The Corning Egg Farm book, by Corning himself

by Edward Corning; Gardner Corning

INTRODUCTORY

The Method, and the style of the buildings, evolved and worked out on The Corning Egg Farm, when put into book form proved so helpful to so vast a number of poultry keepers, that the sale of this first literature, which for a time was added to as the months went by, reached the enormous total of over 140,000 copies in eighteen months.

The writings were the simple, plain statements of facts, and enabled others who followed them to reach a success which, until this System was used, may have been dreamed of, but was never realized.

The literature from this Farm has gone out over the entire civilized World, and the visitors, who arrive in ever increasing numbers from month to month, come from every quarter of the Globe.

The Corning Egg Farm has been written of in periodicals of every nature, and in almost every language the World over. For the last twelve months the requests for further, and more explicit, detailed information relative to breeding and feeding for eggs, the specialty from which The Corning Egg Farm has never swerved, have become a demand. So that, after mature deliberation, it was decided to write the history of The Corning Egg Farm, from its inception to date, including the work of the last two years, which has never before been fully published.

“The Corning Egg Farm Book by Corning Himself” is to-day the only publication giving facts in regard to the Farm and its unique Method right up to date.

As the book is read it must be borne in mind that, in breeding to produce a great layer, at first very marked increases in the number of eggs during the first ten months of laying may be gained. The general average number of eggs laid each year, from official reports, is less than 100 per hen. On The Corning Egg Farm, when the average had reached 143.25 eggs, the next jump, in the following year, was more than had been expected, and the record of 145.11 eggs for each hen for ten months, though showing an increase apparently small, in reality was a very great advance indeed.

From this time on, the gain, although representing a narrower margin of increase, was in reality a much greater achievement. The trotting horse may serve as an illustration. When Dexter trotted his famous mile he clipped off a number of seconds from the previous record, and it seemed as if it would be a matter of considerable time before his mark would be lowered. But within a comparatively short time a number of trotters turned off a mile in two-ten, and from this figure, within a short period, a large company of famous horses had reached the two-five mark, but every quarter of a second which reduced this mark meant greater achievement in breeding than was represented by the reduction of records from two-sixteen to two-five, and we have not yet seen the horse which, in single harness, without a running mate, can turn the mile track in two minutes flat.

The Corning Egg Farm realizes that from this on improvement will be shown by fractional figures, but these fractions will represent a greater progress than the figures which have gone before.

Two years ago the unequaled results of The Corning Egg Farm had seemed unsurpassable, but to-day we are able to look back from higher ground and see the road over which we have traveled to reach a point very considerably beyond the unequaled position of two years ago.

It is our hope and aim, year by year, to improve the present position. The man who believes he has learned all there is to learn is a failure. The successful man is the one who is sure there is an opportunity to advance considerably beyond the point he has already attained, and The Corning Egg Farm believes this to be true, and has constantly worked with that idea before it.

With an experience back of them of nearly six years the Builders of The Corning Egg Farm know that this Book furnishes the necessary guide for success in poultry culture. What has been, and what is being, done at The Corning Egg Farm is not experimental work. Successful results follow the Method and System employed as surely as day follows night. It is no longer necessary for the novice to try out the various plans proposed to him by the literary poultryman, whose methods are worked out on a mahogany desk, with pen and ink, or more often, perhaps, by dictation to a stenographer.

Years of careful thought and study, and the expenditure of much time and many thousands of dollars in developing the Corning Method have eliminated all necessity for experimental expenditure. The building up of an Egg Farm is within the reach of any man who will follow the Corning plan herein described faithfully and persistently.

The man or woman who determines to pursue some branch of the poultry industry must first decide what particular branch.

Shall it be to raise poultry for market?

If so, what? Squab Broilers? Soft Roasters? Or Capons?

Perhaps all of these.

Some utility line is the best to start with.

Fresh, sanitary eggs are a necessity and command the highest price in the market, daily, for spot cash, just as readily as stocks and bonds command a daily cash value in any financial market. There can be no better proof of the truth of this than the success of The Corning Egg Farm.

PULLET RANGE &
COLONY HOUSES

EACH HOUSE 6′ × 10′
BUILT ON SKIDS
MOVABLE

In whatever line a beginner decides to start he needs to go straight down that line without deviation, taking as his motto, “This one thing I do.” In the fullness of time, having established a reputation for the quality of his eggs and birds, the demand for his eggs for hatching purposes and for his birds as foundation stock for other people, will naturally come to him, and it is very profitable.

One certain fact should be settled in the understanding of every beginner, to wit: it is not possible to invest from five hundred to five thousand dollars in the Poultry Industry and double your money in the first year, or even to earn 50% on the investment. Neither is it possible with $300.00 to build a Laying House with a capacity for five hundred birds, if the house is properly built for warmth and meets sanitary conditions.

Housing for hens must be free from dampness. Concrete absorbs dampness, therefore, avoid it.

Any person starting in the poultry industry for profit, and, intending to follow it for a livelihood should begin in a small way, realizing that, like any other business venture, it must be built up and grow from year to year, and that, certainly for the first year, no money can be drawn out for living expenses.

These statements are made clearly and emphatically because quite the contrary has been given out as a fact. Such reckless representations, because untrue, are misleading and injurious to both those engaged in the poultry industry and also to those who contemplate entering it, and should be branded as false, and the authors of such statements should be prohibited from using the United States Mails.

We are not, and make no pretense of being, philanthropists. We have written this Book primarily with the expectation that it will make The Corning Egg Farm and the Corning Method of Poultry Culture even more widely and impressively known to the World, and so benefit us by increased demand for our stock, eggs, and all other goods we may have for sale.

Secondly, we know that the Book will benefit others if they will follow the Corning Method and System herein laid down, and so prove of mutual advantage to readers and authors as well.

The Single Comb White Leghorn is par excellence the Egg Machine, provided always first class and the best strain of birds is procured, and the Corning Strain, without doubt or question, is the very best strain of Single Comb White Leghorns yet developed anywhere in the World.

We know this new, large, complete and thoroughly up to date Book will be the means of bringing us, and our unequaled Strain of Single Comb White Leghorns, into favor with thousands of people who, as yet, do not know us, just as the publishing of the small and older booklet put us into touch with other thousands who are now doing a prosperous business by the use of this same Corning Strain Single Comb White Leghorns, and by following the Corning Method now more completely elaborated and explained in “The Corning Egg Farm Book by Corning Himself.”

Edward and Gardner Corning.

The Corning Egg Farm,
Bound Brook, New Jersey.
December, 1911.

The Corning Egg Farm Book

CHAPTER I
The Building of the Corning Egg Farm

Having determined, in 1905, to engage in some business connected with the feathered tribe, we decided to try out the squab proposition versus market poultry. After searching over a period of many months, in various parts of the country, with the idea of finding a place where the existing buildings might be utilized for our needs, we finally were obliged to abandon this idea and purchased, early in the year 1906, twelve and a half acres of land, now known as Sunny Slope Farm. This property lies about two miles west of Bound Brook, New Jersey, which town is reached by the Central Railroad of New Jersey, the Baltimore & Ohio, the Philadelphia & Reading and the Lehigh Valley Railroads, and the Farm is most accessible, as it is on the trolley line which connects Bound Brook and Somerville.

In the early Spring of 1906 we began our buildings, erecting a house, for raising squabs, which would accommodate five hundred pairs of breeding birds, a hen house of the scratching shed variety, capable of accommodating some two hundred and fifty hens, and a work-shop with living apartments for the resident man.

We also sunk a well one hundred and seventeen feet deep, erecting over it a sixty foot wind-mill tower, which carries an eighteen hundred gallon tank. From this pipes were laid to convenient parts of the property.

Three hundred pairs of Homer pigeons were placed in the house built for that purpose, and we went diligently to work to prove that this was the quick and easy way to wealth which the ingenious writers of squab literature proved so conclusively on paper.

On the chicken side of the experiment we seemed to lean (possibly because of the fact that squabs take one into the slaughter house business) towards one or more of the market breeds, and, to meet the needs of this part of the business, we understood that any of the “Rock” family were best for the purpose.