Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1914-06-20
Ware the Glowing Promise.

Don't be led into trap by advertise
ments that tell you you can make q for
tune on your back lot or realize a clear
profit Of 81 a hen. It can't be done any
where on the face Of the earth raising
eggs and poultry for the market or even
for the highest class Of private trade. A
man who has spent fortune and ufe-
time developing a strain Of fancy exhibi-
ton stock can make q lot OF money with
a very few chickens. When he can sell
cockerels and pullets from $50 up to sew
eral hundred dollars each and get from
81 to SO each for eggs for Matching he
doesn't have to have a big flock or an
extensive plant in order to bring In the
coin.
But even the business of the fancy"
breeder is precarious. Blue ribbon-win-
ming parents may produce the scrub
best sort of ofrsprings, and through
causes inexplicable and uncontrollable
the feather man. may see the work OF
season. OF course, tho reputation he
has built up may enable him for q
time to continue to sell birds and eggs
at fancy prices. but even this cannot
last indefinitely; and what of the poor
victims who buy his stock?
It would be absurd to say there is
no money to be made in the poultry
business. There are men making money
at it, making lots of money. but they
the average of mortals. There are men
who make money in Wall street, but
that doesn't prove the average man can
where am ready to abandon the idea
of commercial chicken farming, but I'm
going forward with mighty careful
steps, and do my best to find out what's
just around each corner before l turn It.
Getting Interested In Cows.
I.a .,,+ ;,,e+ 90 Iop0 a. could
against buying COW, but now that we
have her and am beginning to get
my hand in" I am becoming an en-
thusiast. 1 have had a fancy for live
stock right along. but don't think I'd
like being a dairyman. =, 1t seemed to
me there was too much drudgery, too
much machine-like work. Cows have
to be fed on time, and watered on time
and MIXED on time, or things will go
to smash. l felt that a man might
almost as we'll be in prison as con-
demned to play hostler and milkmaid
to q bunch of cows, morning and night,
seven days week, and every week In
the syear. A farmer who depends on
tilliig the soil has a lot OF indepe pend
tically his own, and there are few sea-
sons Of the year when he can't take
q day off II he likes. l realized that the
dairyman had his milk checks coming a{
cash crops had to wait long time be-
tween pay days. but that is a matter
merely of having sufficient capital and
of conserving it.
My prejudice against dairy farming
began to dissipate when I took half q
day this week and visited big dairy
farm not far from my place. I had
met the owner at church and he had
invited me several times to call and
see his place, SO one day after our
noon dinner 1--WE have dinner at noon
when I am at home and in the even
up to the dayton wagon and taking
the two boys drove the hve miles to
Mr. Fredericks' place. It was one of
the most enjoyable afternoons I ever
spent. Take my advice and II you
have an opportunity to visit a modern
dairy farm. seize upon it.
There were sixty mich cows in Mr..
big barn, all Holsteins, OF
BLACK and whites" as he called them.
The barn itself was well worth the
visit 1t is new and -the-minute
in every particular. The floor is Of
concrete, with cutters back Of the
stalls. the stalls themselves Of gall
confine the cows; there are feed and
litter carriers running on an overhead
track entirely around the barn and
out into the barnyard to the manure
shed; windows are screened, there is
running water everywhere, and every
wife's kitchen. The thing that inter-
ested me most. though, was the me-
chanical mixers. One machine milks
two cows at the same time, and two
men with a dozen or SO machines milk
the entire sixty in about the time 1t
was as orderly and expeditions as 9
we'll ORGANIZED factory and fhAre were