26 POULTRY PRODUCTION 



Table VIII. — Showing the Comparative Rank of the First Ten 



States with Regard to the NnMBER of Poultry Kept, 



AND Their Total Value.' 



The rank of these states with reference to numbers and 

 value differs somewhat. The causes for this difference usually 

 lie in the quality of the poultry, the distance from market, 

 or both. The first ten states with reference to the value of 

 their poultry at the time of the census are also listed accord- 

 ing to their rank in Table VIII. Nearly 56 per cent, of the 

 total valuation of poultry in the United States is found in 

 these ten states. It will be noted that the same states are 

 found in each list, except that Minnesota, which stands 

 ninth in the number of poultry kept, is replaced by Michigan 

 in the list of states whose poultry shows the greatest value. 



POULTRY PRODUCTION. 



Poultry production includes those operations incident 

 to breeding and rearing domestic birds for food purposes, 

 and in preparing their products^ for market. These are 

 the activities of the breeder, the producer, and the packer. 



Early History of Poultry Production.— Poultry raising is 

 essentially a home industry. It appeared in this country 

 at least as soon as the first homes were made in Jamestown 

 in 1607. The entire product of the fiock, including the 

 feathers, was used at home. It has, however, never been a 

 frontier occupation in the sense that beef production and, 



• For complete statistics of all the states, see Table LI. 



2 The by-products of poultry production are feathers, fertilizer, gizzard 

 linings as a source of commercial pepsin, and egg-shells as a source of pow- 

 dered calcium carbonate for infant feeding. Of these, feathers are by far 

 the most important being in the case of the ostrich the primary product. 



