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.

Horses

There was a time when the horse of the plains country was the Indian pony and the broncho. This is not the case in the central and upper North Platte Valley, though the little horse is still found in the lower valley. The common weight of draft horses is fourteen to sixteen hundred. Twelve to thirteen hundred is not an uncommon weight for saddle and buggy use. The larger horse ranches own their own breeding stock and the smaller fanners band themselves together into stock companies and import high priced stallions direct from Europe. There are also most excellent horses in private ownership. Here the scrub and grade stallion is almost unknown. For the last few years horses have been in demand at good figures, three hundred to five hundred dollars being not an uncommon price for a work team. But few mules are raised here. A great many eastern people have the idea that a brand on a horse is the sign of an outlaw, or broncho or pony stock. This is no longer true. In North Platte valley can be found thoroughbred Xorman horses, imported direct from Europe, wearing brands. The brand is a sign of ownership and not "the wild and woolly west."