PLAN No. 754. CLUB STARTS BOY ON ROAD TO SUCCESS AS POULTRYMAN
That organized agricultural club-work among boys and girls is something more than a contest which ends with the season, but a continuous, constructive piece of work that eventually leads the club members into the business of farming and home making is illustrated by the accomplishments of a poultry club member in Vermont.
In 1912 a boy joined the Vermont Poultry Club, in spite of the opposition of the members of his own family, and, in a number of instances, discouraging words from friends and neighbors who did not understand what club-work meant to the American boy. He started with only a few settings of eggs, but two years later he was well on the road to success, for he had become the champion in his county in poultry club-work, having produced the best grade of birds and the most profit from his investment. In 1914 he exhibited some of his birds at the county fair, the poultry show, and the state fair, and succeeded in winning a number of ribbons and first prizes. The following year he became the champion poultry-club member of his state and was sent to New York City to the National Education Association to tell how he did his work and what he thought of it. The following year he again won the state championship.
By that time his reputation in the poultry industry had spread to other states and he was selling settings of eggs throughout New England direct to consumers, and had built up a trade in the sale of birds for breeding purposes.
One year later, in 1917, he started out with a business of his own, using his own business cards, his own business stationery, and expanding his poultry plant two-fold. He became manager not only of his own poultry plant, which he developed rapidly, but found time to take a position as superintendent of the poultry farm at one of the State institutions.