What Los Angeles Poultrymen Have Accomplished 149 



as a fresh ranch egg. The cost of candhng, handling and delivering in 

 small lots ate up the profits on the local egg trade, delivery being the 

 largest item. 



At the annual meeting on December 1, 1913, one hundred and seventy- 

 five poultrymen, and friendly interests, had invested nearly $8,000 in 

 money, which has had to work overtime, as so much of it has had to go 

 for equipment and development, that there was very little left to 

 handle the $15,000 or more sales they are making monthly. 



Income. — The Association, though operating on close margins, 

 handle a great variety of articles; they buy and sell everything a 

 poultryman produces and uses is his poultry business. They have a 

 department that acts as a sort of clearing house for stock, here the 

 producer takes surplus breeders to dispose of; they sell hatching eggs 

 and baby chicks for members, they have a regular mail order busi- 

 ness, or shipping by parcels post, and, as Mr, Davis says, they have to 

 have efficient help and it is up to the poultrymen to keep their help 

 busy. 



What Has Been Done and What Can Be Done. — Before this Asso- 

 ciation commenced business, the local commission houses used to pay 

 half price for pullet eggs and dirties; the Association at once began 

 a system of close grading, which has raised both the quality and price. 

 So far, the greatest difficulty it has had to fight, has been the short- 

 sightedness of some of its own members, who for the sake of the pres- 

 ent penny have sacrificed the future dime. But there always were and 

 always will be people so afraid to trust in themselves and their own 

 class of workers that they will give away all they have gained by 

 hard work to somebody with just a little more confidence in himself, 

 and we never doubt a middleman's self-confidence, 



A short time ago, Mr. Davis tells me, a prominent commission man 

 made overtures to him for his aid to help "break the market." He 

 said if he could get hold of so many cases of eggs in one day he 

 could break the market and begin to "store eggs," which at the ruling 

 price paid by the Association he could not afford to do. 



Of course, the help he sought was not given. It would have been 

 a joke for a co-operative Association to join in such suicidal competi- 

 tion as that, when its aim was to hold the market up so that its mem- 

 bers could live. But what can be said when an individual member, 

 for just one cent a dozen more than Association prices, sells his 

 eggs to this same commission man, who was only a few days before 

 trying to "break the market," in which case the member would have 

 been getting about five cents less. 



When we consider that this Association has prospered in spite of 

 such handicaps as this, and many others, until now they are nearing 

 the place where they will be able to control the market themselves, it 

 makes us wonder. 



