34 THE AMERICAN BREEDS OF POULTRY 



poorer sections: than on the rich brown-silt loam of the corn belt. 

 A grain crop failure does not seriously hamper poultry operations, 

 which would be the case if larger quantities of feed were required as 

 for beef cattle, hogs, etc. Poultry is one of the things with which 

 the people in the poorer sections can do well. There are counties in 

 southern Illinois where the receipts from the sale of poultry and eggs 

 per acre of cultivated ground are three times what they are per culti- 

 vated acre in some of the rich northern counties. 



The farm management office of the United States Department of 

 Agriculture made a five-year survey on twenty-five southeastern Ohio 

 hill farms and found that the receipts from the sale of poultry and 

 eggs formed the second largest source of income on those farms, 

 amounting to more than the receipts from any other source except 

 cattle. It is interesting to note in this connection that the farms 

 keeping from 200 to 330 hens reported 16 percent more net profit 

 per hen than those keeping 60 to 100 hens. Undoubtedly, this greater 

 income from the larger flocks is to be accounted for on the ground 

 that where the poultry enterprise was developed, more attention natu- 

 rally was directed to the facilities of housing, proper feed and care, as 

 well as to the quality of stock kept. 



When a man realizes the importance of good care, he begins to 

 want good stock on which to bestow his care and attention. It is so 

 with a man whom we met recently. He had wintered eighty-six 

 Rhode Island Red hens and in the month of January had sold $53.66 

 worth of eggs from those hens. He had purchased two males at 

 $5 each to head his flock and was so pleased with them that he asked 

 the writer to buy four females for about $20 to mate to one of the 

 cockerels. He wanted something better than he had. On another 

 farm in Vermilion County, Illinois, where 250 Rhode Island Red 

 females were wintered, there were sold an average of $21 worth of 

 eggs per week throughout the months of December, January and 

 February, 1918-1919. It was the first time that this owner ever had 

 given attention to the chickens. It was easy for him to invest $76 in 

 good quality males from two of the best breeders in the Middle West 

 for the breeding season of 1919. 



High prices for purebred animals. A new era, distinguished by 

 broader opportunities for the breeder of Standardbred poultry, is 

 being ushered in. That means that the best blood is to be put to its 

 greatest use, and no breeder who sees the vision and whose aims are 

 focused on the good that the established American breeds can be 

 made to do, and who therefore is reproducing his flock along the 

 lines of Standard type, breed characteristics, stamina and general 

 productiveness, need fear for his future. The farmer needs more 

 dependable poultry of this type. 



It is the function of the breeder to produce for him the animal 

 machine of the right size and type to do his work economically; the 

 farmer's function is then to employ profitably this animal machine in 



