Proceedings of Seventeenth I^oemal Institute 215 



furnished by special tradesmen who have the time to make a 

 study of their demands and extract pay for this work from the 

 consumers themselves. We must realize that the whole system 

 has developed naturally, and has been hardened by time. We 

 must attack the problem cautiously and with good sense, or else 

 we shall undo all the benefits which may be derived from the 

 present system, and we shall have a result which is worse than 

 that which we have at the present time. 



Careless attack and the thoughtless installing of theoretical 

 systems of marketing are very common occurrences. We can 

 point to failures of cooperative associations on all sides. We 

 have, also, organizations which are really supported by taxation 

 of many people, or by gifts from a few people. These organiza- 

 tions, in many cases, absolutely need this support in order to keep 

 up their expenses and still compete with the regular tradesmen. 

 In other words, some supposedly beneficial organizations have 

 to receive direct gifts in order to enable them to pay expenses. 

 It is very easy to condemn all presently established methods of 

 distribution, and to accuse all middlemen as the instigators 

 thereof; and rural audiences, as well as audiences of city con- 

 sumers, are especially susceptible to this sort of talk, often 

 praising the speaker for it. I believe we should be very careful 

 in what we say in this respect. We should recognize what value 

 there is in our present system, realizing that the men engaged in 

 handling the products are human beings, and perhaps as earnestly 

 desire improvement of the system as w^e do ourselves. We 

 should not line up these middlemen before the eyes of the public 

 as antagonists of better methods. The discussion of market 

 methods opens a great temptation for us to wave our hands and 

 shout, " reform." It seems to me that we should be careful and 

 see that we have left the right imj)ression in the ears of our list- 

 eners, and that we have given sound advice for reconstruction. 



THE POULTRY PRODUCERS" ASSOCIATIONS 



For nearly three years here at the ISTew York State College of 

 Agriculture, we have been trying out the desirability or unde- 

 sirability of the various principles of preparation, shipment and 

 sale of market poultry products. We have done this through 



