Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1898-08-04
The Poultry Interest.


ing in Gray's Poultry Culture, says:
At present no industry in the world
offers the field for development intro
duced by poultry culture. 1t is the
youngest and already one of the lead
| ing agricultural pursuits Of the ma
ton. If 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 shrine to- Mammon. Inc
nearest approach to the $29OOOO,Ooo
earned by the American hen last year
is offered by the total value of mich
COWS, they representing an investment
of $26S, 955,545, closely followed by the
entire cotton crop, valued at 1888, 174,-
$40, with wheat, the money standard OF
the farmer and the breadstuff of the
nation, a weak fourth with it's offer
ing in round figures of $23S,OOO,0 00:,
Thus you and find by comparison
OF figures this ruinous combination or
beak, claws and feathers, roosting OH
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 lii
| 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" i'll the enterprise of the
nation as they do? A few years ago,
| or before began to look into this
| 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, would have looked on him
with pity. The very idea of such a
thing would have been ridiculous, and
ne 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
ne and l forever strangers. 1 hate to
be made a fool of.
Cost of a Hen.-And row as to the
actual cost of keeping one hen one
year. 1t has been said by those who
know, or rather pretend to know,
Dushel of wheat or it's equivalent will
keep hen one year. Experiments
have shown it takes more than that
amount to keep healthy hen in nor
NAL condition that length of time and
instead gives about seventy :tiree
pounds as the correct amount, and on
THIS standard I am going to base my
ngures. 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 mum for the hens
keep. Now for what she viii and can
be made to do.
Yield of Hen.-In 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 healthy hen cannot Law her
fourteen or fifteen dozen eggs Der wear
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 if given a 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 off, 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. wears
tlme) These eggs sold in the market
at the average low price of 20 cents
per dozen amounts to s2.4O. From this
amount take the cost of her keep
$l.17, and we have a difference ~
$1.23, which, if 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.
if rightly marketed, will more than nav
for the cost of housing and incidental
expenses.
Turnips for Ducks.-Grow a crop of
turnips for ducks, if you intend to
raise large number of ducks On
the large establishments, where hum
dreds of ducks are raised. the princi-
pal food for them is cooked turnips.
with small proportion of ground
grain. No crop can be grown to better
advantage than turnips, and in no wav
can turnips be grown so profitably as
to feed them to ducks. Ducks and
turnips are adjuncts to each other IN
the duck farms, for without turnips the
ducks could not be made to lay so
Well.-Ex.