156 FIRST LESSONS IN POULTRY KEEPING. 



williug to pay something more than regular market prices for goods that suit their trade 

 provided they can depend on getting them regularly, and always up to quality. For all they 

 can work off in the ordinary course of trade such firms will usually pay the highest market 

 price, taking goods as they come, up to the amount their trade calls for. But if they can he 

 s-ure of a steady supply of extra choice goods they can make a specialty of them, push them 

 and extend their trade in those lines to the joint profit of producer and distributor. 



The common obstacle to making arrangements of this kind is the inability of the producer to 

 keep the volume of his produce steadily up to what he has agreed to furnish; repeated disap- 

 pointments of this kind make these firms shy of conducting bargains with poultrymeu 

 unknown to them or whose ability to live up to their agreements remains to be proved. 

 Hence the poultry keeper looking for a market of this kind is apt to find them quite unre- 

 sponsive to the inducements he offers them. 



The best way to deal with this trade is not to attempt to get it until by experience you know 

 just what you can be reasonably sure of being able to supply week in and week out through 

 the season or the year, and then make an arrangement on that basis. Such an arrangement 

 does not necessarily mean a contract for only what can be supplied when production is at the 

 lowest point, for when production is lowest consumption is generally lowest also, and when 

 production is greatest and prices lowest, consumption is greatly increased. A retailer who 

 wanted two cases of eggs a week in November and December, might want four in April. A 

 producer producing a case of eggs a week in November and December, might have the four 

 cases a week in April, and as many as were wanted during three-fourths of the year, but if 

 he could not meet the retailer's order for the season of slack production, and some one else 

 could, the other party would get the trade. To put it another way, the producer must find a 

 retailer whose needs it is within his ability to supply regularly. Such a customer he can hold 

 if his goods and his dealings are right; but if he can but partly supply a customer his hold on 

 that business is far more uncertain. 



Considering this fact with the general disposition of poultry keepers to enter into arrange- 

 ments of this kind in the spring, and the too common necessity for dropping out of them before 

 the summer is over: while I would certainly not advise anyone to let slip a contract of this 

 kind that came his way, I would emphatically advise one not to devote much time to looking 

 for such customers until experience had shown what quantities of produce he could safely 

 engage to deliver. 



It may seem to some that it is as well to endeavor to get this trade for such periods as one 

 can hold a customer each year, looking up a new customer each year if necessary, but as a rule 

 customers of this class are not so easily obtained that one can afford to do this. 



riarketing With Two fliddlemen. 



I can best illustrate this by describing the method of marketing the soft roaster crop of the 

 South Shore section, to which reference has been made a number of times in these lessons. 



There few of the growers dress their poultry. It is sold alive to a few firms, some of which 

 are also growers, and these firms dress the stock and distribute it to the retailers. By this 

 method the inequalities of production are quite generally equalized. The grower is not under 

 necessity of supplying a definite number of fowls each week, or at any regular interval. He 

 holds his fowls until they are ready at their best. The collectors, being in constant touch 

 with many producers, know just what each has and approximately how many he will have 

 ready at any given time, and arrange their collections accordingly, with the result that the 

 trade is satisfactorily supplied, and the producer gets the benefit of a near connection with the 

 retail trade without any of the difficulties of maintaining such connection which beset him 

 when he sells direct to the trade. 



The opportunities to sell in this way are not general. They may, however, be, found almost 

 anywhere where production is considerable enough to make collecting worth while, and a 

 good retail trade near enough to take the produce while still in first class condition. There 

 are many communities in the territory tributary to the large market centers where collectors 

 of eggs and poultry will handle them for the producer to better advantage than he can handle 

 them for himself. 



