Housing 145 



to run their business on the old competitive system and do 

 nothing at all to help keep up the price of eggs, so that they 

 may pay a profit. They leave this most important of all 

 problems to outsiders whose interests are exactly opposite to 

 theirs. If these outside interests did not step in and relieve 

 the market, the poultrymen would not only, at times, be 

 unable to sell their eggs, but would not be able to give them 

 away. 



In the spring of 1913 eggs were quoted at 16c per dozen, 

 yet a few months later these same eggs were selling for 40c. 

 per dozen. They had been kept in good condition at the 

 cost of a few cents. When the market becomes overloaded 

 with eggs and the price goes down to practically nothing, 

 outside interests, knowing the profit to be made by keeping 

 those eggs a few months, step in and relieve the market of 

 the surplus eggs, which has a tendency to hold up the market. 

 The unorganized methods of the poultrymen and the organ- 

 ized methods of the cold storage companies enable the out- 

 side interests to control the price of eggs to a great extent. 

 Instead of the poultrymen cooperating and managing their 

 own business so that they could control the price of eggs, 

 they do just the opposite; they do not cooperate, but employ 

 the inferior and out-of-date methods of competition and 

 allow these outside interests to regulate the price of their 

 product. As outside interests are in the cold storage busi- 

 ness for one reason only and that reason is profit, it is 

 beyond reason of any sane person to expect them to pay 20c 

 per dozen for eggs when they can get them for 15c per dozen 

 by waiting a few days until the market becomes overstocked. 



The outside interests through the daily press shout that 

 there is an over-production of eggs and by not relieving 

 the market the price of eggs falls rapidly. There is undoubt- 

 edly an over-production of eggs every spring, yet those eggs 



