egg plants
are becoming more numerous.

Our consumption of pork per capita has, in the last half century,
diminished by half, our consumption of beef has remained stationary,
but our consumption of poultry and eggs has doubled itself, we know
not how many times, for a half century ago the ancestor of the
industrious hen of this age serenely scratched up grandmother's
geraniums and was unmolested by the statisticians.

Who Gets the Hen Money?

Seven hundred millions of dollars is a lot of money. Who gets it?
There are no Rockefellers or Armours in the hen business. It is the
people's business. Why? Because the nature of the business is such
that it cannot be centralized. Land and intelligent labor, prompted
by the spirit of ownership, is necessary to succeed in the hen
business. Land the captains of industry have not monopolized, and
labor imbued with the spirit of ownership they cannot monopolize.
The chicken business is, in dollars, one of the biggest industries
in the country. In numbers of those engaged in it, the chicken
business is the biggest industry in the world--I bar none. Why is
this true? Primarily because the hen is a natural part of the
equipment of every farm and of many village homes as well. It is
these millions of small flocks that count up in dollars and men and
give such an immense aggregate.

More than ninety-eight per cent. of the poultry and eggs of the
country are produced on the general farm. The remaining one or two
per cent. are produced on farms or plants where chicken culture is
the cash crop or chief business of the farmer. It is this business,
relatively small, though actually a matter of millions, that is
commonly spoken of as the poultry business, and about which our
chief interest centers. A farmer can disregard all knowledge and all
progress and still keep chickens, but the man who has no other means
of a livelihood must produce chicken products efficiently, or fail
altogether--hence the greater interest in this portion of the
industry.

The poultry business as a business to occupy a man's time and earn
him a livelihood, is a thing of recent origin and was little heard
of before 1890. Since that time it has undergone a somewhat painful,
though steady growth. Many people have lost money in the business
and have given it up in disgust, but on a whole the business has
progressed wonderfully, and now shows features of development that
are clearly beyond the experimental stage an