The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1908-02-05
THE GREAT AMERICAN HEN

Eagle? Great American Bird?
Pish! Tush. Maudlin sentimental
ism! What has the eagle done for
his country? Posed as a model for
designers Of coins, stamps, green
hacks and emblems That's all.
Eagle? Pooh! Bah! He's a
winged ornament. He's no good as
food, The human department of the
interior spurns even his egg And
no never earned dollar in his life!
Rnt the hen! Now, there you
have the real, only, original great
American bird. Her majesty, it IS
true. isn't much of a hit in the look
nrettv. made-in-America, E-Pluribus-
Trnum business; but as a welcome
and successful contributor to the ma
tional menu, and as money-earner'
she outranks all the living things
on the continent, with the exception
of the COW and man himself
Absolutely the richest feathered
tribes of the earth are the American
made Brahmas, Cochins, Wyan-
dottes, Cornishers, Leghorns and
Plymouth Rocks. The members of
these tribes on the six million farms
of the United States alone earn three
hundred million dollars year.
Yes the American hen, dead and
alive, earned all of that mighty sum
of money. mite by mite, last year.
For that's what we paid the royal
caterer to the human stomach-the
hen-for self. services and output.
Forty-four million eggs will be
laid i'm this country the very day
YOU read this by the three hundred
million occupants of the chicken
GOODS of the nation. That's the aver
ace number of eggs laid each day at
the present time-as well as through
ont last year. During 1906 the in
dustrious great American bird gave
us the incomprehenSible number OF
sixteen billion eggs. We consumed
every one of those sixteen billions
poached, scrambled, Spanish-omelet-
ed. Why, every breakfast OF our
lives we OF this country eat on fewer
than fourteen million eggs. What i
convincing evidence of the unfailing
industry of the most useful BIRD
friend we have!
Unofficial statisticians go so far as
to assert that we pay seven hundred
and fifty millions of dollars year
for our chickens and eggs, and that
New York alone pays forty-eight
millions to the hen. For the pres
ent purpose, however, the official
figures given by the first farmer OF
the land, Secretary Wilson, are quite
imposing enough-namely, thirty
millions for New York and three /
hundred millions-dOllars, of course
for the nation.
Translated, that three hundred
million dollars, representing the
hens salary, means thirty millions
more than we pay all the public
school teachers, and five times as
much as we pay all the preachers. |
Next to the COW, then, the hen IS |
the highest paid living thing in our
midst exceeding the earnings even
of the sheep and the horse, so far
as products are concerned
What do we get for our hundred
million dollars? We pay the hen
half that amount for her sixteen bill |
lion eggs The other half of the
grand total is paid for the hens /
dead body, about three hundred mil
lions of the same.
To show further, by comparison,
Just how important the chicken is in
our national life three hundred mil
lions in cash that we spend for chick
ems and eggs is three times the
amount we spend on our prisons, or
twelve times our insane asylum out /
lay, or twenty times more than We
lavish on our pOorhouses.
Moreover, the three hundred mil |