140 LESSONS IN POULTRY KLLPING — SECOND SERIES. 



hitu, aiKl who finds that other people huying from Ihe same parties receive the s:ime treiitruent, 

 has to do with « very plain and simple case ot error or fraud involving nothing beyond the 

 peri-onalities and judgment of the two parties to the transaction. Hence it is theoretically 

 true, (and, as a rule, is found to be true in practice), that it is impossible for poultry breeders 

 either to perpetrate colossal frauds, or to continue indefinitely a regular system of dishonest 

 dealing. So true is this that it is commonly said that a fraud is more easily detected and more 

 quickly compelled to go out of business in this industry than in any other line. As a general 

 proposition, I believe that this is true, though occasionally we find a case which we think is 

 the exception — a breeder of and dealer in poultry commonly believed to be habitually di^- 

 honest, yet able to go on doing business, and apparently a good business, for a long 

 period. Such a man's successful dishonesty may be explained l)y unusual capacity for getting 

 the benefits ot crookedness without incurring its penalties. Such "crooks" in the poultry 

 busine.-s have their counterparts in every calling. In no legitimate callinK- do they establish 

 the moral tone of that calling. 



How Some Failures Let Themselves Down Easily. 



One of the commonest things in everyday life is to hear men assign for their conduct in a 

 matter, or for any condition for which they might be censured, a reason more creditable to 

 themselves than the true reason. This is not always done with deliberate intent to deceive 

 Others. Often the person giving the reason deceives himself first. He looks for a reason that 

 soils him, and, having found one, takes it as sufficient for himself. I would not say that 

 everyone who gives as a reason for his failure to develop his interest in poultry the crooked- 

 ness of the business was a failure in what he had tried to do in it. I would say, and I think 

 the concensus of opinion of well informed poultrymen who have thought the matter over 

 will agree with the statement — that most of the persons I have known who have given this 

 reason for going out of poultry, or doing little with it, have been persons for whose failure, 

 or lack of interest, experienced poultrymen who knew them- would have assigned other 

 reasons. Theirs is merely a case of " sour grapes." 



Because of the frequency of instances of persons who not having realized their expectations 

 in poultry culture attribute their lapses of activity to the evils of the calling in general, or to 

 the deceptions or frauds of specified individuals or concerns, I advise those wishing to form 

 for themselves >■ true estimate of the matter, to keep the point I have just mentioned in 

 mind, and not to accept an explanation discrediting the calling generally from men who 

 individually were no credit as fanciers or poultrymen either to themselves or to the fraternity. 



Peculiar Conditions in the Poultry Business. 



To properly appreciate moral conditions in the poultry industry it is necessary first of all 

 to recognize in it certain peculiar conditions which foster what we may call the '-sins of 

 ignorance" — the mistakes of novices which furnish a much larger proportion of the trans- 

 actions which might at first seem fraudulent than is commonly supposed. 



In thoroughbred poultry we are dealing with a commodity in which good judgment of 

 values cannot be acquired quickly, because the adjustment of values is a very complex 

 prolilem. At the same time we are dealing with » commodity of the class in which, as a 

 rule, novices who are mnch interested greatly overvalue their own judgment, because they 

 do not realize how much values depend upon distinctions which, as novices, they are not 

 yet able to make. To put it briefly and bluntly, the real cause of the failure of a great 

 many sellers of poultry to do what they ought to do is ignorance of qualities and values in 

 tlie goods in which they are dealing. This fact need not surprise anyone who will consider 

 how common it is to see people beginning to sell thoroughbred poultry and eggs for hatching 

 while their acquaintance with the breed or variety they handle goes no further than the stock 

 they have in their own yards, and their experience with this may date back but a few months. 



Now so far as the individuals in question are concerned, this period of ignorance of values 

 Is a stage in their poultry experience. Most of them outgrow It quickly as to serious errors, 

 and quite completely within a few years. And so far as the industry at large is concerned, 

 the presence In it of a class of 'novices who unintentionally make mistakes which .are due to 



