DISTRIBUTION OF MARKET PRODUCTS
=Producers, consumers, and middlemen.= The preceding chapters have
treated of the characters and the uses of domestic birds, and of the
methods of producing them. In this chapter we shall consider matters
relating to the distribution of such of their products as are staple
articles of commerce. There are very few subjects of general interest
that are as widely misunderstood as some phases of the distribution of
market eggs and poultry. Every one uses these products; many millions of
people produce them in small quantities; but the consumers who are not
producers live mostly in cities remote from the farming sections which
have great surpluses of eggs and poultry to send to the cities, and so
the work of distributing these products is done principally by traders,
or middlemen.
The modern developments of poultry culture have been in a very large
measure due to middlemen and could not continue without them. In a large
and highly organized population middlemen in many different capacities
perform the services which in primitive or small communities may be
performed by either the producer or the consumer. Consumers and
producers are apt to think that the middlemen get more than their fair
share of the profits on the articles that they buy and sell. The true
situation and the exact relations of producers, middlemen, and consumers
of poultry products are easily understood if we study the development of
the existing methods of distribution from the beginning.
=How the middleman enters local trade.= Suppose that a farmer brings to
town 30 dozen eggs; that the storekeeper will allow him 20 cents a dozen
for them; and that by peddling them from house to house he can sell
them for 25 cents a dozen: how much will he make by selling them
directly to the consumers?
As an arithmetical example, considering only the factors which appear in
the statement, this is a very simple problem. It is easy to compute that
by selling the eggs from house to house the farmer will make $1.50. But
the farmer's practical problem in disposing of his eggs has some very
important factors which do not appear in a simple arithmetical problem.
Unless he had regular customers for his eggs, he would probably have to
call at fifty or sixty houses to sell them. He might have to call at a
great many more, and then might not succeed in selling them all. He
would find that it was of little use to try to sell eggs to families
that had not engaged them in advance, unless he called very early in the
morning, before they had ordered eggs from some one else. If he
succeeded in selling all the eggs, he would still have to consider
whether it paid him better to spend his time, and that of his team, in
selling the eggs than in working on the farm. Most farmers find that
they cannot afford to peddle produce themselves, and unless some other
member of the family can do it without interfering with important farm
work, they sell such products as poultry, butter, and eggs to the
storekeepers.
Now take the consumer's side of the case. The ordinary family uses only
2 or 3 dozen eggs a week. If the eggs can be bought at the store for 25
cents a dozen, and at a farm for 15 cents a dozen, there is an apparent
saving of 20 or 30 cents by purchasing them at the farm. But in most
cases it would cost the buyer more than 20 or 30 cents to go to the farm
and get the eggs, and so he goes to the store for them.
The storekeeper is the middleman, really serving both producer and
consumer. Every one can see this clearly in cases where there is only
one middleman.
=Additional middlemen.= If the farmers trading at a country store bring
to it more eggs than the people in the town will buy, the storekeeper
must either sell them elsewhere or refuse to take them. If possible, he
will find a market for the surplus, usually by shipping them to the
nearest large city. But he does not send them direct to consumers, for
he could not deal with them any better than the farmers could with the
people in his town. He may send them to a storekeeper in the city, but
he is more likely to send them to some one who makes a business of
receiving eggs from country collectors and selling them at wholesale
wherever there is a demand for them. If the receipts in a city exceed
the local requirements, the surplus will be sent to one of the great
cities which are the principal receiving centers for produce of all
kinds. The large receivers in the great cities distribute the eggs to
retailers in the cities and also to jobbers and retailers in smaller
cities where local supplies are inadequate.
[Illustration: Fig. 225. Unloading coops of poultry at a receiving
warehouse. (Photograph from the Bureau of Chemistry, United States
Department of Agriculture)]
Thus between the producer and the consumer there may be as many as six
or seven middlemen who in turn handle the eggs. At first thought it
seems that so many middlemen are not necessary. But it is not a
question of numbers; it is a question of conditions. The number depends
more or less upon whether the middleman at any stage finds it more
advantageous to deal with one next to him in the general series or to
pass one or more and deal with another farther away. In the United
States prices of eggs are finally determined by the demand and supply in
the large cities of the East; the prices at other points are usually the
prices in these cities, minus the cost of transportation and handling.
In periods of scarcity, however, there is a tendency to uniformity of
prices in all large cities.
The movements of poultry to market are made in much the same way as the
movement of eggs. As a rule the same people handle both.
=How the demand for poultry products stimulates production.= In the
preceding sections it was assumed, for the purpose of showing clearly
the relation of the middleman to both the producer and the consumer,
that the movement of these articles from the country producer to the
city buyer came about as the result of the existence of a surplus in
farming districts. As a matter of fact the movement is produced by the
demand in localities which do not produce their own supplies. One effect
of the increase of population in cities is to cause farmers near the
cities to grow more poultry and sometimes to establish special poultry
farms. But as grain and labor cost more near the cities, the poultry and
eggs produced near them must be sold at high prices. If the city people
were dependent upon these local supplies, only the rich could afford
them.
As this is true of all perishable food articles, as well as of poultry
products, the growth of cities was restricted as long as there was no
means of bringing provisions quickly from places where they could be
produced at low cost. When steam railroads were built, this restriction
on the growth of cities was partly removed. Many cities then began to
grow very fast, and the demands of their population for cheap food led
city dealers in provisions to look for supplies in the towns and farms
along the railroads. Many such dealers had before collected provisions
by wagon as far from the city as was practicable. These men could now
greatly extend their routes, because, having collected a wagon-load,
they could take it to the most convenient railway station, ship it by
rail to the city, and go on collecting, instead of spending a day or
more in delivering their load in the city. Very soon after railroads
were first built, many farmers began to produce more poultry and eggs
and to ship them directly to the best city market that they could find.
As the demand for their produce was usually much greater than could be
supplied from their own farms, such farmers often began to buy from
their neighbors, thus becoming middlemen as well as producers. In many
cases such men would after a time find it to their advantage to move
their headquarters to the city, and would ultimately build up a very
large business.
[Illustration: Fig. 226. Fattening chickens in crates at a poultry
buyer's warehouse.[25] (Photograph from the Bureau of Chemistry, United
States Department of Agriculture)]
[25] If the farmer sells his chickens without fattening, the buyer can
fatten them in this way and so make an extra profit.
In nearly all farming sections, even those most remote from city
markets, there is a short period in the spring when there is a large
surplus of eggs and sometimes a period in the fall when there is more
poultry ready for market than can be sold; but the people in those
places rarely make any effort to increase their production, and to
extend the seasons when they have more than enough for themselves, until
they have good facilities for shipping eggs and poultry and the demands
from outside cause a marked increase in the local prices of these
products.
[Illustration: Fig. 227. Driving turkeys to market. (Photograph from
Bureau of Chemistry, United States Department of Agriculture)]
So from the city and the country, almost simultaneously, but with the
demand from the city most active and pressing, the modern system of
collecting and distributing poultry products has grown. At first poultry
products were nearly all handled by men who dealt in all kinds of
country produce. As the business increased, many firms gave their
attention exclusively to poultry products. Then, when creameries were
established in many places, the creamery was found a convenient place
for the collection of eggs. The large packing houses which handle other
kinds of meat also entered this field and became a very important factor
in the development of poultry culture in the West.
[Illustration: Fig. 228. A big drive of turkeys arriving at a killing
house. (Photograph from Bureau of Chemistry, United States Department of
Agriculture])
In the collection and distribution of poultry products the various
agencies mentioned form a great many different kinds of combinations.
The arrangements vary according to many different conditions. From first
to last every one who handles an article is trying to make all he can
out of it, but most of the middlemen deal fairly both in buying and in
selling. Indeed, people cannot continue long in any legitimate business
unless they are honest. As we shall see, middlemen are in a position
where they are often blamed without just cause, and often have to take
much greater risks than either producers or consumers.
=Losses in distribution.= It has been said that the general tendency is
to reduce as far as possible the number of middlemen concerned in the
distribution of poultry products. This tendency often goes too far and
overreaches its purpose of economy. The efforts of producers and country
collectors to deal directly with consumers and retailers in the large
cities often give them less profit than would be obtained by selling
through the regular channels of the trade. The reason for this is that
most producers and a majority of country collectors do not prepare and
pack their poultry and eggs so that they will reach those to whom they
are consigned in good condition and bring the prices which the shippers
expected to realize. The losses due to improper handling of eggs and
poultry by producers and small collectors are enormous, undoubtedly
amounting to more than $100,000,000 a year in the United States.
[Illustration: Fig. 229. Candling eggs.[26] (Photograph from Bureau of
Chemistry, United States Department of Agriculture)]
[26] The man is posing for the photograph. When he works, the room must
be dark except for the covered light used in candling.
To place eggs and poultry in the hands of consumers in strictly
first-class condition, they must be handled with great care at every
stage of preparation and distribution. Eggs must be gathered while
perfectly fresh, kept in a cool place where no bad odors will reach
them, and protected from heat and frost, as well as from breakage, when
being moved from place to place. If the producer is careless about any
of these points, many of his eggs will be tainted or stale or beginning
to rot when they are only a few days old, and though he may call them
fresh eggs and try to sell them as such, he will not get the highest
price for them. The small collectors are also likely to be careless in
handling eggs, and to ship them to receivers in bad condition.
The receivers in the cities, whose whole business is in perishable
products, cannot afford to handle goods in this slipshod way. They
candle the eggs that are forwarded to them to determine the quality, and
pay for eggs not only according to their external appearance, but also
the appearance and condition of the package in which they are received.
Candling eggs consists in passing them before a bright light, as in
testing to determine the fertility of eggs that are being incubated.
When the egg is held before a light, the expert candler can tell in an
instant whether it is fresh and good and, if not, just what is wrong
with it. Except when kept at almost freezing temperature, eggs that have
begun to decompose continue to deteriorate quite rapidly. Sometimes a
lot of eggs is candled several times and the bad ones removed, before it
reaches the last dealer who handles it.
Market poultry and pigeons are sold both alive and dead. Most dead
poultry is dressed (that is, has the feathers removed), but pigeons and
guineas are often marketed dead without plucking, and occasionally
turkeys are treated in the same way. Live birds lose weight in
transportation, especially when they are shipped in crowded and badly
ventilated coops. Frequently many birds in a shipment die before their
journey is over. Because of such losses, and because the price per pound
of the best dressed poultry is usually much higher than the price per
pound of the best live poultry, the impression that it is more
profitable for a producer to dress his poultry is widespread. The result
is that a great many people who have poultry to sell dress it just as
they would to use at home and, putting it into a box or a barrel, ship
it to a market where the prices are high, expecting to get the highest
price for it. A large part of such poultry arrives on the market in such
a condition that it is hard to sell at any price, and much of it has to
be thrown away.
[Illustration: Fig. 230. Barrel of dressed poultry opened on arrival at
its destination.[27] (Photograph from Bureau of Chemistry, United States
Department of Agriculture)]
[27] Note the large piece of ice remaining. If the ice should give out
on the way, the poultry would spoil.
Birds that are to be marketed should be kept without food or water for
from twenty-four to thirty-six hours before killing. The object of this
is to have the crop, gizzard, and intestines entirely empty. The killing
is done by making a small, deep cut, that will at the same time
penetrate the brain (making the bird unconscious) and sever one or two
veins, thus letting the blood flow freely. This cut is usually made in
the roof of the mouth, but sometimes in the neck. The former method is
preferred because it leaves no wound exposed to the air. The common
practice in picking poultry for home use is to scald the bird in water
just below the boiling temperature. When this is done just right, the
results are very good; the feathers come off easily and the skin is not
damaged. But if the bird is not held in the scalding water long enough,
the feathers are hard to remove and the skin may be torn in several
places in the process. If the bird is held in the water too long, the
skin will be partly cooked. If it is scalded before it has been properly
bled, the hot water will turn the skin red. The defects in scalded
poultry do not show badly at first, and if it is packed and shipped at
once, the shipper may think that it was in very good condition; but if
he could see it when the receiver unpacks it, he would be surprised to
find how many blemishes there were on it and how poor it looked.
Removing the feathers without scalding is called dry picking. It is an
art which requires considerable practice. The novice who tries it
usually tears the skin of the birds badly.
In order to reach the market in good condition, poultry must not only be
properly killed and picked, but each carcass must be cooled as quickly
as possible, to remove the animal heat that remains in it. This is done
either by hanging the carcasses in a very cool place or by putting them
in cold water. Meat of all kinds that is cooled immediately after
killing will keep much longer than if cooling is neglected.
[Illustration: Fig. 231. A badly dressed and a well-dressed fowl.
(Photograph from Bureau of Chemistry, United States Department of
Agriculture)]
There are so many details which must have attention in dressing poultry
for shipment, that it usually pays both producers and small collectors
to sell poultry alive to those who have better facilities for handling
it and whose operations are on such a scale that they can employ experts
for all parts of the work of preparation.
=Cold storage of poultry products.= So abundant are the supplies of eggs
in the spring, and of some kinds of dressed poultry in the summer, fall,
and early winter, that large quantities could not be sold at any price
at seasons of plenty if there were no way of keeping them until a season
of scarcity. For about half a century after the production of eggs and
poultry began to receive special attention in this country, the profits
of the ordinary producer were severely cut every spring and fall,
because the market was overstocked. Consumers derived little benefit
from this situation, because they could not use the surplus before it
spoiled. The popular idea of the way to remedy the conditions was to
have hens lay when eggs were scarce, and to have poultry ready for sale
when supplies were insufficient. Experience, however, has shown that it
is practically impossible to have a very large proportion of things of
this kind produced out of their natural season. The relatively small
numbers of people who succeed in doing so make very good profits, but
the masses of producers and consumers are not benefited.
The solution of the problem of carrying the surplus of a season of
abundance to a season of scarcity was discovered when methods of making
ice artificially were perfected and it was found that the equipment used
in manufacturing ice could be used to cool, to any desired degree, rooms
for the storage of perishable produce. This form of refrigeration was at
first used in place of the ordinary method (with natural ice), to keep
goods for short periods. Much larger quantities could be taken care of
in this way when for any reason a market was temporarily overstocked.
For hundreds of years it had been quite a common practice to preserve
eggs in various ways. By packing them in salt, or in salt brine, or in
limewater, eggs may be kept in very good condition for several months,
and sometimes for nearly a year. As limed and pickled eggs were
regularly sold in the markets, every dealer in eggs at once saw the
possibilities of cold storage as a factor in the market egg trade.
Wherever there was a storage house, dealers began to buy eggs when
prices were low, and store them to sell when prices were high. At first
a great many of those who stored eggs lost money on them, either by the
eggs spoiling in storage or because they kept the eggs too long, but
after a few years' experience the operators of cold-storage plants
learned the best temperatures for keeping the different kinds of produce
and the best methods of arranging different articles in the chambers of
the storage warehouses. They found that eggs kept best at 34 degrees
Fahrenheit, that poultry must be frozen hard, and that the temperature
in a storage chamber must not be allowed to vary. Those who were putting
eggs and poultry in cold storage found that it did not pay to store
produce that was not perfectly sound and good, and that products which
had been in cold storage must be used promptly after being taken out,
and also that they must plan their sales to have all stored goods sold
before the new crop began to come in, or they would lose money.
[Illustration: Fig. 232. Dressed fowls cooling on racks in dry-cooling
room. (Photograph from Bureau of Chemistry, United States Department of
Agriculture)]
The development of cold-storage methods and their extensive use have
been of great benefit to producers and consumers, as well as to
distributors of perishable food products. The storing of such products
is a legitimate form of speculative business. It prevents waste and
loss. The demand for eggs and poultry to go into cold storage raises the
price at seasons of plenty and makes a good market for all eggs and
poultry that are fit to store. The eggs and poultry that have been
stored furnish consumers with supplies at reasonable prices for much
longer seasons. As a rule supplies in storage are not kept there for
very long periods. Speculators who want to be on the safe side plan very
carefully so that most, if not all, of the stuff that they have stored
shall be sold before new supplies become abundant in the market. To do
this they have to watch very closely every condition affecting the
markets, and to use good judgment in selling. Most of them do not, as is
popularly supposed, hold their entire stock for the period when prices
are highest. If they did, all would lose. Eggs begin to come out of
storage about midsummer, and are withdrawn gradually for about six
months. By far the greater part of the poultry stored goes into the
warehouses in the fall and begins to come out soon after the winter
holidays.
Within the limits of the time that goods may be carried in cold storage
profitably, long storage has no more bad effects on eggs and poultry
than refrigeration for short periods. Cold-storage products are usually
of better than average quality if used immediately upon being withdrawn
from storage.
=Methods of selling at retail.= For convenience in handling and counting
them in quantities, eggs are packed in cases containing thirty dozen
each, and wholesale transactions in eggs are by the case, but with the
price usually quoted by the dozen. Consumers who use large quantities of
eggs buy them by the case. The ordinary consumer buys them by the dozen.
There is a widespread impression that, inasmuch as eggs vary greatly in
size, the practice of selling them by count is not fair to the consumer.
This feeling sometimes goes so far that laws are proposed, and even
passed, requiring that eggs shall be sold by weight. Such a law does
not remain long in force, because weighing small quantities of eggs is
troublesome and the greater number of consumers prefer to buy them by
the dozen. In fact, while eggs are nominally sold by count both at
wholesale and at retail, they are usually assorted according to size,
and the prices graduated to suit. Considering size, condition, quality,
and color of shell, as many as ten grades of eggs are sometimes made.
Although the color of the shell of an egg has no relation whatever to
its palatability or its nutritive value, eggs of a certain color
sometimes command a premium. Thus, in New York City white eggs of the
best grades will bring from five to ten cents a dozen more than brown
eggs of equal quality, while in Boston the situation is exactly
reversed.
When most of the poultry of each kind in any market is of about the same
size and quality, it is customary to sell live poultry at wholesale at a
uniform price by the dozen, and to sell at retail by the piece or by the
pair. But as soon as any considerable part of the poultry of any kind in
a market is larger than the general run of supplies, a difference is
made, in the prices per dozen or per piece or per pair, between small
birds and large ones. If the size of the largest specimens further
increases, the range of weights becomes too great to be classified in
this way, and selling by weight soon becomes the common practice.
Conditions are the same for dead poultry, except that the change to
selling by weight comes more quickly.
In preparing poultry for market by the method that has been described
the head and feet were left on and the internal organs were not removed.
The reason for this is that poultry keeps much better in this state.
Removing these parts exposes the flesh at several places to the action
of the air and of bacteria, which cause putrefaction. In many markets in
poultry-producing sections it is customary to sell poultry drawn and
with the head and feet off. In places where most of the poultry comes
from a distance the waste parts of the carcass are not removed until it
is bought by the consumer. Some people who buy in this way think that
they are being defrauded if the marketman weighs the bird before
removing the offal. Sometimes, to satisfy such a customer, a dealer
removes the offal before weighing, and the customer cheerfully pays a
higher rate per pound, feeling that at any rate he is getting just what
he pays for when he insists on having it done in this way. As far as the
cost is concerned, it makes no difference to the consumer at what stage
of distribution the offal is discarded.
=Volume of products.= In the United States and Canada the production and
consumption of poultry products are very nearly equal, because each
country has agricultural areas capable of supplying an enormous
population with poultry and eggs. Production in such districts responds
quickly to the increasing demands of other sections, but not in such
volume as to create large surpluses for export. The present annual
production of the United States is variously estimated at from
$600,000,000 to $1,000,000,000. This wide difference exists because the
census is only a partial one. In Canada no general census of poultry
products has ever been taken.
The poultry statistics for the United States as collected decennially by
the Bureau of the Census may be found complete in the full report of
agricultural statistics. Those for the different states may be obtained
in separate bulletins. Some of the states and provinces collect poultry
statistics through state and provincial departments and furnish the
reports to all persons desiring them. Persons living in communities
which ship poultry products can usually learn from the local shippers
the approximate amounts and the value of the produce that they handle.
At the more important receiving points statistics of receipts are kept
by such organizations as the Produce Exchange, Board of Trade, or
Chamber of Commerce, and the results published in their annual reports.
From such sources it is possible for pupils to get information as to the
status and importance of the poultry trade in the communities in which
they live.