Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 219, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 September 1916 — MAKING the FARM PAY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MAKING the FARM PAY

By PROF. P. G. HOLDEN,

Fontier Dean of the lowa Agricultural college.

POULTRY AND EGG CROP

Almost every furmer keeps some poultry. The trouble is he doesn’t make the poultry keep him. Too many of them are roosters. A lot more are old hens that lay but a few eggs and then want to set. Whenever the price of eggs gets high, the old hens go on a strike. They lay in the henhouse when they please, but too much of the time prefer to lay their eggs out in the fence corners; That means they are not gathered until they are stale —and in consequence a lqw price for the <‘ggs.

The average farmer considers poultry raising a “side Issue," a Job for women and children —a sort of necessary nuisance in order to provide fresh eggs and a toothsome roast or fry. But after all, this “side issue" branch of the farming business, poultry, nets an annual return in the United States of over $600,000,000 or enough money to build two Panama canals every year. The Panama canal has been written into the pages of history as one of the greatest achievements of modern times. In its construction our greatest minds in the science of engineering, art and medicine were employed. Yet the farm hen with little or no care closes her yearly account with a balance of more than half a billion dollars. Only a very small portion of this vast sum of money is earned by the well-cared-for commercial hen. Ninety per cent of it goes to the credit of the much neglected flocks ranging at liberty on the farms of the country. Hen Not Appreciated.

None of us half appreciate the money-earning possibilities of the hen. For example, the cotton growing states during a recent slump in the cotton market due -to the European war. Joined other cotton producing states in an appeal to congress for federal aid to tide them over the financial difficulty. The appeal was for $150,000,(XX) to be distributed in the South through the medium of the federal reserve banks. If these one-crop states had reckoned with the farm hen they would have saved themselves the humiliation of asking Uncle Sam for help.

We will take Arkansas to illustrate the point. 1

The average county in Arkansas contains about 3,000 farms. If on each farm there had been 100 hens, each laying through th 4 year eight dozen eggs, only about a quarter of an egg a day, and the eggs had sold for 20 cents a dozen, the income per farm would

have amounted to $l6O. At. this rate the 3,000 farms 4n each county would have produced $480,000. Based on these figures, the state of Arkansas with her 74 counties, would have produced nearly a 35,000,000-dollar egg crop. This sum is far in excess of the money Arkansas would have received as her share of the federal loan and more than half of the value of the annual cotton crop. This $35,000,000 distributed among the banks of Arkansas would have relieved one of the most critical periods In the economic history of the state. The earning power of the hen exceeds that of all other farm animals —the dairy cow hot excepted. Profit in Poultry. Let us not overlook this opportunity. Any farmer can have poultry. He can make more clear profit out of poultry than the commercial poultryman can make First, the care of poultry fits well into the other farm work; the investment is small; feed is cheap; the chickens convert the waste products of the farm into During the greater %>art

of the year the chickens live on grass, clover, surplus garden stuff, gleanings from the grain fields, litter about the barn and feed lots, and more important than all else, they consume weed seeds, insect enemies to crops and other pests. Record of Eighteen Ohio Farm Flocks. Two years ago the Ohio experiment station made a study of the promts in farm poultry. Records of 1& typical farm flocks were carefully kept. These flocks ranged in number from 36 to 370, some were purebreds; others were mongrels. They were kept, fed and tended just as the farmer had been caring for them before the experiment station asked him to keep a record. Here are the results of the investigation. For the sake of comparison, we have figured the profit from each flock on the basis of 100 hens in a flock. The best five flocks yielded respectively $247, $154, $153, $lO7 and $lO4 per hundred hens, while the poorest five flocks yielded $67, $66. $63, $62 and sls respectively. In no case was there a loss. The average profit per hundred hens of the 18 flocks was SB7. Poultry Profits.

One hundred hens are worth a hundred dollars —just about the price of a good dairy cow. Records of the cowtesting association in lowa show that the average dairy cow makes a profit of $33. Which would you rather do—milk two or three cows or take care of a hundred hens? Most of us fail to fealize that poultry is profitable—the wife *pays the grocery bills and every now and then gets a new piece of furniture or a new dress with the “chicken money.” But probably not one farmer in a thousand could tell just how much his chickens are paying. You probably have about a hundred hens —that’s the average size of the farm flocks in the United States. How f much profit are they producing? Are they above the average or below? Are you getting $247 or sls? Produce Eggs When Price is High. Sixty per cent of the eggs are produced in March, April and May. Then the number drops gradually until only one per cent is produced in November. Production remains low during Janu-

ary and February and increases to 12 per cent in March. The price goes down whenever the production goes up. Why not produce eggs in the winter? Get the advantage not only of increased production, but of high price.

In January eggs sell on an average for about 30 cents per dozen. The price decreases until in April eggs are bringing only 18 cents. A large number of eggs are put in cold storage at this time and this keeps the price fairly high considering the great amount of eggs produced. The price drops to 17 cents during the summer months because there is such a large number of poor eggs on the market. In Septem-

ber the price begins to rise and Increases gradually but„rapidly until it reaches

Wfcy not take better at yam hens and have them working for you during the winter Instead of keeping them at a loss during this period? You can produce winter eggs. Put your hens in a warm, comfortable, well* ventiluted house, give them uitiogenous food and furnish water, grit and oyster shell. Of course, It will be some trouble to increase your egg production. Don’t expect results if you go at things spasmodically, doing one or two things and letting the rest go.

Fowls need animal protein food. Bugs and worms furnish this in the summer; buttermilk and beef scrap make good substitutes in the winter. This chart gives the results of an Ontario experiment. Twenty-five hens receiving buttermilk in their ration made sll profit in eight months; a similar flock fed beef scrap made $lO profit, while a flqck receiving no meat or milk was kept at a loss of $3. A similar experiment in Indiana shows that hens fed skim milk or beef scrap made a profit of $1 per hen annually, while those receiving neither beef scrap or milk were kept at a loss of four cents per hen.

If you feed beef scrap, get good quality, testing 60 or 65 per cent protein. Be careful not to feed too much. Few people understand that eggs ary almost as perishable as meat or milk. They belong to the same class of food, but just because they are inclosed in a hard shell, people think they will stand almost any kind of treatment. Government experts estimate a loss of $45,000,000 every pear from bad eggs. This loss can prevented by better handling and marketing. Loss From Shrinkage. Five per cent of the eggs in the United States are lost through shrinkage. The shell of an egg is porous. It is made this way so the developing chick can get air during the incubation period. Seventy-four per cent of an egg is water. Whenever an egg Is in a temperature above freezlog, this water Is

evaporating through the shell. The higher the temperature and the more circulation of air there is the faster the evaporation takes place. Eggs grow stale in warm poultry houses, in hot kitchens, on the farm or in the cupboards of the consumer. Egg dealers count that three stale eggs are equal to a rotten egg and pay accordingly. Gather your eggs daily and keep them in a cool place. Market them as often as possible—at least once a week—better twice a week.

$15,000,000 Annual Loss. Fertile eggs cause a great loss —a loss estimated by the government experts at $15,000,000 a year. Two years ago the United States government experts conducted an experiment in Kansas to compare the loss from fertile and infertile eggs.

How Experiment Was Conducted. Ten thousand .eggs, collected from different farms, were used in the experiment. Half were fertile and half were infertile, and every egg was absolutely fresh when it entered the experiment. These eggs were kept on the farm under ordinary farm conditions. Some were stored in parlors, some in kitchens, some in cellars and some In pantries. Some were put in nests, some under laying hens and some under sitting hens. The same number of fertile and infertile eggs were always put under exactly the same conditions. In a week the eggs were cpllected and sold to the local grocery store where they were candled. They were then shipped to St. Louis,* where they were again candied.

Results of Experiment. While on the farm 29 per cent of the fertile eggs were spoiled for food, as compared with only 16 per cent of the infertile ones. On the way to market 14 per cent of the fertile ones were spoiled as compared with 9 per cent of the infertile. This makes a total of 43 per cent of the fertile eggs unfit for food as compared with only 25 per cent of the infertile ones—a difference of 19 per cent. Notice that the greatest loss in both fertile and infertile eggs is on the farpi. Fresh air is as good for hens as it is for people. If you have an open front or a partly open front poultry house you need not worry about the ventilation.

Fresh air does not hurt hens, but drafts are injurious. The north, east and west sides of the coop should be tight to prevent drafts. Get the habit of cleanliness and you need not fear lice and poultry; disease*. ; : tr. ! " ~ “ ;

Flock of Purebred Youngsters.

60 Eggs What the average farm hen produces

120 EggS What she should produce

Chums.