You must be willing to give your time and attention if you are to succeed. One man who has had a good deal of experience writes me about the new method of chicken raising as follows:—“No doubt it is a valuable contribution to the subject of intensive cultivation of poultry. It involves, however, the most intensive and persistent labor, to which very few men are willing to subject themselves, and I am one of that class. I have had enough. Still, I need more income, and I am thinking, just a little, of Indian Runner ducks, which demand cheaper buildings and less care than chickens. Yet I cannot raise much enthusiasm on the subject, and I shrink from the constant attention to details which even they require.” But even if you are not prepared to raise fowls after this fashion, there is no reason why you should not keep a few hens and raise a few chickens for your own family use. If you hatch in incubators, use eggs that are laid the day you put them to hatch, and with good management practically all of them will produce vigorous chickens that can be induced to lay early, if pullets, and can be fed for market, if cockerels. Eggs are more profitable than chickens, especially if you can produce them out of season, and this depends upon the time of hatching, the feed and care. A flock of 25 fowls will produce eggs and chickens enough to add a tidy sum to the income, if you feed and house them right. And the feeding need not be much of an expense, if you save the table scraps and give corn, cabbage and other green stuffs, buying whatever wheat and oats you can’t raise. In winter, change their drinking water frequently and see that it is slightly warmed. If you cannot provide running water, then you must give them clean water many times a day all the year around. As a matter of fact, the amount of effort expended is pretty closely related to the profits to be derived. Whether you raise hens, ducks, geese, squabs, or any of the many animals now raised for profit on the home acre, you must study their needs just as you must study plant needs, if you are to succeed. Only by the use of intelligence can you expect to reap profits, and to natural intelligence must be added study. A man could not expect to be a successful teacher of mathematics unless he had studied all the authorities in his special line, and kept himself in touch with all the new theories as they were advanced. So it is with the farmer. If he does not read the papers that deal especially with his calling, he cannot keep in touch with the improvements and discoveries constantly made in his line. He should take in at least two standard agricultural papers. In a community where there is no public library, the farmers might agree among themselves to take one or more different papers each, and then exchange. In this way they could keep in touch with all, at the expense of only one or two.