BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



POULTRY DEPARTMENT. 



JOHN M. GKAHAM, SUPERINTENDENT. 



As Superintendent of the Poultry Department at our last State Fair I beg leave 

 to .submit the following report: There were on exhibition about two hundre<l and 

 thirty coops of chickens, turkeys, geese and ducks, consisting of all breeds that 

 were enumerated in the poultry list, or nearly so. Some of them were as fine 

 chickens as any one would wish to see, and all were good. Some chickens that 

 were afflicted with roupe I was compelled to exclude from the exhibition. The 

 turkeys were numerous and large, one of them weighing lorty-one pounds, and sev- 

 eral thirty pounds and upward. Geese and ducks were shown in good numbers 

 and fine quality. Plere let me say that the necessity for larger coops for the accom- 

 modation of turkeys and geese was made apparent, as we had to crowd some of 

 these larger fowls into the chicken coops, wherein they could not stand erect, and 

 thereby doing great injustice to the exhibitors. 



The awards of premiums in this department were made by an expert judge with 

 general satisfaction to the exhibitors. 



Poultry raising has grown into a large and highly remunerative business. As 

 now conducted it is a business for every day in the year. There is in almost every 

 city and town of considerable population in the country one or more establishments 

 that make an exclusive business of buying and shipping to the larger cities poultry 

 and poultry products, and yet the cry is for more. Indiana appears to be doing 

 her share of this production and trade. 



The general statistics for 1882 give the poultry product at $^560,000,000, being 

 $72,000,000 greater than the wheat product. Notwithstanding this immense pro- 

 duction we import from Canada, France and Germany many millions of dollars 

 worth of eggs. 



"The egg crop of this country last year amounted to $475,682,889, being only 



■ $8,992,890 less than the wheat crop, not counting the millions of eggs and chickens 



consumed bv farmers and others, of which no reports are made." — Farmincf World. 



AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENT. 



H. LATOUBETTE, SUPERINTENDENT. 



Ml. Preddeni — As Superintendent of the Agricultural Department, 1 submit 

 the following report: 



The exhibits in this department for this year was good, particularly in wheat, 

 of which there were over twenty varieties, quite a number being new and, were very 

 fine. In corn, also, there was a large and very fine exhibit, the best I have 



