POULTRY PRODUCTION AND POULTRY INDUSTRY 37 



Aside from dressing and preserving poultry, eliminating 

 the bad eggs which, under the present general system of 

 buying eggs from producers without regard to quality, are 

 bound to find their way into the channels of trade, and 

 preserving the good ones, the packer has been forced by the 

 exigencies of the business to take up the work of fattening 

 and finishing the poultry before killing it. 



Fig. 8 



Egg-breaking room at a Western packing-house. Eggs are broken out 

 for the purpose of drying or freezing. See egg churns at the right. 

 (Courtesy of Seymour Packing Company.) 



The Distributer. — ^As indicated in Fig. 7, poultry products 

 may reach the consumer by numerous routes. In a very 

 small proportion of cases the producer deals with the con- 

 sumer direct, and is also a distributer. In an increasing, 

 though still small, number of cases, the local buyer is a 

 merchant who retails the products at the place of produc- 

 tion. In the great majority of cases, however, both eggs 

 and poultry reach the consumer by a more circuitous route. 

 After the products have been concentrated in the hands of 

 the wholesale buyers, including the packers, they may 

 be turned over to a commission merchant or broker, who 



