruit.
as follows: ,,
~ . 2O(
w Wv .an 1O(
JeIlies and preserves. ......-..-...... ao>
s1,4Ot
Free Supplies for Table.
These figures are based on the assump
tion that we will have all the vegetables