The pioneer express. [volume] (Pembina, Dakota [N.D.]) 1883-1928, 1898-08-12
DAIRY AND POULTRY I
INTERESTING CHAPTERS FOR
IS OUR RURAL READERS,

How Successful Farmers Operate This
Department Of the Farm-A Few
Hints ~ to the Care Of Live Stock
and Poultry.
The Poultry Interest.
Frank w. Breed of California, writ
ing in Gray's Poultry Culture, says:
At present no industry in the world
offers the field for development intro
duced by poultry culture. It is the
youngest and already one Of the lead
ing agricultural pursuits Of the ma
ton. II statistics accumulated by those
who are deeply interested in its devel-
opment can be relied on, the gross
earnings Of the chicken industry for
the year 1897 far exceed those of any
other agricultural pursuit in which the
skill Of American enterprise is striving
to erect a shrine to Mammon. The
nearest approach to the $290,000;0O0
earned by the American hen last year
is offered by the total value Of mich
COWS, they representing an investment
Of $685., 955,545, closely followed by the
entire cotton crop, valued at $685. 74,-
$40, with wheat, the money standard OF
the farmer and the breadstuff OF the
nation, a weak fourth with its offer
ing In round figures Of $238, 900.
Thus you and find by comparison
Of figures this ruinous combination Of
beak, claws and feathers, roosting on
the, buggy top or wood pile at night
and by day industriously eliminating
all signs Of the toll and application
Of a .hard-earned weeks vacation in
the neighbours new garden, represents
the greatest money-making branch OF
agriculture, and agriculture is the
chief source of this nations wealth.
My friend, did you ever consider what
this means? Did it ever occur to you
that this much-despised hen and the
men who admire her, commonly re-
ferred to as Chicken cranks," cut as
big figure" in the enterprise of the
nation as they do? A few years ago,
or before I began to look into the
commercial side of the poultry indus
try, had man told me the despised
barnyard hen was bigger money get
ter than our great expanse Of wheat
fields, l would have looked on him
with pity. The very idea of such a
thing would have been ridiculous, and
he would only have had to add that
her gross earnings for year amount
ed to more than the total value of all
the mich cows in the country, to make
he and I forever strangers. I hate to
be made fool of.
Cost of a Hen.-And now as to the
actual cost of keeping one hen one
year. 1t has been said by those who
know, or rather pretend to know,
bushel Of wheat or its equivalent will
keep hen one year. Experiments
have shown 1t takes more than that
amount to keep a healthy hen in nor
NAL condition that length of time and
instead gives about seventy-three
pounds as the correct amount, and on
this standard I am going to base my
figures, taking the market value of
wheat today, the highest price of the
year. rather than figuring out the av-
erage price during the last twelve
months, as standard by which to
compute the cost Of feeding one hen
one year. Thus we find seventy-three
pounds Of wheat at SLIGO per hundred
will cost SLY. So much for the hens
keep. Now for what she will and can
be made to do.
Yield Of Hen.-Hn several instances
experiments in feeding have shown
well-bred hens can and have been
made to lay considerably over 225 eggs
per year. In fact, this mark has been
passed so often it is now considered
that a healthy hen cannot Law her
fourteen or fifteen dozen eggs per year
is not worth the room she occupies.
But it is not my purpose to show here
what hen can be made to do. but
what she will do II given chance
to earn her living. Every one at all
conversant with the care and manage
ment Of chickens will acknowledge
that it is very poor hen, ONE that
it will pay to dispose of, that cannot
lay $50. or in easy figures, twelve doz-
en- eggs per annum. Instances are
known where individual hens have al
most doubled this number in a years
time.) These eggs sold in the market
at the average low price Of 20 cents
per dozen amounts to $40. From this
amount take the cost Of her keep.
$l.17, and we have a difference OF
1923. which, II We have managed care
fully. should be net gain, for the
amount Of her carcass will bring in
the market at the end of two years.
II rightly marketed, will more than nay
for the cost Of housing and incidental
expenses.
Dairy Notes.
Shippers Of butter. whether cream
cry men or private dairymen, must
look carefully after the tubs in which
fhA hutfar 81 n no nackod The v~a,n