MODERN DEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRY 21 



ties all without a printing press, an experiment station, or 

 a poultry show. The real history of the fowl preceded the 

 poultry show and the poultry book. The improvement of the 

 fowl was not all a matter of modern times. A century ago 

 there existed all the sizes, large and small, that we have to- 

 day, and if we are to believe some writers, economic qual- 

 ities were as highly developed then as now. About seven 

 hundred years ago eggs were so plentiful in Europe that 

 they sold at the rate of 50 for one-quarter cent. At that 

 time Charlemagne kept fowls on his "model" farms, and 

 he himself prescribed methods of management of the fowls. 

 The thirty-years war destroyed the poultry industry, as it 

 did other industries; and there are those who maintain 

 that at that time the secret of selecting the productive hen 

 was lost and has never been recovered. Be that as it may, 

 the care that was evidently given the fowls, and the cheap- 

 ness of the eggs, might indicate that the fowls were very 

 productive. 



As an industry, the public is interested only in the econo- 

 mic aspect of poultry-keeping. The great increase in pro- 

 duction has already beei* noted. This increase is probably 

 without a parallel in the history of food production. What 

 factors have been responsible for this increase ? First, the 

 increase must be ascribed largely to natural causes. With 

 the increase in the percentage of the population that live in 

 cities there has been a relatively greater consumption of eggs 

 than of meat. There has been a greater call for a lighter 

 diet than when the larger proportion of the population 

 lived by toil or muscular labor. It can hardly be said that 

 the increased price of meats has driven the people to eggs 

 as a substitute, for the price of eggs twenty years ago was as 

 low as 6 and 8 cents a dozen in different sections of the coun- 

 try, and yet the consumption of eggs per capita was less 

 than it is now. With greater riches and higher compensa- 



