THE POULTRY PRODUCING COMMUNITY 
winter is one of continual rain which develops roup to a 
greater extent than we have it in the East. The prices re- 
ceived for high grade eggs in San Francisco is in the winter 
about equal to the top prices in New York. In the spring and 
summer New York will give more for fancy goods. The cost 
of corn on the Pacific Coast is about 40 cents a hundred more 
than on the Atlantic Coast. Wheat, however, is cheaper than 
in the East, but not cheap enough to substitute for the more 
staple grain. 
The eggs from the Petaluma region are at present marketed 
largely through a co-operative marketing association. 
Developing Poultry Communities. 
I have shown why the large individual poultry farms with 
hired labor have not proven profitable fields for the invest- 
ment of capital. Again, I have shown that in a few localities 
where the business was incidentally started, communities of 
independent poultry farmers have grown up which are very 
successful, and that there is no apparent reason why similar 
communities elsewhere, if intelligently located, could not do 
as well or better. 
This looks like an excellent field for corporate enterprise. 
Certainly there is no more reason why the poultry community 
cannot be as successfully promoted as an irrigation project, 
or a cheese factory, or a trucking community. In such a com- 
munity there are many functions that can be better performed 
by a capitalized body managed by experts than by individual 
poultrymen acting alone. 
These functions are: 
First, the selection of a location and the purchase of the 
land in large quantities. 
Second, laying out this land into suitable individual hold- 
ings, with regard to economy of water supply and the collec- 
tion of the product. 
Third, the partial or complete equipment of these farms at 
less expense and in a more suitable manner than could or 
would be done by the individual holders. 
Fourth, the sale or rent of these places to poultrymen at a 
reasonable profit on the investment, but at a rate which will 
still be below the cost at which the individual could have ac- 
quired the land. 
35 
