20 POULTRY BREEDING AND MANAGEMENT 



industry, not to mention the mass of poultry literature pub- 

 lished by the various farm journals as well as newspapers. 



The first reference to poultry in the publications of the 

 Department of Agriculture, is in the Annual Report of the 

 Patent Office for 1845. The first bulletin or entire publica- 

 tion on this subject issued by the Department was Bulletin 

 41 "Standard Varieties of Chickens." Up to July, 1911, 

 41 publications devoted entirely to poultry, and containing 

 1,696 pages, were published by the Department. The Maine 

 Station Report for 1887 was probably the first to report 

 poultry work. The New York Geneva Station, Bulletin 29, 

 1891, was the first bulletin to report experiments with fowls. 



It was in 1880 that poultry-keeping assumed sufficient 

 importance to be included in a census of farm products by 

 the federal government. Now practically every agricultural 

 college and experiment station either has an organized poul- 

 try department or is giving instruction and conducting 

 experiments with poultry in connection with other depart- 

 ments. 



Notwithstanding all this recent work in poultry husban- 

 dry, history is strangely silent about the improvement of 

 the hen or the development of the poultry industry, in 

 which she is the most significant factor. Moving picture 

 films came too late to tell her history. The word ' ' fowl ' ' or 

 "cock" or "hen" is mentioned in books here and there 

 throughout the centuries. As civilization advanced and 

 books became more plentiful, more extended references are 

 found, showing that the fowl was gradually coming into her 

 own, becoming a factor of importance to civilized man. 



Though there is no written history of the poultry industry 

 until recent times, yet throughout the centuries the hen has 

 been the companion of man, developing new characteristics, 

 changing the color and pattern of her dress, adding to or 

 subtracting from her weight, improving her economic quali- 



