STANDARD OF MORALITY IN POULTRY CULTURE. 139 



LESSON XVII 



Business florality in Poultry Culture. 



WHOEVER becomes intereated — ever so liltle — in iburougblirej poultry culture 

 discovers almost at once tbat a considerable proportion of persons similarly ijiterested 

 believe tbat tbe moral tone of the industry is distinctly below the average. He 

 will find many people who believe and say this, and many others who go furtlier 

 and declare that this extent of business immorality among poultrynien has so disgusted them 

 with the ImsinesB and tho-e engaged in it, that they have either withdrawn from it eniirnly, 

 or limit their active interest in it us much as is necessary to keep them quite strictly apiirt 

 from those who indulge in or condone tlie practices which they condemn. 



It is wise and well to take such statements wiih a lilieral degree of allowance for the 

 accuracy of the narrator's information as to general conditions and the correctness of his 

 representation of his own case. The poultry industry, like every other, has its peculiar con- 

 ditions offering temptation or inducement for peculiar manifestations of the errors of omission 

 and commision to which human nature is prone, and the well known rule that men are much 

 more impressed with the exceeding sinfulness of sin with which they are not familiar, applies 

 here as elsewhere. So that it may readily be admitted that such evils as are complained of 

 do exist, and that they do make a very strong impression upon the minds of many who see 

 something of them. 



Whether these evils are such and of such proportions as to give an uncommonly low 

 general moral tone to poultry culture; and whether the persons who complain so much of 

 them, and attribute their own lack of greater interest in poultry culture to them, are correct 

 in their diagnosis of tlieir case, are questions upon which I wish to make some comments 

 before proceeding to discuss independently some of the real evils of the poultry business, 

 their causes, and the means to be taken for minimizing them. 



General Horality in the Poultry Business. 



I think that, with very few exceptions — perhaps without exception — those familiar with 

 the general conditions in the poultry business, and intimate with a great many men engaged 

 in it, will agree that tbe general moral tone in the industry is the same as tbe general moral 

 tone of the community. That means that, on the whole, the transactions of poultrymcn and 

 between poultryraen must be satisfactory to all parties concerned. 



Now we know that it is possible in some kinds of business for those engaged in the busi- 

 ness to do a dishonest business and still hold a large proportion of their clients or customers. 

 This is accomplished by concealing the dishonesty of transactions, by deceiving customers ;i« 

 to their character. In the poultry industry by far the greater number of the acts of crooked- 

 ness alleged to have occurred are of such character that to continually deceive the same 

 persons by them is impossible. In fact, they are acts which— If actually committed — are 

 detected even by a tyro In the business, with comparative ease. A bucket shop operator's 

 victims cannot readily discover the mechanism, or follow the intricacies of the methods by 

 which their separation from their money seems to be the result of causes beyond the control 

 Of tbe operator, but tbe man who buys a fowl that does not answer tbe description given 



