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OULTRY raising in the South, like everything else industrially, is still largely in its swaddling clothes. Only a few years back hardly anyone raised poultry for the market, and the eggs, chickens and turkeys that found their way to the city table were almost exclusively some of the surplus gathered from the nearby farms by the country merchants. The good housewife would spare a few fryers or hens from her flock, or send a dozen or two eggs to town, in exchange for ribbons, trimmings, thread or other little accessories of dress or things to use in the house. Those who produced birds or eggs exclusively for the market were very few indeed.

The chicken yard, or rather the barnyardfor there is where the chickens were raisedof ten years ago presented a variegated effect of fowls of different sizes, colors and breeds. In fact, chickens were known rather by their individual color and size than by breed-it was the "big red rooster" or "the little black hen," rather than the Rhode Island Red or Black Minorca. Eggs were just as much a conglomerate of sizes and colors. In fact there wasn't one in a hundred of the people who knew one breed from another or knew the names of half a dozen breeds.

But the poultry situation is somewhat different now. No part of the industrial revolution of the past ten or fifteen years in the South has been more remarkable than that affecting poultry production. Every progressive farmer-wife raises some poultry for the market. In the smaller town nearby she often has regular customers, either among the dealers or townspeople, for all she produces. In many instances the farmer himself devotes a great deal of attention to the raising of chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese, and here and there throughout the whole of the South are to be found men who are in the poultry business exclusively.

It was in the Southern small towns and cities that people first began to be interested in fine chickens and up-to-date appliances and houses, but the contagion has rapidly spread to the country. Now all through the country are to be found large flocks of beautiful thoroughbred standard bred chickens, turkeys, ducks

and geese. There is hardly a Southern county now that could not hold a creditable show of standard bred poultry, of all kinds, under the American Poultry Associations rules and in accordance with the Standard of Perfection. And today some of the best judges of fine birds and some of the most profitable producers in the country are to be found on Southern farms. They know the business and know how to make it pay, and thousands of others are tak ing it up yearly.

In the South chickens used to have to roost in trees and on fences, and the old hen stole her nest in the weeds or under the corn crib. Occasionally she was set in a box or an old barrel. Nowadays, on thousands of Southern farms are to be found the most modern and approved poultry houses of all kinds, incubators, brooders, trap-nests, and all the other fixtures necessary for successful poultry raising.

There are a number of contributing causes to this growth of the poultry industry in the South. There has been a general awakening along all lines of human interest and activity. People have broken away from antiquated methods and implements and scrub stock and are using brains in their work instead of doing it in the old haphazard way. They have learned also that the best-thoroughbreds-cost more to raise than scrubs, and that the market returns on them are far better.

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There has also grown up, and it is still growing, a tendency on the farm to diversify-not to depend exclusively on any one or two crops. A variety are now grown and the grower tries to make every one pay. The production of birds and eggs is now made a part of the regular activities of more and more farms. People have found, too, that modern houses and appliances and methods obviate most of the troubles and remove most of the pitfalls that used to attend the production of poultry.

There are seventeen journals in the South devoted exclusively to the poultry business, all of which have been established in the past ten years. These, with the many farm journals of wide Southern circulation, all teeming with information and advertisements of interest to the poultry raiser, have had and are still hav

ing a wholesome and strengthening effect on the poultry industry. They create an interest in good birds and foster it, they help to remove the difficulties of the business, they tell the one interested where he can get the best of the breed he is interested in, and where he can get incubators, brooders, and other appliances. One has but to read a few of these Southern poultry and farm journals-advertisements and all-to see that the poultry industry here is one of vast importance.

Perhaps as great an agency as any in the growth of the poultry industry are the poultry shows and the poultry exhibits at the fairs. Hundreds of such local exhibits, as well as many big ones, are held each year. Here the visitors see the wonderful results their neighbors and others are achieving in the raising of fine birds, and go home determined to do

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likewise. Some of them buy from exhibitors before they leave the show. Others go home and study the advertisements of breeders in the journals and order later. Thousands of eggs and birds are ordered every season from Northern and Eastern breeders as well as from the ever increasing number nearer home.

To discuss the future of poultry raising in the South would necessarily be the veriest conjecture. That it will grow and expand and bring thousands into it yet, no one can doubt. The raising of poultry in the South, with its continually growing better markets and its climate so suited to inexpensive production, has really just begun. Every man who has gone into the business has dozens of neighbors who are interested, and will follow his example. Poultry raising is another of the South's great possibilities just beginning of development.

HE Poultry industry of Texas is in a flourishing condition and the territory in which poultry is raised has been extended to the extreme western portion, where only a few years ago it was a negligible quantity.

There has, however, been a more marked advance in the breeding of fowis and in scientific handling of the business than in the number of fowls. Many people are now exclusively engaged in raising poultry for the markets owing to better transportation facilities and the opportunities afforded for shipping in special cars in carload lots. In 1910 the state contained 13,669,645 fowls and the increase in a decade of the value of the poultry of the state was 33.7 per cent. In egg production, Texas was ninth in that year.

Conditions for raising poultry, on account of climate and the cheapness of land are ideal, and with more attention to modern methods and appliances required in a successful business, there should be a more rapid increase in the future than in the past. That more attention is being paid to better breeds and better methods may be seen in the increase in exhibits at the State and county fairs.

Poultry raising is more largely a business than an incident to farm life now than formerly owing to the advance in prices of staple

farm crops and there being no necessity for the farmer "Piecing out" his income by the sale of poultry, eggs, vegetables, etc. At present the farmer who raises any poultry for the market is one who makes a business of it, and desires by improved breeding and better methods to make it more remunerative.

Texas is experiencing the greatest prosperity ever known in its history owing to the large crops of cotton, rice, cane, wheat, oats and feedstuffs, on which prices of remarkable stiffness are maintained. The result will be a decided demand for improved breeds of poultry and appliances required in the poultry business.

State of Ohio, Cuyahoga County, ss. Personally appeared before me. Elbert H. Baker, who, being duly sworn, says that he is General Manager of the Plain Dealer Publishing Company, and that the actual number of Daily and Sunday Plain Dealers distributed during the month of September, 1912, was on no date less than the amount indicated by the figures above published for that date, that the above figures include no free copies, no sample copies, no copies spoiled in printing and no roples remaining unsold at the Main Office, and that the number of returnable copies in the above output does not exceed two (2) per cent ELBERT H. BAKER, General Manager. to before me this 1st day of October, GEORGE N. AGATE, Notary Public.

Subscribed and swor

1912.

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ET us see what advertising is-and its possibilities. Then, let us see what the poultry industry is-and its possibilities. Then let us see whether advertising can do anything for the poultry industry. If it can, then the poultry industry can do something for advertising.

About the best definition of advertising so far invented is that it is teaching. The proposition is so obvious it needs no further comment. It may be directed to teaching people the necessity for using a certain commodity; it may be directed to teaching the advantages of one commodity over another; it may be in the line of teaching where certain commodities can be had, and at what price. But the fact remains that advertising is teaching. And it might also be said that a so-called advertisement that does not teach something is not an advertisement at all, notwithstanding it may appear in advertising columns or be displayed in big type.

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The possibilities of advertising obvious-or ought to be. It requires no extensive preaching at this time to induce any man to believe that the possibilities of advertising are practically unlimited. Not until there is no longer a necessity for further enlightenment, or for further teaching, will the limit of advertising be reached.

Now, the poultry industry of this country runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars annually. It is increasing every year, of course. It is found in every section of the United States, this poultry industry. No section is so poor but the poultry industry is a commercial quantity; no community is so rich but the poultry industry plays a prominent part in that richness.

But the poultry industry has by no means reached its limit. In fact, it has hardly begun its career. For it is based upon the solid foundation of human want, and upon a want that will exist so long as it is necessary for men to eat in order to live.

Then, there is the ornamental side of the poultry industry, if that is the way to express it. There is a poultry industry that does not contemplate satisfying the appetite, but which appeals to the esthetic, or which satisfies other

desires than those growing out of the necessity for eating.

The poultry industry of the world must play a larger part in the food supply in the future than it has played in the past, great as has been that part. This is in part due to the fact that our game is disappearing. Poultry and poultry products must supply the deficiency caused by the disappearance of game. It is the last link between the absolutely necessary and the much enjoyed luxury of flesh.

Take the matter of eggs-a single branch of the poultry industry. There is not invented a single new method of cookery that does not call for eggs. The more we learn concerning the art of preparing our foods the more demand there is for the egg. It is coming to the point that no matter what one has prepared for a meal, eggs figure in it some way.

As a food in itself, there is no equal of the egg. There is no other flesh that will take the place of fowl. But there are a lot of people who must yet be taught concerning eggs and poultry-and right there is where the matter of advertising comes in, since we have seen that advertising is teaching.

Let it not be supposed that advertising would increase the cost of poultry products. Advertising has never increased the cost of any commodity since the world began. Advertising cheapens the cost of everything it touches. There are a lot of people who look upon advertising as an expensive proposition. It is just the opposite. It is an economy. Any amount of money that might be spent in this country in advertising poultry-in teaching facts concerning poultry-would not add a penny to an egg or increase to the consumer the price of chickens. It would tend to increase production, and aid distribution, and make profits for the producer while giving a cheaper article of food or fancy to the con

sumer.

That is something more than a bald statement. It is entirely in keeping with science. To scientifically increase the output causes greater profits to the producer and brings smaller prices for the consumer. It always has and it always will.

One trouble with the poultry industry is that