CHAPTER III 



ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF POULTRY CULTURE 



The first statistics of poultry. In the United States the first 

 enumeration of poultry was made in the census of 1840, and 

 covered only the number and value of the poultry. According to 

 this census the total' value of all the poultry in the country was 

 $12,176,170.1 The eggs and other products were undoubtedly 

 worth enough more to make the aggregate $25,000,000. This 

 may be accepted as the best available estimate of the farm value of 

 poultry products at that time. In comparing these with later figures 

 the difference in the purchasing power of money must be taken 

 into account. It must also be considered that at that time much of 

 the country west of the Mississippi was little settled. In this census 

 report the state of Iowa, which now has an annual production about 

 equal to that of the whole country' in 1 840, is credited with poultry 



' In "The American Poultry Book" (Harper & Brothers, New York, 1843) '^ 

 given (p. 143) the following abstract from the returns made by the census of 

 1840, exhibiting the total value of all the poultry in the various states and territories 

 of the Union : 



