THE DOLLAR HEN
MILO M. HASTINGS
KANSAS EXPERIMENT STATION;
LATER IN CHARGE OF THE COMMERCIAL
POULTRY INVESTIGATION
OF THE UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
WHY THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN
Twenty-five years ago there were in print hundreds of completetreatises on human diseases and the practice of medicine.Notwithstanding the size of the book-shelves or the high standing ofthe authorities, one might have read the entire medical library ofthat day and still have remained in ignorance of the fact thatout-door life is a better cure for consumption than the contents ofa drug store. The medical professor of 1885 may have goneprematurely to his grave because of ignorance of facts which areto-day the property of every intelligent man.
There are to-day on the book-shelves of agricultural colleges andpublic libraries, scores of complete works on "Poultry" and hundredsof minor writings on various phases of the industry. Let thewould-be poultryman master this entire collection of literature andhe is still in ignorance of facts and principles, a knowledge ofwhich in better developed industries would be considered primenecessities for carrying on the business.
As a concrete illustration of the above statement, I want to pointto a young man, intelligent, enterprising, industrious, and agraduate of the best known agricultural college poultry course inthe country. This lad invested some $18,000 of his own and hisfriends' money in a poultry plant. The plant was built and thebusiness conducted in accordance with the plans and principles ofthe recognized poultry authorities. To-day the young man is bravelyfacing the proposition of working on a salary in another business,to pay back the debts of honor resulting from his attempt to applyin practice the teaching of our agricultural colleges and ourpoultry bookshelves.
The experience just related did not prove disastrous from somesingle item of ignorance or oversight; the difficulty was that thecost of growing and marketing the product amounted to more than thereceipts from its sale. This poultry farm, like the surgeon'soperation, "was successful, but the patient died."
The writer's belief in the reality of the situation as aboveportrayed warrants him in publishing the present volume. Whether hiscriticism of poultry literature is founded on fact or fancy may,five years after the copyright date of this book, be told by anyunbiased observer.
I have written this book for the purpose of assisting in placing thepoultry business on a sound scientific and economic basis. The bookdoes not pretend to be a complete encyclopedia of informationconcerning poultry, but treats only of those phases of poultryproduction and marketing upon which the financial success of thebusiness depends.
The reader who is looking for information concerning fancy breeds,poultry shows, patent processes, patent foods, or patent methods,will be disappoin