A DUAL PURPOSE TYPE 31 



the farms is not a specialized business. The growing fowls get some 

 food that has a marketable value, to be sure, but they also consume a 

 large amount that otherwise would be waste; and some of the care 

 and attention bestowed upon them would otherwise be unpaid labor. 

 As an example of farm poultry culture, the case may be cited of 

 Mrs. Homer Caton, McLean County, Illinois, who reported 1,224 eggs 

 from sixty-four White Plymouth Rocks in the 'month of April, 1919. 

 The birds were on the range 'of a general farm where some cattle 

 were kept, and the chickens were not fed except during the winter 

 months. 



Compared to where the pojultry operations have been intensified 

 to the point of a one-product: plant, there is in the case of farm 

 poultrykeeping more of what would be waste feed and unremunerated 

 labor and there is less capital, invested in buildings and equipment. 

 On the general farm there may be a four-horsepower engine that c^n 

 be used to grind alfalfa for the poultry mash or to crush grain; there 

 may be screenings after the seed wheat is fanned; there may be 

 straw to use in the scratch shed. In other words, on a diversified 

 farm the poultry enterprise links up with other departments. More- 

 over, the poultry and livestock in general are linked up with the 

 growing of crops; there is a balance existing between the feed that 

 is grown and the animals that are kept; in feeding animals, the farmer 

 is not dependent on feed shipped from a distance, but has the advan- 

 tage of feed at farmers' prices. 



The farmer finds that the large type of fowl makes the more profit- 

 able use of the feed and conditions under which it is grown and 

 maintained; its tendency to size provides more potential "raw mate- 

 rial" in each chick that is hatched; and if there is good egg-laying 

 power combined with the liberal size, the type is bound to be popular 

 with him. This is in line with the well established policy among 

 farmers to select the larger dairy animals within the breed. The most 

 widely distributed dairy breed, the Holstein, as bred in its native 

 country, Holland, is reputed to produce the best veal to be secured 

 on the Continent; and the breed has won its reputation in America 

 partly because of its value in terms of meat when ultimately it 

 reaches the block. The milking Shorthorn today is enjoying the 

 greatest popularity that it has enjoyed in a generation, and the 

 increased demand for such dual purpose cows is a demand for more 

 efficient animals to convert into meat and milk what the economist 

 calls waste feed and unproductive labor. 



The future for the dual purpose type. We may expect to see more 

 hens and more dairy cows kept as population increases. The secre- 

 tary of agriculture has stated that we should count on an increase in 

 the population of the United States of one million a year for the next 

 decade. Increased population inevitably means more labor and propor- 

 tionately less land. Following this condition, in the older countries of 

 Europe, chickens and dual purpose cattle have maintained themselves 



