THE HOME MARKET FOR POULTRY 
Great Value of Plymouth Rocks. 
Again in the harness, after a lapse of some years 
from actual work with poultry, I find the situation 
much improved. It is a safe guess that the high 
price of beef has been the means of higher prices 
and improved demand for poultry products. A five- 
pound roasting chicken that some seven years ago 
retailed for 90 cents now commands $1.35. The 50 
per cent advance is in large part increased gain. 
My staple whole grain is wheat, now selling in my 
section at .$2 per hundred. I have paid $2.25, and 
occasionally as high as $2.50, in the days of lower 
prices for poultry products. I estimate the cost to 
grow a chicken to weigh five pounds at five months 
at GO cents for pur¬ 
chased feed. Green feed, 
while very essential, 
stands for no cash out¬ 
lay. This leaves a bal¬ 
ance of 75 cents to show 
for labor. 
It is my contention 
that poultry raising in 
New England is a safe 
and sane proposition. It 
is the custom just now 
to magnify the egg, pos¬ 
sibly the result of the 
boom on egg contests, a 
thing which is to be de¬ 
plored as tending to set 
an undue emphasis upon 
that form of increase. 
A score of chickens 
m i g h t be grown and 
profitably marketed to 
one at present, on the 
basis of the value in 
dressed poultry. Of 
these, three-quarters of 
the pullets, as well as 
the males, could be ad- 
van ta geously mu rketed, 
leaving only the choic¬ 
est for laying and re¬ 
production. If these 
were of the general pur¬ 
pose t y p e, which not 
only give better and 
more flesh, but continue 
egg development with 
the shortening days, a 
thing the special egg- 
breeds find it difficult to 
do, the consumer would 
not suffer shortage. 
Much gratuitous advice is being given to farmers 
as to the growing of cattle to meet the extortion in 
prices; but the high price of meat will never be 
lowered by Eastern-grown beef. We all know that 
cheap ranges for the herds in the West are fast 
going. It is a fair guess that if a considerable pro¬ 
portion of the talent seeking rainbow opportunities 
in the West would buckle down to producing right 
here in the East what the hungry are clamoring for, 
we should have the logical solution of the high cost 
of living. And the poultry business, if conducted 
with the double aim of eggs, especially where de¬ 
mand is greatest, and a quality of carcass far beyond 
the average, and actually costing less to grow than 
the average, would do much to rehabilitate New 
England’s bare farms. 
As poultry is the logical substitute for beef, its 
production in the thickly settled sections of New 
England, right at the consumer’s door, extends the 
most alluring prospects for such as enter the busi¬ 
ness wisely. Eggs are not to be lost sight of, and no 
indifferent laying breed is to be considered Eggs 
vary little in commercial worth in average markets 
P.ut when it comes to the carcass, any breed inferior 
in quality to the best you may have to compete with 
would be a serious handicap. 
I raised the past season 200 Barred Rocks, and as 
they grew to roaster size I sold the cockerels to 
family trade. Three Rhode Island Red cockerels I 
sold among the rest, and I heard from each buyer 
later that they preferred my Rocks. The city mar- 
hut in towns, to get and keep a desirable retail trade 
is all important, and warrants much care in the 
selection of a breed. 
The term “general-purpose breed” may suggest the 
union of diverse traits at the cost of some sacrifice 
of quality; a condition which for good reasons does 
not apply to the Barred Rocks. This breed stands 
the very highest as a flesh producer, being depend¬ 
able as a breeder, the chicks thriving under condi¬ 
tions where some special carcass breeds prove diffi¬ 
cult to rear. So strong a hold has the golden-lined 
Rock upon New England tastes that no competition 
in white-fleshed breeds may be feared. And going 
below the surface, the Rock is so superior in quality 
as frequently to call forth remark upon the sweet¬ 
ness of its meat, which has happened occasionally in 
my own experience. The fact that the wholesale 
packers nav a bonus for Barred Rocks over any other 
breed is in itself suggestive, for that is the last place 
to look for sentiment to affect price. As to laying, 
I have found even June-hatched Rocks dependable 
Winter layers; and if not making so high an annual 
record as some, they can hold their own in actual 
receipts from eggs laid in the season of scarcity. 
The Ame.ican Poultry Association, which receives 
so many hard knocks for its work in giving distin¬ 
guishing form and color to each distinct breed of 
fowls, has now in preparation a utility standard, 
which is expected to do a similar work in standard¬ 
izing tlie dressed poultry and eggs output of all 
breeds. It is a safe prediction that the day is not so 
far distant when both eggs and dressed poultry may 
be ordered “sight un¬ 
seen” with tolerable 
certainty as to what one 
is buying. Further, the 
age, fatness, and all 
points that go to make 
marketable quality, will 
come to be a matter of 
as careful grading as 
we now observe in pack¬ 
ing fruit. The bonus of 
several cents per dozen 
commanded by Leghorn 
eggs in New York mar¬ 
ket is chiefly a matter 
of uniform product. No 
one is so rash as to 
suppose the Leghorn is 
more valuable than an 
egg of any other breed, 
but it so happens that 
this is the only breed 
the output of which as 
marketed is strictly 
uniform in every par¬ 
ticular. 
This utility standard 
will soon be published, 
and is anticipated to 
bring order out of cha¬ 
os as to poultry prod¬ 
ucts. In bygone days 
Winter apples were 
gathered and stored 
without regard to vari¬ 
ety, and, as a child, I 
remember to have seen 
an old farmer digging 
his crop of peachblows, 
white, red a n d blue 
potatoes, with a beauti¬ 
ful uncertainty as to 
"hat color each successive hill would yield. But 
in the coming day of uniformity in poultry products 
these things will appear no more absurd than mis¬ 
cellaneous marketing of all sorts and conditions of 
produce. It is already imperative in the working 
up of a stable market for poultry that in place of 
mongrels one has that degree of uniformity and 
quality which is possible only with pure stock, and 
well-bred at that. For as different stocks of the 
same breed vary as to laying powers, so also will 
they differ in the value of their meat. 
I will say in closing that opportunity is now ex¬ 
tending the glad hand to those who would venture 
judiciously into the poultry field, especially in the 
thickly settled East. In order to be most economically 
conducted and most surely profitable it should be 
kels can name a higher figure for the choicer grades; 
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FOUNDATION STOCK FOR FARM IMPROVEMENT. Fig. 10. 
