90 THIRTY-FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



The average egg production per hen throughout the country is 60 eggs 

 per hen. We ought to be ashamed of it, and the hens will be ashamed 

 of it when they find it out. I want to say to you, brother farmers, that 

 you need have no fear of an over production of eggs. 



Q. Did I understand you to say that the hen can stop laying at 

 will? 



A. Certainly she can, and she can carry them for 48 hours. We 

 have had persons come in and scare our hens to death, ana the next 

 day there would be a loss of 150 or 200 eggs, and it will take them 

 three or four days to get back. It is just like the cow. We have known 

 cows to drop down eight or nine pounds of milk in twenty-four hours, 

 and a hen can carry her eggs just as a cow can hold up her milk. 



President Aitken. — If there are no more questions to ask Mr. Van 

 Dresser we will go on to the next subject, "Co-operation of Butter- 

 Makers," Hon. H. C. Adams, M. C, Madison, Wisconsin. 



Mr. Adams: Ladies and Gentlemen. — It seems too bad to stop a 

 discussion upon so interesting a subject as has been taken up this 

 afternoon and treated in so interesting a manner as Mr. Van Dresser 

 has treated it. The egg product of the United States last year had a 

 value of $285,000,000. It is not a very small subject. The exports of 

 cotton from the United States last year amount to $300,000,000. The 

 total product of all the cows of the United States, and the butter in- 

 dustry amounted to about $500,000,000. If cotton is king, and the cow 

 is queen, the hen is a very respectable sub ect. As some one said, 

 "The sun of the American hen never sets." I really am very serious 

 about this, the importance of the subject and Mr. Van Dresser, who has 

 taken the hen and made something out of it. I want to say I will 

 take off my hat to any man or woman who will take a hen and make 

 her lay, because I cannot even make a hen set. I recall as a boy on the 

 farm I had got a couple of hens I thought ought to set. I put some 

 eggs under the hens, put them in a box and nailed them in, and I said, 

 "Now set." One got out of the box, and I forgot the other, and she set 

 there until she died. That little business, what some men call a little 

 business, taking care of hens all over the United States, all through 

 the long months of the winter when you cannot get fresh eggs, is really 

 not a little business at all. You find young men and young women all 

 over the country who cannot find how to make a living. Any one of 

 them can go into the hen business and by exercising their brains can 

 make a good living. I kind of hate letting go on the hen business; it is 

 a pretty good subject, but I am suposed to speak on the subject of 

 the co-operation of butter-makers. 



When men come together by hundreds, as they do in Vermont and 

 other States, and talk about the practical questions of interest to 

 farmers, it is a great thing. I asked the Secretary whether he wanted me 

 to talk about co-operation among butter-makers, or co-operation be- 

 tween the nine million of men who make butter in the United States, 

 and sixteen million cows, and he said I could work away at the thing 

 as I wanted to. 



