HAMPSHIRE COUNTY FARMERS' MONTHLY 



FARMERS' MONTHLY 



PUBLISHED BY THE 



Hampshire County Trustees for Aid to 

 Aj>riculture 



POCLTKY ITSELF A DIVERSITY 



Koliiiiil A. 1 

 Mildifil W. 



\i-<iil 



STAFI-' 



l*:ivii<*. County .\x<'iil 

 Kiiit'c. 



Iloiiif I>(>iiit>iist rati 

 K^iia i,. Ki'liaril. (uiiiity < liih Aefiit 

 Mary ('. O'l.wiry, Cl<Mk 

 Mary Sallixaii, Asst. Clerk 



Office First National Bank Building 

 Nortfiampton, Mass. 

 Eutercil as secondolass matter Nov. 9. Ptl5. at the 

 Post Office at Nortliami)toii. Massadinsetts, vmder 

 the Act iif March 8, ISTil 



"Xritice oi Kiitry*' 



••Acceiitanci' for mailing at spe<:ial rate of post- 

 age provided for in section llOH, Act of October a 

 1917. Authorized October ;tl. 1H17." 



Price. HI) cents a year 



Officers of the Trustees 



Edwin B. Clapp, Piesident 

 Charles E. Clark, Vice-President 

 Warren M. King, Treasurer 

 Roland A. Payne, Secretary 



Trustees for County Aid to Agriculture 



Edwin B. Clapp, Easthampton 

 Charles E. Clark, Leeds 

 Clarence E. Hodgkins, Northampton 

 William N. Howard, Ware 

 Milton S. Howes, Cummington 

 Mrs. Clifton Johnson, Hadley 

 Warren M. King, Northampton 

 •John A. Sullivan, Northampton 

 Charles W. Wade, Hatfield 



I'oMiinufd from page 1. column 2 

 physical location ju.st like a factory 

 buying the raw materials and selling a ^'°'" '^ ''^ necessary to introduce other 

 finished product. The grocer, the baker branches of agriculture to diversify a 

 and candle-stick maker are just as ; Poultry enterprise. Within the field of 

 necessary to such a home as to an urban Pou't'T husbandry there is a great 

 dweller. 



Quite different from either of these is 



the diversified farm. Perhaps, it can bi 

 best described as a specialized farm mul- 

 tiplied two or three or four times. It 

 concentrates on .several cash crops in 



variety of interest which may be de- 

 veloped to increa.<e revenue. In fact, 

 many poultrymen do not care to attempt 

 other kinds of work. For them, large 

 volume of business means either many 

 hens or the development of such di- 



CO-OPERATION IN OPERATION! 



Every club in the county has given it 

 at the beginning of the year a secretary's 

 report book. This is so arranged that 

 a carbon copy of the report of each 

 meeting is sent to the county club agent. 



The women in the county are naturally 

 interested in clothing work. Miss Boice 

 working with the local groups or Miss 

 Tucker working with a group of leaders, 

 give the work to the women. It takes 

 in many things, such as care of machine, 

 short cuts, making bound buttonholes and 

 similar practices. 



The progi-am foi- the South Amherst 

 Sewing Club recently reported was: 

 "Mrs. Lombard gave a demonstration of 

 how to make a set-in pocket and a bound 

 button hole." Mrs. Lombard is one of 

 the leaders of the adult work who got 

 this work from Miss Tucker. She agreed 

 to pass it on to other women. But she 

 didn't stop there. She has given it to 

 the "women of tomorrow"— the club giils 

 of today. We call that farsightedness, 

 common sense, coopeiation and extension 

 work ! 



Note — M. A. C. High School Day, 

 5, 1923. 



May 



volumes large enough to be worth while, vo'-sity to market egg production as the 

 preferably combining enterpri.«;es which 

 fit well together in the use of land and 

 which give a uniform distribution of 

 daily and seasonable labor. 



THE SPECIALIZED POULTRY PLA.NT 



Poultry keeping as specialized farming 



made its advent about 1890 and measured ^'S*^ fecundity, or high egg laying ability, 



in terms of peisonal satisfaction, as well '* gi'owing day by day. They are 



as profits, it is probably the most success- Producers and reproducers, not breeders, 



ful of New England's agricultural enter- Many of them have neither the desire, 



prises. Market egg production is the "^^e ability, nor the facilities for bi-eeding. 



backbone of the commercial hennery with Their wants are an opportunity for the 



poultry as meat a by-product. Broiler development of breeding plants for the 



sale of breeding stock, hatching eggs, 

 baby-chicks, matuie pullets, soft roasters, 

 winter chickens, or exhibition birds. 



Commercial poultrymen are beginning- 

 to realize that there are hens and hens. 

 They are interested in greater productiv- 

 ity and the demand for breeding stock of 



plants have been undertaken, piobably 

 with little real success, and roaster pro- 

 duction has all but disappeared except as 

 a side-line for the ambitious egg pro- 

 ducer. 



While the commercial hennery is usual- 

 ly profitable if the operator appreciates 

 the biological problems which he en- 

 counters, and which he must surmount if 

 his success is to endure, too often the 

 volume of business done, especially if the 

 quality of the stock is poor, is not suf- 

 ficient to yield more than a meagre living. 

 The family living costs, taxes, insur- 

 ance, and fliver are nearly the same 

 whether a man keeps 300 or 1,000 hens. 

 In the first case, in market egg pro- 

 duction, he may make a living; in the 

 second, although the profit per hen may be ^^'^ ^^'^^ appeal to poultrymen looking for 

 slightly reduced, he has a chance of diversity. In fact, they often become his 

 making more than a mere living and per- major interest. The best source of 



sale of birds of superior production 

 values, such as are so well known in the 

 field of poultry fancying. 



Pullets ten w-eeks old and mature are 

 also profitable sidelines. Many poultry- 

 men say that mature pullets are the most 

 satisfactory kind of stock to sell. There 

 are often comebacks beyond the pro- 

 ducer's control with hatching eggs and 

 chicks. Properly matured pullets give 

 immediate results and satisfaction. The 

 price usually allows a profitable margin 

 above costs to the men who can raise 

 more than his own needs and in addition 

 gives him the first choice for his own 

 pens. 



Baby-chicks of recent years have 

 gained so in popularity that they make 



haps have the satisfaction ( ? ) 

 an income tax return. 



of filing chicks is the poulti'yman having superior 

 stock who in addition to his own needs 

 has additional incubator capacity. As 

 DIVERSIFICATION MAY HELP years go by and chick consumei-s learn 



Increasing the size of a plant however, by experience this fact will be appre- 

 ciated. The future of the chick indus- 

 try lies not with large hatcheries, 

 although they have been of service in 

 poi)ularizing baby-chicks, but with these 

 chick producing poultrymen and local 

 hatcheries doing custom hatching or 

 selling chicks from local flocks of known 

 supei'ior quality. 



Profitable poultry husbandry from an 

 economic standpoint needs volume and 

 (juality; from a biological standpoint 

 health and fecundity. Look to your 

 volume, for volume is necessary to reap a 

 good living. Take stock of your oppor- 

 tunity, with the same plant investment 

 and capacity to make the eggs from your 



is not the only way of increasing the 

 volume of business. Improvement in 

 quality of stock practically always re- 

 sults in inci-easing the profits obtained. 

 Diversity secured thi'ough the intro- 

 duction of another enterprise, non-com- 

 petitive of labor, has in some instances 

 made a more secure business proposition 

 and enabled many poultrymen to with- 

 stand sieges of hard luck. In other 

 words, his eggs were not all in one basket. 

 Many farm enterprises fit well into a 

 .scheme of poultry farm organization. 

 Strawberries and other small fruits go 

 well in theory and, perhaps, in practice. 

 The choice is wide, it ranges from flowers 

 to cows, perhaps the extreme combination hens bring in more money than when sold 

 in Massachusetts being a poultry and as table eggs. Yours is the oppoitunity, 

 fox farm (foxes kept intentionally!) make the mo.st of it. 



