30 THE AMERICAN BREEDS OF POULTRY 



say that they are interested not primarily but first and last in eggs. 

 The farmer, however, who takes up a highly specialized egg breed 

 may not long keep it pure, because of its inferior size. He is prone 

 to cross large males on such stock, that he may get as much potential 

 capacity for size as possible in each chick that is hatched. Therefore 

 it is not safe to assume that the type which possesses table quality 

 will fall into disregard and be succeeded by any other fowl. 



To determine the present and future place of the American breeds, 

 our facts must be sufficiently diversified and the scope of our vision 

 sufficiently extensive to enable us to understand the requirements of 

 those who have adopted this type and to see something of the con- 

 ditions under which their fowls are grown. This means that we 

 consider the economic aspects of the poultry industry and note the 

 place that American breeds occupy in the permanent agriculture of 

 the country. 



The popularity of the dual type is rooted in the best systems ot 

 general farming. Under such conditions a diversity of crops are 

 produced, and poultry is a relatively minor enterprise on the farm. 

 Approximately ninety-five percent of the poultry and eggs that enter 

 trade channels and are consumed as foe 1 by the population, are pro- 

 duced on the general farms of the country. 



A great deal is written about intensive poultry farms where eggs 

 or poultry meat is almost a single product, but, after all, the gross 

 production of all these plants is a small item in the market. The 

 north central geographical district, for example, comprising the twelve 

 states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, 

 North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, report, 

 according to the 1910 census, 54.3 percent of all the fowls in the 

 United States, and 52.7 percent of the entire annual egg production. 

 In other words, of the 280,345,133 chickens on the farms of the United 

 States, 144,664,064, or more than half are to be found in the upper 

 Mississippi Valley; and on these same broad acres is to be found the 

 range from which the hens glean a large part of the food for their 

 yield of 784,804,653 dozens of eggs, or more than half of the country's 

 annual production of 1,457,385,772 dozens. 



These twelve states, containing about one-third of the population 

 and producing one-half of the poultry products, furnish an excess to 

 be consumed in sections like the middle Atlantic and New England 

 states, which, with 28 percent of the population, produce 13.5 percent 

 of the eggs. Illinois alone produces about one hundred million dozens 

 of eggs a year, and of this number there were shipped in the months of 

 March, April, May and June, 1918, to the four great consuming centers 

 of Chicago, Boston, New York and Philadelphia, 1,017,712 cases of 

 eggs, each case containing thirty dozen. This is farm poultry pro- 

 duction. Each of the states of Ohio, Iowa and Missouri also produce 

 approximately one hundred million dozens annually. 



Dual purpose type fits into general farming. Poultry culture on 



