CHAPTER VII 

 A BUSINESS ENTERPRISE 



Principles. — Fine feathers usually make fine birds, for the same 

 reason that up-to-date business methods make satisfied custo- 

 mers, than which there is no greater asset to the poultryman, be 

 he conducting a large or small industry. Fine feathers indicate 

 quality — careful breeding of known reliability, proper feeding 

 and good care generally. Up-to-date business methods bear 

 the hall-marks of ambition to please, of progressiveness, of pains- 

 taking, workmanlike ability, of superiority and dependability. 

 Business to-day demands certain conventionalities, and those 

 who do not appreciate the fact, and who remain in the rut of a 

 past generation, thinking that they can do things as their grand- 

 fathers did, are sooner or later destined to become relegated to 

 obscurity. 



Conducting a poultry farm is no different from any other 

 enterprise in this respect; if the poultryman wants to make a 

 success of his business, and derive other than laborer's wages 

 from his investment, he must conduct his operations on what 

 have come to be recognized as the standards of modern business. 

 He must produce commodities which are in popular demand, not 

 has beens; he must exercise good salesmanship, by using every 

 means at his command to get his commodity before the public; 

 following which he must keep his products up to their representa- 

 tion, and never tolerate a sag in quality; and above everything 

 else he must give good value, and wherever possible — ^just a little 

 bit more than the other fellow. Perhaps not in a reduction in 

 price, for under-cutting is sometimes accompanied by retaliative 

 measures; but in the excellence of the product, or the manner in 

 which it is packed and distributed, in the service — the prompt- 



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