Report of Missouri Farmer's' Week. 499 



No attention has been paid by anyone in Missouri to organiza- 

 tion for building up the poultry business. It has reached its 

 present status simply because of the natural conditions which 

 favor poultry culture and because those who undertook the raising 

 of chickens found it profitable. Poultry thrives best in well- 

 drained sections where there is a long growing season and abun- 

 dance of clean water, insects which furnish animal food an.d a good 

 supply of gravel and grit. 



From the standpoint of climate, Missouri is very favorably 

 adapted. It is far enough south to escape the long bleak winters 

 of the north and yet far enough north to miss the protracted hot 

 summers of the south. Periods of extremely cold or hot tempera- 

 ture rarely occur, the thermometer scarcely ever dropping lower 

 than five or ten degrees below zero. In summer the temperature 

 occasionally reaches ninety or ninety-five degeres and some days 

 rises to one hundred, but very seldom, and hot winds are un- 

 known. Under these conditions chickens thrive and are com- 

 paratively easy to raise. They produce liberally and are so easy 

 to manage that the person who starts raising poultry gradually 

 increases the flocks and acquires a habit of marketing poultry and 

 eggs regularly. 



One result has been that a large majority of the farmers' 

 wives in Missouri have been getting cash incomes from their 

 poultry varying from $200 to $3,000 per year. And this has been 

 done with poultry, not as a specialized business, but as a side line 

 on the farm — an indication of how well the country is adapted to 

 making money from hens. 



The majority of the poultry in Missouri is raised on general 

 farms. The very few people who have gone into poultry raising 

 as a business are securing especially good returns. 



Marketing conditions in Missouri are varied. It is a common 

 thing to see the farmer with a dozen chickens under the buggy 

 seat come into a small town and deliver these alive to a city 

 customer who has a small slatted coop built up from the ground 

 in which he confines them until ready to consume them. During 

 this time the birds are especially fattened and afford the consumer 

 a luscious product, the freshness of which it is unnecessary for 

 him to question. In many of the markets, unless specified, the 

 housewife when ordering chickens will get live ones instead of 

 dressed carcasses. In some places, however, we find a highly 

 specialized market demanding only the finished products in their 



