The Globe-republican., 1900-07-12

There are constantly going the
rounds of the papers most astonishing
estimates as to the volume of the
poultry industry in this country. We
hear speakers at farmers Institutes
g1ib1y reel off the statistics as to our
poultry products, and an unsophlstl-
Gated listener would suppose the sta
tiSticS to be worth something But
they are not. Poultry estimates are
the widest kind of guesses taking the
country as whole. In some of
large produce centers it is not difficult
to approximate the number OF birds
and eggs received and sold; but those
reports are of little consequence com
pared to the $4,000 small markets of
which there are reports. The num-
Der of birds and eggs that are used on
the farms cannot be known, for no
record is kept of them When we con-
slider that there are over 100000
farms we see how inestimab1e must
be the poultry produce disposed of on
those farms. But to illustrate the way
in which statistics made: One
writer says: when we compare the
most careful statistics that can be
compiled, we are astOnished at the
magnitude of the figures, for we find
that the combined product of eggs and
poultry as an article of food. from
commercial standpoint, alone, amounts
to the enormous sum of 500, DOC, O00
Now, when we add to this the number
of live fowls in this country, about
$50, 100000, at an average value of
! 81 each, which is a fair valuation of
the whole; that is, placing all of the
standard varieties of fancy-bred pou1-
try with the common grade laying
stock of the whole country; thus. the
live fowls plus the commercial poultry
and eggs, amounts to 1000, 900 900 !"
We can but regard such figures as
most extravagant. Instead of 81 per
fowl the estimate should be Is cents
! per fowl; for the proportion of high
priced fowls in the country, compared
to the whole number is insignificant
The estimate of 15O, 900 900 live fowls
is entirely guesswork. We have at
| the present time no poultry statistics
that are worth anything.
We sometimes hear about a hen lay
ing two eggs in a day, and it seems
| quite an incredible story But it may
| easily happen and doubtless does. But
| it does not indicate any great laying
power, but rather arrangement of
the laying organs We have seen a
/ hen egg-bound and on examination
| found the production of the egg so
| delayed that another full-sized one
| was pushing up behind it. The two
| eggs would naturally be dropped with
in a few hours of each other.
Without doubt hens are helped by
| exercise, such as scratching in cut
| straw for their grain, yet we feel that
the idea is overdone- The value OF
/ this exercise must depend to a very
great extent the food that is fed.
| Where a fowl is fed corn, and corn
| only she needs the exercise to help her
| to digest more of the corn SO as to get
| from it enough protein to serve her
| purposes, without at the same time be-
| coming too fat The exercise causes
| rapidity Of breathing and that means
!
| the agency of the lungs But the first
| outlook should be to feed a fowl a
| ration constituted that no necessity
| will exist for burning up a part of the
| feed through the lungs
| Under the above title s. c. Hanna OF
] HoKard Kan ably set forth the spe-