The lone blacksmith hammering out a horseshoe nail is contrasted with the mills of the American Steel Company.  The fond dreamer looks upon the steel trust, the oil trust, the department store, the packing house, the chain groceries, the theatrical trust, and the colossal enterprises that dominate every field of industry save agriculture.  Here, then, lies the neglected opportunity for the industrial dreamer to hop over the fence, awaken the sleeping farmer, and fill his own purse with the wealth to be made by applying modern business methods to agriculture.

The knowing smile—­the farmer may be asleep and he may not be.  Suppose that he is, does the fond dreamer dream that he is the first man from the industrial kingdom of great things to look with hungry eyes at the rich field of agricultural opportunity, basking in last century’s sun?  Alas, fond dreamer, your name is legion.  Every farmer who has sent a son to college has known you and the Hon. William Jennings Bryan has met you, called you an agriculturist and defined you as a man who makes his money in town and spends it in the country.

But the dreamer is right in his first premise—­great economies in production are the result of specialization and combination.  Why not then in agriculture?  I’ll tell you why.  There is a touch of nature in the living thing that calls for a closer interest on the part of the laborer than the industrial system of the mine and factory can give.

Why is combined and specialized production more economical?  It may be because it gets more efficient work out of labor, it may be that larger operations make feasible the employment of more efficient methods and machinery.  The cost of production may be lowered, by either or both of these means, or it may be lowered by an increased efficiency in machinery, even with a decreased efficiency in labor.

Combination and specialization so commonly cut down expenses because of large operations and the use of better tools, that we may take this saving for granted.  When it comes to labor there is a different story.  The negro working with boss and gang, or the machine-tender in the factory work as well or better for large than for small concerns, but the labor of a poultry plant is different.  It is made up of a great many different operations well scattered in space and time.  For the most part it is simple labor, but it is essential that it be performed with reasonable concern for the welfare of the business.

In other industries, as with men working at a bench, the presence of a foreman keeps them busy and their work may be daily inspected.  To have foremen in poultry work would require as many foremen as laborers, and even then they would be as useless, for when the last round of the brooders is made at night a foreman standing three feet away could not know whether the laborer who had placed his hand in the brooder had found all well or all wrong.

It is useless to carry the argument farther.  The labor bill is one of the biggest items of expense in poultry production.  With a system where the efficiency of the labor decreases with the size of the business, large industrial enterprises are impossible.  Such savings as will be made in buying supplies, selling, etc., will be wasted in the reduced efficiency of labor.