INTRODUCTORY. 5 



the success of the whole project ; hence the importance 

 of the new system of poultry keeping by machinery. 



Keeping fowls as a business should be regarded as a 

 species of manufacturing, grain being the principal raw 

 material, and eggs and poultry meat the finished prod- 

 ucts. The value of the products, of course, exceeds 

 that of the raw material ; but if the labor cost is not 

 carefully watched, it may eat up the difference. The 

 menace which will always hang over the keeper of poul- 

 try on a large scale, is the competition of the ordinary 

 farmers, villagers and suburban residents, who enter the 

 market incidentally merely to dispose of surplus. 

 Every owner of a small flock of fowls pours his little rill 

 of poultry products into the great market stream any- 

 how, irrespective of profit, and this makes it hard for 

 the big establishment. It is, in this respect, like farm- 

 ing, in which so many are working for a living that it 

 is next to impossible for anybody else to farm on a large 

 scale for money. Or it is like the instance of the girls 

 behind counters in the large stores, who usually receive 

 very small wages, in some cases not- enough to pay for 

 decent board, the reason being that there are so many 

 girls wanting places who have nothing to do and who 

 can board with their parents. The increase of the 

 number of small flocks of fowls, consequent upon the 

 diffusion of population in the suburbs by means of the 

 trolley lines, adds to the difficulties of the large scale 

 operator. The big plant cannot stand this sort of com- 

 petition unless labor-saving contrivances are used. 



This is a "machine-ridden" age. Industrial inven- 

 tions have revolutionized society, yet the transformation 

 is far from being complete. One man now performs 

 the work formerly done by fifty men, in making textile 

 or metallic goods, or of thirty men in producing, milling 

 and transporting breadstuffs ; but the mission of inven- 

 tion, as concerns feeding mankind, is far from perfect 



