BROILER RAISING 377 
or excessively fat birds being undesirable. A large mass of solid 
fat protruding from the lower posterior part of the abdomen 
makes the bird unsuitable for the best trade. 
Broiler raising, or the growing and marketing of young chickens, 
is carried on everywhere in the United States. No article of food 
is of such tender, delicious quality and so highly esteemed by every- 
one as the spring chicken. The great majority of broilers are 
produced in the spring of the year, and are a by-product from 
hatching pullets for winter layers. These broilers are produced 
at a time of the year when there is a big supply and when produc- 
tion cost is low. At this time the large broiler is in general demand, 
Fic. 174.—A flock of fowls ready for market. 
and the price is such that people of all degrees of wealth can eat 
them. The winter broiler business is an effort to raise young 
chickens under entirely artificial conditions and place them on 
the market in the late winter and early spring, which is a season 
when there is little of this type of product available. The produc- 
tion of winter broilers must of necessity be more costly than the 
production of the same product later in the spring. The greatest 
demand for broilers is in the large cities, in the vicinity of health 
resorts, and during the last few years an immense demand has 
been built up for them along the Atlantic seaboard. The cities 
of New York and Philadelphia constitute the two heaviest points 
of distribution. The Philadelphia broiler is a term which is com- 
mon in the East, but is really a misnomer, because those chickens 
are produced in New Jersey, and are simply sent into Philadelphia 
for marketing. New Jersey has always held the centre of the 
stage as a broiler-producing state. Some years ago a boom was 
started, but, owing to the fact that it was not built upon sound 
