Show agriculture UTAH STATE EXTENSION TENSION SERVICE HOME nome ECONOMICS HOMEI T a r is kaj Is abax U S dept of agri utah state agri cafege a and county commiss on Cooper aung many utah poultry raisers are confused as to the kind of chicks to hatch or buy this spring and how they can tell whether they are getting a good chick first of all keep in mind that egg production is inherited and is passed from parent to offspring through the egg and that when a pullet is hatched its laying pos ties have already been de terin ter mined ined if the parents were from well se lecter well bred stock and the rooster was from a known high egg production hen then the pullet has a good chance of producing a large number of eggs when kept under proper conditions it costs money for a flock owner to have his flock culled blood test ed and to buy good roosters for his flock so do not expect quality chickens chicken s at cut throat prices good pullets cost more for ex ample it takes about three reg hatched chicks to produce a mature pullet as one halt half the chicks are cockerels and some will die and be culled out the problem is whether to buy chicks that are selling for 18 cents or theose selling for 25 cents coun ting three chicks per mature pul let means that one mature pullet will have an original cost of 54 cents and another may cost 75 cents or a good pullet will cost about 20 cents more at present egg prices this means the better pullet will have to lay less than six more eggs to pay for this added cost chicks of known quality will produce or more eggs each so buy chicks on quality not price five good hens are worth more than 50 poor ones so far there is no sure way of telling the quality of chicks at hat ching time but there are methods that give a good indication as to chicks quality consider these points when buy ing I 1 Is the hatchery carrying on an actual improvement program of flock culling testing and using high quality males 2 check with your successful neighbors on the source of their chicks high egg production comes from good breeding and good man argement and not by accident I 1 3 get your chicks as near home as possible you may be surprised at the ty of chicks your local or nearby hatchery is producing 4 good chicks can be purchased at reasonable prices 5 do not ask how much but how good when asking about this year s chicks conservation on ruined land soil specialists report that about million acres of once good cropland have been ruined by ero sion and that about acres are being ios each year the meaning of ruined and lost is discussed by alma J christensen chairman of the millard county agricultural conservation commit tee in the first place says the chair man the lost and ruined land can not just be written off the books as that much land we don dont t have to bother about it is one of the real threats to the good cropland still remaining if not checked the run off from that land creates the destructive floods that destroy oth er lands the top soil Is gone and there is little left to support vege tation which in turn will hold the moisture gullies start in the rum ruin ed land and eat back into the good land some of this damaged land is being brought back to where it is no longer the threat is used to be in the south kudzu and trees are now growing on badly eroded land in many areas grass and some of the more hardy shrubs are being used to keep erosion under con arol crops like corn soybeans or small grams grains cannot be grown on badly damaged land it is too cost ly to bring much of it back into production even if it were possible but it is being brought back for use as pasture and woodlots its value may never be great but the vegetation which is being produced is protecting the land from further eros on and checking its spread the chairman points out that one of the jobs abs of the agricultural conservation programs is to help heal the scars of the past and to keep the damage from spreading farmers are assisted in carrying out conservation practices which reduce the threat reports from farmers in this and arid from other counties indicate that with the aid of the program practices to hold the land are increasing vegetation is being restored dams are being built and terraces are being con strutted ted because of its importance in sup plying meat leather and wool thru the livestock industry in protect ing watersheds and conserving soil range conservation has become an established part of the agricultural conservation program airfield dust controlled by straw at some of the desert airfields during the war there was difficulty in controlling the dust often it was too dry to grow grass and ma serials to pave the fields were not available the dry farming method of straw mulching was tried the field was broken up to a depth of about six inches about two tons of straw per acre were spread on the broken ground and this cut up with a big dic dirc at least 23 inches in diameter and set straight the method worked as well for the air field operators as it does for farmers who have to anchor their summer fallow in the agn agri cultural conservation program the benefits showed up in the ing of airplane engines before the control of the dust the average fly ing time between engine changes was hours after the dust was controlled the average time was hours the old straw mulch dust control method proved corn com plemely effective even in 50 mile winds more wheat exports depend on feeding reeding total exports of wheat and flour during the current fiscal year now seem likely to reach million bushels the department of agri culture recently announced how ever if the amount of wheat which is fed to livestock and poultry dur ing the next 5 months can be held down it may be possible to ship up to million with the pre estimated 70 million bush els of other grains this would bring total gram grain exports within a range of to million this estimate is s based on the assumption that 1948 wheat crop prospects will not deteriorate ser and that livestock feeding and industrial uses will fall within limits expected at present grain export quotas for march total 36 bushels of grain I 1 compared with for feb |