CHAPTER XX

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.

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