No. 4.] EGG PRODUCTION. 71 



likely to succeed best if allowed to do the thing that they 

 like to do best. So let us try to find out how to house the 

 hens, how to hatch the chickens, how to brood them, how 

 to feed them, how to select and breed them. We have two 

 main factors, — the high-priced raw material and the 

 splendid, well-developed machine. It is for us to bring them 

 together and get results. 



There is another phase of the question which is of equal 

 importance with these two, and that is the question of mar- 

 keting the product, the question of getting all that belongs 

 to the man who goes to the expense and trouble of production. 

 And right there is where you people in Massachusetts are 

 blessed. Sometimes it takes a person a long time to find 

 out when he is well off. Sometimes he will grow up in his 

 community and not realize his blessings. We may have to 

 take a long trip to other States and then come back to see 

 and realize what a good place we are living in. You people 

 are blessed beyond all measure in your markets : I don't 

 know any other country where you can get a higher-priced 

 local market for poultry and poultry products of the right 

 kind and quality than you can right, here in Massachusetts. 

 You are making the mistake of your lives if you don't buy 

 the grain, if necessary, and feed it to your hens, to make the 

 eggs and chickens that sell at high prices, instead of letting 

 the people in the west and the middle west supply your 

 markets with poultry products. Carloads and train loads 

 of poultry and poultry products are coming into this State 

 and !New York State every year. We are not producing 

 enough to feed our own people, and so long as that condition 

 exists it seems to me that it is " up to us " as farmers to 

 see that our people are well fed when they are willing to 

 pay the prices that they do for our products. Wlien it 

 comes to marketing the product it means the supplying of 

 the kind of product that the people want. For my part, I 

 am not going to argue for one minute with customers who 

 are willing to pay 5 cents a dozen more in order to get 

 brown eggs or to get white ones. They can have what they 

 want if they will pay the price. There are people, in Bos- 

 ton and elsewhere in the United States, who have a notion 



