TENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IV 119 



In former days live stock was given no consideration over other kinds 

 of freight, whereas, today, stock trains on some roads are given preference 

 over everything hut passenger trains at meeting points. There is prac- 

 tically no limit to the speed of the stock train of today, while the regular 

 schedules range from eighteen miles an hour on the branch lines to twen- 

 ty-five miles on the main lines. In fact the main lines of the western 

 roads now bring stock from points west of the Missouri river into the 

 Chicago market in side of twenty-eight hours. 



It would not be doing the subject justice if some mention was not 

 made at this time of the transportation of live poultry, which has grown 

 to such enormous proportions. This business is practically in the hands 

 of one company, which provides the cars for the United States. The Live 

 Poultry Transportation Company of Chicago operates 500 cars built es- 

 pecially for this purpose. There is a water tank in the top of each car, 

 which holds 327 gallons, with hose attached that will reach, all compart- 

 ments, and a granary eight feet square and twenty-one inches deep for 

 carrying feed. Each car contains 128 coops. The large stateroom in the 

 center is used for the shipper to put in a trunk and a cot, for he "goes 

 to bed with the chickens and gets up with them." Allowing three dozen 

 fowls for each coop, the car will carry with small shrinkage 4,608 fowls. 

 The volume of live poultry being shipped to Chicago and New York is 

 increasing. This is primarily due to the segregating of the Jews in these 

 two cities and the demand of these people for fowls to be "koshered." At 

 the present time these two cities are the largest live poultry markets in 

 the world. 



By way of comparison with present conditions, let me cite one instance 

 of the manner in which turkeys were marketed in early days. In October 

 of 1856, Captain Stedman, now an employe of the Bureau of Animal Indus- 

 try, recalls having met on a road south and east of Indianapolis, Indiana, 

 a man and two boys driving a flock of 3.000 turkeys to the Cincinnati mar- 

 ket. This method was known to have been employed in the New England 

 states in pioneer days, when buyers collected turkeys in neighborhoods 100 

 miles from market and drove them in overland. It is reported that they 

 caused no more trouble to drive, after the second day enroute, than sheep 

 or hogs did. However, an attempt to repeat such an undertaking in this 

 day of scorching automobiles would be attended with disastrous results. 



To attempt to give a review of the growth of the live stock markets of 

 the United States in conjunction with the history of transportation would 

 involve too much time; however, Chicago has reached the point where it 

 is now the largest in the world. Nearly two-thirds, ie., 64 per cent of the 

 population of the United States is east of Chicago, while 70 per cent of the 

 farm animals are west of Chicago. All of the great east and west trans- 

 portation lines have terminals there, as have also the southern and lake 

 lines. It is moreover in the center of the most fertile, populous and 

 wealthy agricultural region on earth and is the most accessible of any 

 large city to the great manufacturing sections of the United States, which 

 includes the areas north of the Potomac and Ohio and east of the Missis- 

 sippi rivers. The city of Chicago alone consumes over four million pounds 



