POULTRY PRODUCTION AND POULTRY INDUSTRY 19 



While 90.5 per cent of all the farms of the United States 

 reported chickens, there was but 0.:> per cent that reported 

 any species of poultry that did not report chickens. From 

 1910 to 1920 the number of chickens in the United States 

 nicrcased 2S.2 jjer cent, while during the same ]>eriod the 

 number of turkeys, ducks, and geese decreased 1.7, .3.1, and 

 33.7 per cent respectively. 



It should be noted in this connection that the figures of 

 1910 and 1920 are not strictly comparable. This is owing 

 to the fact that the 1910 enumeration was made April 15 

 and took into account no chickens under three months of 

 age, while the enumeration of 1920 was as of January 1. 

 The alisolute gain in the number of chickens and guinea fowl 

 was undoubtedly less than the foregoing would indicate 

 while the decreases of the otlier species were probably 

 greater. 



The popularity of the chicken is due to the fact that it 

 furnishes a convenient source of fresh meat on the farm, 

 and is, almost universally, a greater egg producer than are 

 other sorts of poultry. 



Magnitude of the Poultry Industry. — The 1911 report of 

 the Secretary of Agriculture placed the national annual 

 income from poultry products at $750,000,000, or approxi- 

 mately the combined value of the gold, silver, iron, and coal 

 mined the same year. The report of the 1920 census, places 

 the national annual income from eggs produced and poultry 

 raised at a little over $1,047,000,000, leaving the production 

 of the villages, towns and cities unaccounted for. 



" History has shown that as the population of a country 

 increases, the hen population outruns the population of other 

 domestic animals. In the United States, we had two hens 

 per person in ISSO and a little over three hens per person in 

 1900 and 1910. In the meantime the number of other (food) 

 animal units . . . has decreased 30 per cent." ■ 



The census figiures for the different states, while incom- 

 plete, are fairly comparable, because of the fact that the 

 same method was used in securing them in each state. 



' Benjamin: Jour. Am. Assn. Inst. Invest, in Poul. Hush., vol. iv, No. 3. 



