CHAPTER VIII 



The American Queen 



HE hen has surely made wonderful strides during 

 the past few years. The value of the products 

 of the hen is greater than the value of the entire 

 wheat crop. In 1900 the chicken industry started 

 upward with leaps and bounds, keeping up such a 

 fast pace that today it is only surpassed in value 

 by the corn, hay, and cotton. The Government 

 reports place the products of the hen at nine 

 hundred million dollars annually. The day is not far distant when 

 the poultry industry will be a billion dollar industry and will lead 

 the live stock and grain growing industries of the country. 



The ordinary prophet cannot tell with any degree of certainty 

 what she will do in the future. There has never been a time when 

 the demand for fresh eggs and dressed poultry was so great. When 

 the price of fresh eggs goes up to sixty or sixty-five cents a dozen, 

 we wonder who will buy them. But still they sell, and the demand 

 is greater than the supply. There seems to be a market in all the 

 large cities for more fresh eggs than can be obtained during the 

 Winter months, when the prices are the highest. There does not seem 

 to be any limit to the demand. Prices have increased about 50 

 per cent during the past ten years. People are beginning to believe 

 that it is better to eat more eggs, even at a high price, than so 

 much meat. There has never been such a demand for pure bred 

 stock and hatching eggs from standard bred poultry as at the present 

 time. The prices that good birds bring are simply wonderful. It is 

 not an uncommon thing for a good specimen to sell for one hundred 

 dollars. There was a time when a setting of eggs at one dollar was 

 considered high. Now it is an easy matter to find many breeders 

 charging a dollar for a single egg, or fifteen dollars per setting. 

 They not only ask this price but get it, and the purchasers are satis- 

 fled that they are getting value for their money. There are a number 

 of breeders who are getting from two to five dollars each for their 

 best eggs. They are giving many years of expert breeding in these 

 eggs, and as a rule the buyer feels that he is getting all he pays for. 



Good Time to Get Interested in Poultry 



It is good time for every person interested in poultry to get busy. 



