The routine of work on such a farm is very exacting. The fowls can do so little for themselves and require so much extra care that the poultry keeper knows from the start that he cannot make his business pay unless he gets a very high production. So all his efforts are devoted to this end. He uses labor-saving appliances, carefully systematizes his work, and by great effort often succeeds in making a fair profit for a few years. It is at this stage of his progress that the poultry keeper of this class does the boasting which misleads others. Then things begin to go wrong with his stock. His eggs do not hatch well, because his chickens, while nominally on free range on a farm, have really been no better off than chickens reared under ordinary conditions in town. His chickens do not thrive, because they are weak and the land is tainted. He himself is worn out with long hours of work and no holidays, and if he does not realize his mistake and close out the business in time, it is only a question of continuing until his income and credit combined no longer suffice to keep the business going. This in brief has been the history of all special poultry farms where intensive methods were used, except the duck farms and the several classes to be described farther on in this chapter. By no means all succeed to even the extent described, because a great many people who go into the business have so little capital that they have to give up the business before they have been able to make it show a profit. When the owners have capital, plants are sometimes operated for years at a loss, but it is very rare indeed that a poultry farm of this kind (except in the classes to be described later) is continued for more than seven or eight years, and few of them last five years. Those who wish to make a poultry business permanent must adopt other methods. BROILER GROWING The desire for what is rare and costly is a common trait in human character. In nothing is it more plainly displayed than in the demand for food products out of their natural season. An article which in its season of abundance is a staple article of diet, within the means of all but the very poorest, at its season of scarcity becomes a luxury which only the wealthy can afford. Before cold-storage methods had been brought to high efficiency, there was a period in the latter part of the winter and the early spring when young chickens were very scarce. The number that could be hatched with hens to meet a demand at this season was small, and those who were hatching autumn and winter chickens by the natural method found it more profitable to keep them to sell as roasters late in the spring and early in the summer.