CHAPTER III 

 MODERN DEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRY 



Poultry-keeping had its birth, as has been seen, when the 

 wild fowl of the jungle chose to foresake the wild way and 

 become the companion of men. The domestication of the 

 fowl and the beginning of poultry-keeping has been of tre- 

 mendous importance to mankind. Poultry and eggs are 

 more highly prized than any other form of animal food. 

 The domesticated fowls are now producing in the United 

 States over $600,000,000 worth of eggs and poultry annual- 

 ly, and the combined value of all poultry products of the 

 different nations must reach a total of several billion dollars 

 a year. Add to this the fact that the production and con- 

 sumption of eggs and poultry are rapidly increasing, and 

 a conception may be formed as to the magnitude of the fact 

 of domestication. The development is not altogether a 

 modern achievement. Men of modern times seem more 

 concerned in exterminating wild game and animals than 

 in preserving or domesticating them, and only the strong 

 arm of the law has saved from utter annihilation many 

 species of wild fowl. 



Great as have been the achievements in the poultry realm 

 under domestication, only within comparatively recent 

 times has keeping poultry come to be recognized as an in- 

 dustry. Fifty years ago there was little or no poultry litera- 

 ture. The first enduring poultry journal was published in 

 1872 by H. H. Stoddard. Now poultry books are numbered 

 by the score, and of poultry journals there are now half a 

 hundred in the United States devoted exclusively to this 



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