Evening star., 1904-03-26
GREAT AMERICAN BIRD.
Here's the Wonder Story Of
the Barnyard Hen.
WHAT SHE IS WORTH
A MIGHTY SOURCE OF REVENUE
IN THIS COUNTRY.
And Our Whole Standing Army
Couldn't Color One Years
Easter Eggs.
WHAT SHE IS WORTH


The mightiest Easter gift of the lot Is the
Easter gift that the American hen has pre-
sented to the United States.
If the government were to decide to color
up all the eggs that are being laid by her
in one day to present to the children of the
country, the whole regular army couldn't
do the work unless each soldier could man.
age to color seven hundred eggs, which is
a pretty big contract.
AS the country will consume not one
days. but several days, laying of eggs. the
standing army would be literally over
whelmed, hidden, crushed by the work of
the hen.
Her work produces enough eggs in any
two days to give one to every human being
from Alaska to Porto Rico. not leaving out
the Eskimos of Bering straits.
Forty-two and one-half millions of eggs
a day is her average now. That gigantic
one days work weighs 2,658 tons-almost as
much as the tonnage of United States
cruiser like the Atlanta.
While industrial combinations and fnan-
cial operations have filled the air with their
clamorous processes, the hen has scratched
along in humble privacy, and she has
beaten even the record of King Wheat; for
the value of her modest specially has turn
ed out to be greater than the whole value
of the whole wheat crop of twenty-eight
states and territories in one year.
The gold and silver mines of the country
aren't worth mentioning in comparison with
the simple bird. Only once In fifty years
has the value of the gold and silver Of the
UDited States beaten the value of it's eggs.
Figures cannot give any idea of the
enormous value of this American citizen,
for the figures are too big to bring delight
or understanding to any one except be-
n:ghted and violent statistician. For in
stance. what does 233, ,59s COS mean? Yet
that Is the number of chickens of laying
age in the United States, according to the
as the rest of us.
The value in dollars of that noble aggre
cation of laying talent was $7o,OOO,OoO.
A Marvel of Eggs.
The wonderful flock of birds laid more
than one and one-quarter billion dozens
of eggs in one year. This isn't dream
not even that kind of dream which
begins sit is estimated" For these fig
ures are not ESTIMATED" They are ex-
act statistics collected through the vari-
Gus departments of the government day
by day as the eggs were put on the mar
ket
That would entit1e every man, woman
and child in the country, from the Pacific
to the Atlantic and from Canada to Mex
leo, to 203 eggs in the year.
Uncle Sam has figured up not only all
try of all ages in the country, not scorn-
ing either the broilers or the Methusalehs
that pour into the market after a we'll
spent and long life to pose on the stalls
as spring chickens.
AS the result of his count he finds that
the poultry of the United States numbers
more than quarter of billion-250,-
1888, to be exact. And the value is
liant of this country a little more than
SLIP as his share If they were sold for
the account of the public.
Going back to the hensof egg-laying age
alone, and l8aEing out the tender infants
that are only consumers and not produce
ers, Uncle Sans men find that these in.
dustrious and on-striking workers hav.,
produced almost $137, 100000 in the form
more than $144,OOO,0OO worth of eggs.
The exact total of their production in
dollars is 1881, ,17S,247
And that, on the original valuation of
the plant Of $70,O00O0O means, that the
American hen has simply knocked into a
cooked hat the income producing ca
pac1ty OF trusts mines, manufacturing
combinations, Wall street and any ex-
cept the widest freaks of speculative
stock, for the income produced by the
hen Is 400 per cent on the original in
vestment, with little bagatelle of 81
l1S,247 left over for pin money.
The Beast and the Hen.
II person could get birds-eye view
of the shipping ports of this country at
any day in the year he would see droves of
cattle, horses and mules go laundering up
gangplanks and being hauled in sings up
the sides of ships. Steers and cows by
the thousands stream into ships at wharyes
in Boston, New York and Baltimore Mules
and horses in unending procession day
after day go into ships in all the ports
clean around the coast from Portland, Me-,
to Ga1veson, Texas. And still more herds
go into still more ships on the Pacific
shores.
Criss-crossing. each other, north. east
west and SOUTH all over the continent
rush trains filled with them, not only day
after day, but unendingly through the day
and the night, with never Sunday, never
a holiday to give the whirling wheels and
the singing rails moments rest
Hogs and sheep and mules and cows and
steers and horses-count them, watch them
trampling, rushing to the sea, and then
turn to the figures gathered by the census
and Treasury Departments and find that
all that jostling, never-ceasing stream of
great brutes from millions of acres of pas
ture, does not amount in value to one
quarter of the value of the eggs laid by
the little hen. And if you add the value
that whole aggregation of horns and hoofs
all those tons of flesh. do not amount in
value to one-eighth of what fowl and egg
are worth
tent of continent from the great ranches
under the Rocky mountains, over the plains
of Texas, over the domains of railroad and
slaughter houses from Omaha to Chicago
Take in with it the immense city of Chicago
itself, with its duchies and principalities
of stock yards and abattoirs and factories
and laboratories and warehouses and shops
and railroad yards and wharves and re-
frigerating plants-all devoted to seizing
the living beast and converting him to a
thousand uses, hide, horns, hoof, tallow
and meat.
Take in the roads that bear miles on
miles of cars full of that product. ware
houses scattered along a thousand miles
of land; warehouses fronting every naviga-
BILE nook on the oceans; refrigerator ships
that are monsters. all stuffed full as they
can hold; watch them tear through the
seas of the world, flooding the ports from
London to Singapore.
The Hen Beats.
And then please go back to the dun-col-
ored cackler that roosts in tiny ramshac-
kle houses and drops her golden egg into
any old box that the farmer happens to
have picked up; and behold! oil tho tons Of
canned and fresh and salted beef; all the
tailow; all the bacon and hams; all the
canned and salted and fresh pork; all the
sausages and the sausage meat; yes, and