No. 123.] REPORT OF COMMISSIONER. 31 



and it was too late to make arrangements for substantially 

 larger production this year. 



Under such conditions new interest in poultry could not 

 develop as usual, but, in spite of the discouraging aspects of the 

 situation, poultry keeping has gained a goodly number of new 

 recruits. Among farmers who have heretofore been indifferent 

 to its advantages there is a decided tendency toward poultry 

 keeping on a scale that will at least supply the farmer's table 

 liberallj" with poultry products. In the latter half of the year 

 there was a marked increase in the number of back-yard flocks. 

 Both of these movements seem likely to make rapid headway 

 in 1919. With other industries going back to a peace basis, it is 

 to be expected that a considerable proportion of those formerly 

 engaged in poultry keeping will take it up again. 



It is in the coming reconstruction period that the com- 

 munity as a whole will feel most the effects of the excessive 

 reduction in stocks of poultry. The return to the former scale 

 of production cannot be made in one season, or in two or three 

 seasons, by ordinary growth. Meantime, instead of selling 

 large quantities of high-class stock to other sections of the 

 country, Massachusetts poultry keepers, as a class, will be 

 heavy buyers of stock from sections they formerly supplied. 



At the present time the prevailing opinion among experienced 

 poultrymen seems to be that it will take at least five years to 

 recover the ground lost the last two years, and that it will take 

 nearer ten years to entirely overcome the effects of this loss. 

 While this seems to be the general opinion, some well-informed 

 men take a much more optimistic view, maintaining that with 

 such State agencies for the promotion of interest in poultry 

 and for assisting poultry keepers with information and advice, 

 as now exist, and such as may be developed by the appropriate 

 extension of the work of departments, the State can materially 

 shorten the period of reconstruction, and bring about the full 

 rehabilitation of the industry in a much shorter time. As one 

 means to this end it is suggested that the Department of 

 Agriculture should undertake work for poultry interests similar 

 to its long-established work for dairy interests. 



