The San Francisco call., 1899-09-22
THE HEN as a BONANZA.

c ONE time ago a paper read before Farmers
Institute at Princeton contained the statement
- that the number of chickens marketed in the
United States last year amounted to 335ooooooo and
of eggs 1900, 900 ooo The total value of chickens
and eggs produced was $2oo,ooo,ooo
By way OF showing the comparative importance of
the poultry industry it further stated that the
value of tobacco crop has rarely been much as
$43ooooOo The value OF our potato crop IS less than
$So,oooooo on the average. The value OF our barley
crop is not often as much as $3ooooooo An oat crop
worth 5000 ooo,ooo is unusual Our annual output OF
pigiron has rarely exceeded $I3oooo,ooo in value.
Coal. bv far the most valuable OF our mineral prod
ucts gives total annual output OF some $500 oooo
While the authority for the high estimate of the
value OF the poultry product not given the publ
cation OF the figures directed good deal OF attention
to the subject. A careful study of the poultry business
in Missouri by a writer for the St Louis Globe
Democrat shows such production in that State as
to justify the large valuation put upon the output OF
the whole country 1t is stated the poultry shipped
and sold in Missouri last year amounted to over
100000 pounds. 1t realized the producers at first
price $4ooo,ooo The eggs shipped were 33,o35,ooo
DOZENS and they brought to the people who gathered
them from the nests $3,3o3ooo Poultry and eggs to-
gether yielded to the farmers OF Missouri after their
own tables had been supplied, So, 900.
The writer notes that the two great items OF live
toc production in Missouri last year. cattle and hogs
Welded respectively $34oooooo and $4,000 900 each
only about four times what the poultry did. And
they consumed the corn crop of 100000 bushels
and kept a considerable proportion of the farmers OF
the State doing chores from daylight to dark all
winter
A curious fact is disclosed in the statement that in
tie egg trade broken egg is not lost to the market
When in the course of the packing the large houses
an egg is broken it is frozen and offered for sale in
that way The writer says: Frozen eggs in great
masses are not bad to look upon. They not al
lowed to thaw until the time comes for use. They
are shipped in refrigerated cars, and such consgn-
2ents as go to Alaska for the gold regions put
into cold storage on board of the steamships The
frozen eggs Missouri alone furnishes millions Of
cracked eggs in the course of year. Nine eggs will
average pound The frozen egg product is sold by
weight With the large bakers and cracker makers
in the cities the frozen eggs are in demand. Some
restaurants also buy the big tin buckets OF the frozen
article Certain classes of restaurants serve scrambled
eggs and omelets in winter made from the frozen
eggs, and patrons none the wiser
Poultry production is OF the few rural indus
tries of which California boast superiority
over her sister States SO far from having eggs to
sell we are importers of eggs and not infrequently OF
poultry The of profit revealed by the satis-
tics quoted shows would be worth while give
more attention to the hen. She is something of a
bonanza and doesn't cackle any more than she has
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