ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF POULTRY CULTURE 25 



to the value of only ^17,101. In some of the older eastern states 

 the value of poultry given is so large as to indicate a considerable 

 development of interest in poultry some years before it began to 

 spread widely. Thus in New York the value of poultry products 

 in 1840 undoubtedly exceeded ^5,000,000, and the annual produc- 

 tion of the Empire State at that time was greater than to-day in 

 Massachusetts. 



Present value of poultry products in the United States. The 

 Department of Agriculture estimates the total production at about 

 ^700,000,000 annually. 1 These figures, large as they seem, are 

 probably much below the actual value produced.^ They are very 

 freely quoted to show the magnitude of the poultry industry, 

 and comparisons with figures for other staples are often made, 

 showing a total value of poultry production in excess of that in 

 many other lines commonly supposed to be of greater importance. 

 These comparisons generally give distorted and exaggerated 

 views of the relative importance of poultry culture, suggesting 

 developments which in practice are difficult or impossible. While 

 large undertakings with poultry rarely succeed, the increase in 

 production due to a general extension of interest is often 

 amazing. In Kansas the average value of poultry and eggs 

 sold annually in the state for the five years ending with 1896 

 was ^3,333,562. The value for 1897 was ^3,850,997 ; the value 

 for 1907 was ;$io,30o,o82. 



1 This is estimated on the returns of the United States census of 1900 and of 

 later figures for a number of states. So far as the author has been able to learn, 

 no full census of poultry has ever been taken in the United States. Statistics for 

 poultry have been taken as part of " statistics of the farm," and no account has 

 been made of poultry not on farms or large plants. In Canada no general poultry 

 census has ever been taken. 



- An interesting and instructive exercise is to compute the cost of poultry con- 

 sumed in a country on an assumed per capita consumption. Thus, if the population 

 of the United States be taken as 90,000,000, and it be assumed that each individual 

 consumes one egg per day, and that the value of the eggs is but one cent each, it will 

 be found that the cost of supplying each resident of the United States with one egg 

 daily for a year is $328,500,000, — almost half of the estimated total production of 

 eggs and all kinds of poultry. Or, if it be assumed that the 90,000,000 people 

 represent 18,000,000 families of five persons each, and that each family con- 

 sumes weekly one chicken at a cost of twenty-five cents, it will be found that the 

 total cost of these chickens would be almost exactly one third of $700,000,000. 

 Such computations and comparisons enable one to realize what large figures 

 actually mean. 



