The Complete Poultry Book - A Manual for the American Poultry Yard #252080

We have in mind widows, who have been left with families of small children dependent upon them, but without any means of support except the needle; maiden ladies, whom life's lottery has left without a household mate and pro tector; persons of infirm health, who have neither the strength nor facilities for the severe bodily or mental exertion which is required in other branches of indus try; the families of laborers, whose scanty earnings are but barely sufficient to feed and clothe the wife and little ones: All these, if so situated that they can have the use of a small tract of land, may greatly lighten the burdens of life by the keeping of poultry, and if we do not present this business in the glowing light that some enthusiasts do, it is that such as these may find in our book no incentives to extravagant anticipation, only to be followed by disappointment; but may be led to begin cautiously and work carefully until experience shall have taught them with the least possible loss — for experience teaches only by losses, or what is the same, by failures to attain possible gains — the most suitable methods for their estates and conditions. The foregoing remarks apply simply to the breeding of poultry for flesh and eggs; the breeding of fancy poultry is a separate business, and one which te quires special adaptitude for success, as well as a knowledge which can only be bought by experience It is not a business to be picked up in a day, any more than the breeding of horses and cattle. The same principles underlie the whole theory of breeding, and these principles are only to be mastered by years of study and practice; therefore we would advise those of limited means who have aspirations in this direction, to begin with one or two varieties of fowls; learn their habits and needs, and increase their number only in proportion as this knowledge is obtained. It is a knowledge which cannot be obtained from books, although books may be of such assistance that no poultry breeder can afford to do without them; but the information which they give must be mingled with personal experience, and thus digested and assimilated before it can be of much practical value.