290 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



"Here is ;i flock that will please you," and of < ourse 1 was all antici- 

 pation, ;iikI I looked out with pleasure, and what sort of a Hock do 

 you suppose I saw? Well, Mr. Chairman, 1 saw jusl one hen, and it 

 was nil alike. 



I want to say agaiD that it is not the mongrel or the low-grade 

 fowl thai will produce the results we are after, and if yon want to 

 start a Hock thai will be profitable or if your wife is going to buy 

 ;i setting of eggs for hatching, thai is not the sort she should select. 

 It is the man or woman thai I/as some good variety that is going to 

 succeed. And right here 1 want to suggest thai in this poultry busi- 

 ness there are more varieties ami more opportunity for selection 

 than in any other line of live slock industry, for of those bred up 

 to the standard, there are some L25 varieties of pure-bred poultry 

 and there is absolutely no success to be looked for from the cross- 

 •brod mongrel Hocks that adorn, if I may use the word, so many of 

 our farms in Pennsylvania. I want: to repeat and emphasize that 

 point. 



I know of a wholesale grocer in the city of Pittsburg whose 

 business is eggs largely and he handles three hundred cases every 

 day — every business day in the year, and he pays out for eggs half 

 a million dollars each year, and not a dollar of that half a million 

 goes to the farmers of Pennsylvania. It goes only to the State of 

 Indiana, where these eggs are bought and stored and shipped in 

 to him every week in the year. So there is a market and an oppor- 

 tunity, and Ave have it right here in Eastern Pennsylvania as well 

 as in Pittsburg in the western end of the State. You have here 

 the New York market close by, also Boston, Philadelphia and 

 Baltimore. You find a man who is able to supply any one of these 

 markets with a good quality of fresh eggs and he will have no 

 difficulty in making a contract for all he is able to produce, no matter 

 what may be his facilities. You take a man who can guarantee 

 that he can produce and provide so many dozen eggs a week in 

 September, October and November and so on, through the season, 

 and he is the man that can command his own price, will have no 

 trouble to get fifty cents a dozen in New York in the winter time 

 and not less than thirty cents a dozen at anytime, because they 

 are willing to pay down there for the kind of eggs they want, first 

 class, and only first class. So this great number of fowls affords 

 you an apportunity to select whatever kind* you may like. You 

 may have a preference for one variety while somebody else may 

 like another. 



Our American standard of fowls is divided into a few great fam- 

 ilies. Our classification is first, families or classes, second, breeds, 

 and third, varieties. VYe have (he Asiatic families — all those larire 

 fowls with feathered shanks and feathered legs belong to the Asiatic 



