Among the earliest stations to begin poultry work in this country
were Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maine. Rhode
Island conducted the first school of poultry culture. The two
stations of New York State were also early in the work, and Cornell
now has the leading school of poultry culture in this country.
West Virginia has always maintained a considerable poultry plant.
Outside of the states east of the Appalachians, the first poultry
work to be heard of was that of Prof. Dryden at the Experiment
Station of Utah. Prof. Dryden's work was of a demonstrative nature.
His early bulletins were forceful and well illustrated, and did much
to call attention to poultry work.
In all this early work the great Mississippi Valley, where
four-fifths of the nation's poultry is produced, entirely ignored
the hen. The writer began his work with poultry at the Kansas
Station in 1902, but his chickens were housed in a discarded hog
house, and no funds being available, little was accomplished. In the
last three or four years these experiment stations are rapidly
falling into line and a number of poultry bulletins have recently
been issued from these younger schools.
A few of the early landmarks in experiment station work was as
follows:
The Utah Station clearly found that hens laid about 65 per cent. as
many eggs in the second as in the first year, and that to keep hens
for egg production beyond the second year, was unprofitable.
Massachusetts proved that corn was a better food for layers than
wheat, and that the prejudice against it was founded on a misapplied
theory.
The New York Station at Geneva demonstrated that poultry generally,
and ducks in particular, are not vegetarians, and must have meat to
thrive and that vegetable protein will not make good the deficiency.
The Maine Station was chiefly instrumental in introducing
trap-nests, curtain front houses and dry feeding. The breeding work
at Maine will be discussed at length in the last section of this
chapter.
The United States Department of Agriculture did not take up poultry
work until 1906. The publications issued by the department before
that time were written by outsiders and printed by the Government.
The following is the list of the addresses of the experiment
stations who have taken a leading interest in poultry work. It is
not worth while giving a list of poultry bulletins, as many of them
are out of print and can only be consulted in a library.
Maine--Orono.
Mass.--Amherst.
Conn.--Storrs.
Rhode Is.--Kingston.
New York--Ithaca.
New York--Geneva.
Maryland--College Park.
West. Va.--Morgantown.
Iowa--Ames.
Kansas--Manhattan.
Utah--Logan.
Calif.--Berkeley.
Oregon--Corvalis.
U.S. Gov.--Washington, D.C.
Ontario--Guelph (Canada).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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