Those who are going into it are making- money, and lots of it. There is no reason, if we can have the buttermakers. why North Platte valley will not have a national reputation for its excellent butter. Several farmers have their entire output contracted by the year. Others ship their cream, there being receiving stations at all of the railroad towns.

Poultry

A number of years ago eggs sold at "four dozen for a quarter." They have never been less than fifteen cents since the construction

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

of the railroad into the valley in 1899. They have steadily advanced and have ranged upward from fifty cents a dozen for many years. The hens have not gone on a strike. It is a case where they cannot keep up with the demand, a thing which will never be done until we get more people willing to make big money doing small things. The irrigationist and cattle man considers his time too valuable to devote attention to such a trivial affair as poultry. Poultry raising is just the thing to couple with dry farming on a homestead. Turkeys are easily raised and are quite profitable where one has sufficient range for them without bothering the neighbors. Farm women and ranch women, however busy, do find time for handling some poultry, and numbers of them regularly have an income from "the national bird" at Thanksgiving time, and another at Christmas time.

Morrill county, according to assessment rolls, has about twenty thousand domestic fowls, the number of chickens being vastly predominate.