Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1915-12-10
The Poultry Industry.
From che Baltimore News.

rEOLltuo OdltluLOIc NCWS.
The opening this evening of the annual
show of the Maryland Poultry and Pigeon
Association serves to call to mind the great
growth of the poultry business in this
country in recent years. We are familiar
with the association of tremendous figures
and values as applied to our corn and
wheat and cotton crops. but very few
realize that it is estimated that in 1910.
five years ago. the poultry output was
valued by the Department of Agriculture
at $500.00O.000. To this must be added
most substantial increase for the last
five years, 20 per cent. being conserva-
tive estimate. making the present value
$600,000,000, not far behind the wheat
crop in normal years.
The farmer is only just beginning to
recognize the value of his flock of chick
ems. In days of old their care fell to the
lot of the farmers wife and she let them
roam at their own will. breed in hap
hazard way and took the fruits as they
came. With the advent Of the State
agricultural schools and after constant
agitation by the Department at Washing
ton, wide-awake farmers began to pay
attention to their fiocks. with the result
that between the year 1910. when it is
estimated that the total output of the
country did not exceed $12,000,000, and
the year 1910. when the last nationwide
census was taken, the value grew to half
billion of dollars. This includes only poul-
try kept on farms, and there must be added
to it the value of the flocks kept by people
in city and suburb the country over.
The poultry industry is centered in the
Middle West. The great grain States of
Iowa. Illinois and Missouri lead all the
rest. Maryland is a small State and of
course it is folly to compare it with any of
the three mentioned, but by comparing
the rate of increase for the decade between
the years 1900 and 1910, the honors are
all with Maryland. The 1910 census gives
this State about two and three quarters of
million chickens, while ten years earlier
the census showed only little over two
million fowl. In Iowa, which in 1910 had
twenty-five and three-quarters million
fowl. there were 1900. 900 in 1900. Mary
land showed gain of nearly so per cent.
and Iowa less than 20 per cent.
This speaks well for Maryland farmers.
and we understand that the increase since
1910 has been even greater. Even now
the State boasts the possession of the
champion egg-laying hen of the country.
Lady Byzantine, and there has been started
here, chiefly through the fundamentally
of the State Agricultural School and such
organizations as the Maryland Poultry and
Pigeon Association, an earnest effort to get
out of the chicken all that is in it.
The field is fertile one. The possibili-
ties are immense, not only in the matter
of increased egg production, bringing as it
would many additional millions to the
Golfers of the farmer, but also in breeding
for market. 1t has been declared upon
more than one occasion that it was the
clucking hen that should typify the wealth
of America and not the cotton boil. the ear
of corn or head of wheat, and few more
years with such strides as have been
made in the last decade will make the
statement fact.