Evening star., 1904-03-26

cent OF the entire income produced BY all
the exports Of all the meat products. from
value Of the poultry to the eggs, and the
meat products are beaten.
Now throw In the remote animal products
that are exported annually-hbofs, horns,
brfstles, bones and even gluA; add wool
and things made out of wool; then add ev-
cry kind of leather: pile on It all even the
exported boots and shoes-and with all
those allies. the mass can beat the poultry
and poultry products by only fifteen mill
Hons OF dollars.
Wool isn't "In It."
Not so many years ago, In the midst
Of q battle over tariffs, the whole coun-
try was shaken by the fght over wool: and
it was well worth while, hol, the wool pro-
duct amounts to forty-five and three-quar-
ter millions of dollars annually.
But the poultry sold in year beats that
by ninety-one millions, and the eggs beat
1t by ninety-eight and a half millions Of
dollars.
And all the worlds animal products that
have, in turn, come to these shores, from
goats herded in Morocco and Switzerland to
leather from every place where leather can
be obtained, including even gloves made
from that leather, including. too, all the
cheese from every land, even China-they
aggregate s12I9Oe. .553 in value. less than
h If the value of chicken and egg.
1t is almost sad to think of the argonauts
and all their strivings and battles and PAS
sions and of the Alaskan adventures, with
their Klondikes and Nomes, their ripping
open of the frozen north itself, their war
against ice and blizzard and wilderness for
gold when we study the little seven-pound
hen and discover that all the gold ana
silver that engineers and miners and slulces
and dynamite and laundering stamp mills
have wrested from whole continent do
not equal in combined value, year by year,
the value Of the tiny, white oval that fs
gathered in aprons and baskets every morn
Ing in every hamlet. without single ad-
venture that is worth the telling.
Only in one year-that Of 19OO-since rec
ords were kept by the government. has II
happened that the American mines conid
beat the hen. In that exceptional year the
precious metals were aheao py nine anu
one-half millions of dollars.
The Galleon and the Chicken.
Even in the ages Of gold. when galleon
after galleon bore it from Africa ana the
golden Americas, when buccaneers puiit
pirate cities from the spoils. when the ricn
of the earth counted their wealth not py
ounces, but by ingots and bars-even then
all the gold and silver that the world couio
nroduce from hemisphere to hemisphere,
never came up in value to the complneo
value of the poultry and eggs OF the Onlteo
States in the year past.
Since America was discovered, tneIe nave
the poultry and the poultry products leu
below the work of all the mines or all the
world combined. In the former, the mines
outdid the hen by almost $6,Ooo,OoU. In the
latter year, perfect WohoeI y. .,oy,tu- 80.
for gold and silver output, almost twenty
six millions of dollars, marked the excess
over the value of the poultry products;
OF course the hen could pay for wnoie
war with her peaceful INDUSTRY IN .,, YEA,
More than that, she helped to feed an army
throughout one recent bitter war that shook
a continent That was In South ~ ~AIrlca.
Newspapers and magazines ana DOORS weiS
full Of the battles; but NOBODY mentioHeo
that. all the time, the chickens OF MIS-
souri, were feeding the British army where
it lay in battle array. They 1eo II VIII
crystalllized eggs, and the more aoiii,y iniI
Atkins ate, the more the Missouri men lala.
And vet the state of Missouri hoios oniy
sixtb Mace among the American states IN
noint of egg production. Ohio Is hrs1 IN
them. Missouri leads in chickens, and ONO
has to take third place nithat respect.
ohio's leadership In eggs tssr Is ~ af p1 Dozens
iowa is the leader of them all, put she ,s
holds only second place in number OF CHICK
ems owned. ~,z hasn't
quite gotten down to the chlcheh YET 9o
has less than any other state.
Rut she got the highest price 1or ner
eggs for during the year ner averasc 49,
90 $40 cents dozen. Scarcity Oh esss 49, 49,
not explain hlgn pi!ceS 800 nro-
tana leads eleven other states In egg pro.
duction. and yet got the second nisnes'
average price, 20 6-10 cents a dozen.
Eggs were cheapest in Texas, Where tnes
cost 7-1O cents dozen ON an average
A APuzzle for Egg Eaters.
Ava now comes aapuzzle for the house
wife. ,r,o+
Uncle Sam has figured cut exac'iy wha'
Tho average price a dozen has been ior
wear and he finds that 1t was II 1o-ioo
cents a Dozen Then why, oh, why are
eggs so high when you buy them to cat!
Uncle Sam and all his men respectfully
doclina to answer. The census bureau a'io
the treasury Department and the Secre-
tary of the Interior all give 1t up.
And now to wind up the big wonoer s.oIy
of the American hen and her true-piue
American egg, here is little wohoei s''
1t is about Alaska. ro
The census man went into Alaska ana
found all the hens. 1t was q nara Jop "
find them, but not bit hard TO count tne me
total. for there were ere only l'o io"iS ~ ga
Alaska on June !, 1900.
man could have put all the mems OF
that country into cart and carried them
with ease. Their combined value was
s166. But that little pocket edition OF hen-
merry, with its little toy shop capitai, pro
duced a total income in one year OK $o5--
$500 for eggs and $179 for chickens.
Eggs were high there. They averaged 43
cents a dozen. The chickens that were
hatehed and sold averaged $1.O1 each. 1t
was a nice little business, beating most
banks in point of percentage Of income.
The rabbit is the great Easter beast OF
poets and artists, but the American hen
has made good her claim to be considered
the Easter bird of the world.
LABOR AND ARBITRATION.