The Corning Egg Farm book, by Corning himself

The profits are surer and larger. The reason this is not more widely known is because, in the past, few people have been able to resist the temptation of attempting to cover a number of the different branches of poultry culture. They have tried to get into the “fancy,” and have dreamed of taking a blue ribbon at Madison Square Garden, or at some other large Show. Then the broiler branch has engrossed their attention, and from that they have gone on to soft roasters, and the other phases of the slaughter house side of poultry for market purposes, and they have endeavored to cover all the different branches from which money is made in poultry, while entirely overlooking the fact that this is an age of specialization, and that the person who would succeed in any business must make up his mind to follow one branch of it, and bring that branch up to the highest efficiency.

Developing the Great Layer

From the start the Builders of The Corning Egg Farm, at Bound Brook, N. J., realized these conditions, and were never led into side issues but gave their entire thought and attention to the development of a great layer, realizing that if this was to be accomplished everything except an egg must be considered a by-product, and disposed of along the line of least resistance: in short carrying out the Scriptural injunction, “This one thing I do.” This one thought has been so successfully adhered to that the development of The Corning Egg Farm in five years has been remarkable in its production of the greatest laying type of hen yet produced, the Corning Strain Single Comb White Leghorn, placing the Farm head and shoulders above any other Egg Farm anywhere in the Country.

Egg Farming is profitable not only when carried on in a large way, but, to the suburban dweller, a small number of hens in the back yard is a profitable investment, and the system, as worked out on The Corning Egg Farm, succeeds with a few hens, and enables the owner of a small plot of land to always have sanitary, fresh eggs, to reduce his grocery bills, and materially increase the pleasure of suburban life.

Corning Method in Small Flocks

Two illustrations of the working out of the Corning Method in a small way would doubtless be of interest. While it is true that the 16 feet wide House is the most desirable from all standpoints, the length of the house may be anything from 20 feet to 200 feet, as the house is of sectional construction, 20 feet being a section.

In the back yard of a gentleman living in Bound Brook was kept a small pen of birds, in all eighteen, composed of hens and pullets. These were a mixture of Barred Rocks and Rhode Island Reds. The pullets were of early hatch and should have come into eggs at least in the first week of October. The hens completed the moult much earlier than is generally expected, and still the owner was without eggs.

Different methods, and nostrums of guaranteed egg producing foods, were tried, but all without success. After a call at The Corning Egg Farm, he stated that in one week and three days the first eggs were found in the nests, and the continuance of the Corning Method of feeding and working the hens produced eggs steadily through the Winter months, beginning with the middle of December, and the birds continued to lay more than an average output until they went into the moult the following Fall.

A gentleman, who has a small place within a mile of The Corning Egg Farm, some four years ago purchased hatching eggs from our Breeding Pen, and the following Fall he also bought a small pen of Breeders. He aims to produce and carry through the Winter about one hundred pullets, and for four years now, by adhering strictly to the Corning Method, and with the Corning Strain Single Comb White Leghorns, he has met with a success almost phenomenal.

Before he became conversant with the Corning Method (and with the stock he was then carrying before beginning with the Corning Strain) his success was represented by zero, but to-day his balance sheets, which he displays with great pride, are extremely interesting reading.

This gives a very fair illustration of two small flocks of different size, and of the results obtained.

On Large Farms

Turning now to the story of two egg farms which have been built within the last two years, one in New Jersey and the other in Pennsylvania, we find again most interesting and successful conditions.

The Pennsylvania Farm started its first season by the purchase from us of fifteen hundred hatching eggs. The owner came to our Farm and asked our assistance in planning his campaign of growth. His hatch from the fifteen hundred eggs, and he never had run an incubator before, was some 75 per cent. of all eggs set, and, by following the feeding methods prescribed, his mortality was very low. He placed in his Laying House that Fall some five hundred pullets, and in July, 1910, he had sent us an order for three thousand eggs for the season of 1911.

As he told this story on a visit to The Corning Egg Farm, in the month of February, 1911, he had done the almost impossible, simply by following the Method laid down in the literature published by The Corning Egg Farm, and had made money from the second month that his pullets had begun to lay. The quality of his eggs was such that he took over the trade of the largest hotel in a neighboring city, so far as he was able to supply their wants.

The Jersey Egg Farm referred to is owned and run by a gentleman of advanced years. His first season’s start was on a very small scale, but he was most successful in bringing his pullets to the laying point, and getting a remarkable output of eggs through the Winter months. In his district he was able to dispose of all his eggs to people who came to the door and paid the cash for them at prices ten to twenty cents per dozen above the market. The Corning Egg Farm received from him a very large order for hatching eggs for the season of 1911, and this Fall he had an elegant flock of pullets ready to house and turn out an ever increasing supply of eggs for the coming Winter.

These four illustrations are a few of the many which The Corning Egg Farm is able to point to as the result of the use of its Method.