Developing Poultry Communities.

I have shown why the large individual poultry farms with hired labor have not proven profitable fields for the investment of capital.  Again, I have shown that in a few localities where the business was incidentally started, communities of independent poultry farmers have grown up which are very successful, and that there is no apparent reason why similar communities elsewhere, if intelligently located, could not do as well or better.

This looks like an excellent field for corporate enterprise.  Certainly there is no more reason why the poultry community cannot be as successfully promoted as an irrigation project, or a cheese factory, or a trucking community.  In such a community there are many functions that can be better performed by a capitalized body managed by experts than by individual poultrymen acting alone.

These functions are: 

First, the selection of a location and the purchase of the land in large quantities.

Second, laying out this land into suitable individual holdings, with regard to economy of water supply and the collection of the product.

Third, the partial or complete equipment of these farms at less expense and in a more suitable manner than could or would be done by the individual holders.

Fourth, the sale or rent of these places to poultrymen at a reasonable profit on the investment, but at a rate which will still be below the cost at which the individual could have acquired the land.  Fifth, the selection of the stock that would not only be better adapted to the enterprise than that which would be acquired by the individual farmer, but would possess the uniformity necessary to the maintenance of a standard grade in the product.

Sixth, the centralized hatching of the chicks by which means chicks can be more cheaply hatched and better hatched than by the imperfect methods available to the small poultryman.

Seventh, the purchase of all outside supplies with the usual savings involved in large purchases.

Eighth, a teaming system of delivering such supplies.

Ninth, a general protection against thieves and predatory animals by an organized war on all “varments.”

Tenth, maintenance of the best methods in feeding and care by the employment of skilled advisers, or the operation of demonstration farms under the direction of the central management.

Eleventh, the enforced daily gathering of all eggs and their lodgment that same evening in a clean, dry cooler, with a thermometer hovering around 29 degrees Fahrenheit.

Twelfth, the strict enforcement of penalties against the man who attempts to sell bad eggs.

Thirteenth, the prompt dispatch of the product to its final market.

Fourteenth, the final sale of the eggs with opportunities for fancy prices made possible by an absolutely guaranteed product in quantities sufficient to permit of a regular supply and of advertising the product.