68 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



simply using it incidentally in connection with the other 

 crops. Jf we give them land enough to roam over they do 

 not seriously interfere with the crops, but, on the other hand, 

 help the crops which occupy the land at the same time. 



Poultry should be kept for three distinct purposes: First, 

 for the meat or the eggs that they produce; and they will 

 justify the cost of the food and the cost of the labor and 

 the care that is given them on that basis alone. In other 

 words, the margin of profit to-day in the production of eggs 

 or poultry meat will justify feeding the foods that we must 

 produce or buy at the present high prices. Second, poultry 

 husbandry is justified on the farm because of its soil-enrich- 

 ing value. You can credit your hens with about one-fifth 

 of the value of the food that you have given them, in the 

 value of the fertility they leave on the land. When it costs 

 you $1 a year to feed a hen, about 20 cents of that amount 

 stays on the land if the manure is properly handled. In 

 the. State of ]^ew York we estimate that in the towns and 

 villages and on the farms there are in the neighborhood of 

 20,000,000 hens. You can see that one-fifth of the value 

 of $20,000,000 worth of feed is $4,000,000, the value of the 

 manure, since it costs us about $1 to $1.20 a year per hen 

 for feed. That is of great importance to the State of New 

 York as regards keeping up the fertility of the farms and 

 making the land more productive. Third, hens are valuable 

 on the farm because of their value as scavengers. Hens are 

 justifiable in large numbers on most farms because of their 

 value as insect hunters and as gatherers of the grain and 

 other things that are liable to be wasted because no other 

 class of animal on the farm will be able to utilize it. 



From these three standpoints alone hens justify their ex- 

 istence on the Massachusetts and 'New York State farms. 

 As direct confirmation of these three points there are records 

 of thousands of farmers who are keeping hens successfully 

 in Massachusetts, in 'Nqv7 York and in other States. We 

 have kept careful records of hundreds of hens at the col- 

 lege for the past eight years, showing the cost of the feed 

 and the number and value of eggs produced. We know that 

 there is a large margin of profit when the hens are properly 



