142 LESSONS IN POULTRY KEEPING — SECOND SERIES 



to the prevalence of this practice that a great many people who are hy no means novices in 

 the husiuess believe that the reports of it mu.-t be true, ami that it must be very general, or 

 there woukl not be so many people so sure of it. 



Considering the extent to which descriptions of evil constitute to some minds suggestions 

 of evil, it would be strange if, with so much said of this evii, instances of it were not numer- 

 ous, yet I have never personally Itnown of » single instance of this being done; nor have I 

 ever heard an instance of it reported by one whose testimony could be accepted as conclu- 

 sive. Hence whilel would not affirm that such an evil did not exist, I think that, consider- 

 ing the exceptional opportunities I have had of discovering it, that I am justified in asserting 

 my belief that instances of such dishonesty are extremely rare. 



The fact is, that there is no reason why any eensilile or shrewd person should not want the 

 *}.'gs he sells to hatch, and there are many reasons why it is to his advantage to have them , 

 batch well. 



Substituting Eggs from Inferior Stock in Filling Orders. 



This is an evil which, on their general impression of the unreliability of iioultrymen, many 

 suspect even when they have no positive proof of it. Absolute and positive proof of it is hard 

 to get, but traces of it may be found on all sides. While it is probable that the great majority 

 •of breeders are strictly honest in this matter, I think that there is ample reason to believe that 

 the number of those who, either as a regular practice or in emergencies, will substitute eggs 

 that are not what the customer ordered, is very considerable. I base this opinion not on com- 

 plaints of persons who think they have been imposed upon in this way, but upon the numlier 

 ■of poultrymen I have found who, without actually admitting that they did this, would refer 

 to it in such a way as to give the impression that they considered it a not very culpable oflense; 

 on a number of instances coming under my own observation when visiting poultry plants 

 where it appeared that the orders for the best grades of eggs said to have been received could 

 not have l)een filled with eggs from the stock of that grade; and on the occasional statements of 

 men I believe to be trustworthy who told me that it was a regular or occasional practice on 

 ■certain plants on which they had been employed. 



With regard to the matter treated under the previous heading, I would say that the prob- 

 abilities of a buyer of eggs being supplied with eggs which the seller had treated to prevent 

 batching, were extremely small, and the point need not be considered in ordering. With 

 regard to the matter of filling orders with eggs not filling the specifications, I would consider 

 that a buyer ran some risk, but not a very great risk. In what ratio this risk would be. repre- 

 sented, I do not know. Probably one in ten would be an excessive estimate of the chances of 

 getting an order made up in any part of eggs not as ordered, and I would suppose one in fifty 

 a liberal estimate of the proportion of poultrymen who make a practice of giving eggs of 

 grade inferior to those ordered. I ofTer these estimates only as indicating how much more 

 rare this practice is than many suppoi-e. 



The application of general moral principles to the situation presents two phases: 



First, there is the seller's side of the question. This phase of It presents no complexities. 

 There is only one thing for an honest man to do, and one alternative: The one thing is fill 

 orders w ith goods of the class and grade advertised for sale at the price. The alternative is 

 to state his inability to fill the order, and to return the money. 



The other phase of the question is not so simple. Many persons who wish to buy eggs for 

 tatcbing must buy of poultrymen of whom they know nothing, or not buy at all. To siiy that 

 if one cannot be sure of the honesty of the parties with whom he is dealing he had better let 

 transactions of that class alone, is not tO' offer a practical solution of the difficulty. More- 

 over such a rule imposed on transactions in eggs is unreasonable because It putson a transaction 

 into which an unusual element of chance inevitably enters a rule more rigid than could be 

 applied even in transactions from which chance might be almost completely eliminated. In 

 other words, « person who takes the position that he will buy eggs or poultry only from 

 breeders he thinks he is sure of, arbitrarily makes this a thing in which he will take no risks. 

 It is his privilege to do that if he wishes, but doing it too often puts one in the list of those 

 •who are said to cut off the nose to spite the face, A more reasonable way to look at it is to 



