No. 4.] MODERN POULTRY CULTURE. 95 



Advantages and Disadvantages of Modern 

 Methods of Poultry Cui^ture. 



BY SAMUEL CUSHMAN, PAWTUCKET, K. I. 



Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen : I am on the pro- 

 gramme as " Professor " Samuel Cushman. I make no claim 

 to being a professor. The title was sometimes given me by 

 courtesy, I suppose, when I was connected with the Rhode 

 Island Experiment Station. 



My experience with poultry dates bad? to the time I was 

 ten years old, when my grandfather, a Massachusetts farmer, 

 presented me with a pair of fowls. A few years later he 

 gave me a hive of bees, and is therefore responsible for the 

 interest I have in poultry and bees. He is still living, I am 

 glad to say. 



In my experience as a fancier, in breeding and selling 

 poultry for exhibition and breeding, also as an experimenter 

 along practical lines when at the Rhode Island Experiment 

 Station, I have gathered some ideas which perhaps are a little 

 different from those who have produced poultry only for 

 market. 



A word about the poultry industry. Almost every one 

 now realizes its great commercial importance. It is esti- 

 mated there are 380,000,000 fowls in this country, that the 

 total earnings of poultry are $290,000,000, and that the in- 

 dustry represents a permanent investment of $240,000,000. 

 Whether these estimates are correct or not (they are prob- 

 ably too low rather than too high), it is a fact that from 

 1887 to 1890, when eggs came into this country free of 

 duty, there were from 13,000,000 to 15,000,000 dozen 

 imported each year. During the same period less than 

 2,500,000 dozen were exported any one year. In 1892, 

 under a duty, the yearly imports dropped clear down to 

 less than 2,000,000 dozen, and since then have gone no 



