i6a THE TRADE IN EGGS AND POULTRY 



There is certainly an opening for an extension of the 

 fatting business itself. From what I saw in the Heath- 

 field district, I should say there is no reason why the 

 fatting industry should not be carried on as successfully 

 by competent men, and under suitable conditions, in 

 other parts of the country as it is in Sussex. I have 

 heard it suggested that the ' soil ' in the districts men- 

 tioned may be specially suitable ; but, inasmuch as the 

 birds pass direct from crate to pen, and from pen to 

 killing-shed, their feet never touch the soil from the 

 time they leave Ireland, to be fattened in Sussex, and 

 thence sent to the market for sale as ' best Surrey 

 chickens.' The fatting process, however, is obviously 

 an art which must be thoroughly understood, which 

 involves considerable labour, and for which, when con- 

 ducted as a business, a substantial amount of capital is 

 required. The average farmer, small holder, or cot- 

 tager would therefore do better to leave this branch 

 of the enterprise to specialists, and content himself with 

 simply raising the chickens. 



Poultry production, on the lines here recommended, 

 might certainly be made to rank among the remunera- 

 tive subsidiary industries of agricultural life, while the 

 producers would probably find it more profitable as it 

 would certainly be much less trouble to sell their lean 

 birds to the fatter than to kill them off for sale while 

 still in that condition. Small men who are breeders, 

 but not fatters, and send little lots of poor-quality 

 chickens to market to compete with the plumper birds 

 from Heathfield or Uckfield, may well get discouraged, 

 and say that poultry-raising does not pay. But in the 

 production of chickens, for sale, not direct on the 

 market, but to the fatters or their agents who collect 

 them at the door, pay cash down, prepare them for the 

 market, and take all risk, there are excellent oppor- 



