POULTRY PRODUCTION AND POULTRY INDUSTRY 47 



poultry husbandry, have failed to do on a large scale what 

 many farm folks who make no pretensions at skill are doing 

 with at least some degree of success on a small scale. 



The majority of the very man\' market poultry farms tliat 

 have been undertaken and liave failed, have failed because 

 they have been unable to maintain the health and productive 

 vigor of their flocks. Where poultry is the main source of 

 income, the conditions are likely to be those of congestion, 

 and the methods of management intensive. If the land is 

 good for general farming, it is so valuable that large numbers 

 of birds must be kept on a limited area, and the labor min- 

 imized, in order that a profit may be realized above the 

 interest on the investment in the land. 



Poultry (with the exception of waterfowl), and particularly 

 chickens and turkeys, are highly susceptilde to disease. 

 While chickens are gregarious, the natural covey is small, 

 and the practice of congregating large numbers on a limited 

 area permanently, renders each individual a menace to every 

 other individual, makes sweeping epidemics possible, and 

 renders it difficult, if not impossible, to keep the ranges and 

 runs green. Ground so heavily stocked as to make it bare 

 is a constant source of danger from disease infection. 



In how far general hygienic measures and highly vigorous 

 stock may be developed that will ofi'set these dangers is yet 

 to be seen. These are problems of management and breeding 

 worthy of investigators' best eft'orts. 



From the broad standpoint it is interesting to compare 

 the fact that in 1910 there were in this couutr\- slightly over 

 394 fowls per scjuare mile of improved farm land, or at the 

 rate of one fowl for each 1.6 acres. According to King,' 

 Japan supports 825 fowls per square mile of improved farm 

 land which allows less than .8 of an acre per fowl. It would 

 appear, therefore, that the poultry population of the United 

 States ma>' be at least doubled without serious danger of 

 widely sweeping epidemics. 



As already noted, the one exception to the foregoing is 

 duck farming. While the total production of ducks declined 



1 Farmers of Forty Centuries. 



