The greatest fault of poultry buying as conducted in this country is the evil of a uniform price.  After chickens are dressed the difference of quality is readily discerned, and the price varies from fancy quotations to almost nothing for culls.  The packer pays a given rate per pound for live hens or for spring chickens.  The price is paid alike for the best poultry received or for the scrawniest chickens that can be coaxed to stand up and be weighed.  The prices paid is the average worth of all chickens purchased at that market.  All farmers who market an article better than the average are unjust losers, while those who sell inferior stock receive unearned profits.  The producer of good stock receives pay for the extra quantity of his chickens, but for the extra quality no recognition whatever is given.  To the deserving producer, if quality was recognized, it would result in a greatly increased stimulation of the production of good poultry.  Any packer, if questioned, will state that he would be willing to grade chickens and pay for them according to quality, but that he does not do so because his competitor would pay a uniform price and drive him out of business.  The man who receives an increased price would say little of it, while the man who sells poor chickens, if he failed to receive the full amount to which he is accustomed, would think himself unjustly treated and use his influence against the dealer.  A recognition of quality in buying is for the interest of both the farmer and the poultry dealer, and a mutual effort on the part of those interested to put in practice this reform would result in a great improvement of the poultry industry.

Cold Storage of Poultry.

The growth of the cold storage of poultry has been phenomenal.  Poultry is packed in thin boxes that will readily lose their heat and these are stacked in a freezer with a temperature near the zero point.  The temperature used for holding poultry are anywhere from 0 degree up to 20 degrees.  Poultry is held for periods of one to six weeks at temperature above the freezing point.

Frozen poultry will keep almost indefinitely save for the drying out, which is due to the fact that evaporation will proceed slowly even from a frozen body.  The time frozen poultry is stored varies from a few weeks to eight or ten months.

The usual rule is that any crop is highest in price when it first comes on the market and cheapest just after the point of its greatest production.  Thus, broilers are high in May and cheap in September.  In such cases the goods are carried from the season of plenty to the following season of scarcity.  This period is always less than a year.  The idea circulated by wild writers, that cold storage poultry was kept several years is an economic impossibility.  The interest on the investment alone would make the holding of storage goods into the second season of plenty, quite unprofitable, but when the costs of storage, insurance and shrinkage are to be paid, storing poultry for more than one season becomes absurd.  The fowl that has been once frozen cannot be made to look “fresh killed” again.  For that reason packers like to get a monopoly on a particular market so that the two classes of goods will not have to compete side by side.  The quality of the frozen fowl when served is very fair, practically as good as and some say better than the fresh killed.