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Show Specialized Egg Farming Growing Has Been Outstanding Development De-velopment in Agriculture Since the War. Prepared by ttie L'nitPd States Department (if AKrictilture.) Specialized egg farming has been an outstanding development in American agriculture since the war. It has be-coniit be-coniit ua Important factor in egg production. pro-duction. I'oultry had been one of the nation's largest but least organized agricultural industries. Although nine fanners out of ten kept poultry, few a i i J attention to the individual lien. Accordingly conditions were very favorable fa-vorable for specialized egg farming. Eggs and poultry were relatively higher in price than dairy products, meat animals, and other farm commodities, com-modities, and feed prices favored the poultrymon. Little Capital Needed. Another stimulus was the fact that little capital was needed to get started in the business, and returns were not long delayed. The business accordingly accord-ingly had a tremendous growth. Originally Orig-inally developed in the vicinity of large cities to supply the local markets, mar-kets, specialized egg farming in some sections., increased its output beyond tin; requirements of the near-by population. popu-lation. Mainly through co-operative effort, however, wider markets were obtained. This resulted In the development devel-opment of specialized egg-farming communities, which are located principally prin-cipally on the Pacific coast. Despite the rapid expansion of the business, specialized egg farming remains re-mains a minor factor in the total production pro-duction of eggs in the United States. Farm Hocks still account for about 83 per cent of our annual egg crop. Good Future Probable. The United States Department of Agriculture believes, however, that 'a good future for specialized egg farming farm-ing is probable. Specialized poultry-men poultry-men cannot expect to survive the competition of the small farm flock if they follow ordinary tlock methods and practices. Indications are, however, how-ever, that they understand the requirements re-quirements of their business better than to do that. The more successful of them realize that the specialized poultry industry must produce special quality eggs and find a market for them at special prices. It must also maintain not only a high average annual an-nual egg production but a high production pro-duction in the season when the best eggs are scarce. |