856 
THE Ft URAL NEW-YORKER 
Business 
ing this time when eggs are as scarce as 
A Family Chicken Business. 
Broiler Trade. —Ring, ring, goes the 
telephone, “Hello, Mrs. B., this is Mrs. 
R. I expect company for Sunday din¬ 
ner, and could you furnish me with four 
broilers nicely dressed and drawn, as you 
always send them?’’ “Certainly! IIow 
large ones do you want?” “We like 
them best when they dress about 2V4 or 
three pounds.” “All right, we will leave 
them at your house on our way down 
town Saturday evening.” “Good-bye.” 
The above is a fair sample of the kind 
(f noise that B.’s telephone makes sev¬ 
eral times a week. Often it is an or¬ 
der for a nice fat fowl, green corn or 
peas in their season. Ilow their ’phone 
learned to talk in this way is what I am 
going to try to tell you. 
The Beginning. —In the first place, 
notice the way in which they started. 
When they moved on the little farm they 
had bought soon after their marriage, a 
lady made Mrs. B. a present of a couple 
of iieus. When she rolled them out of 
the sack they came in, an egg also rolled 
< ut. They took this as a good omen and 
soon after purchased a few more hens, 
wherever they could find them. This 
way was not very satisfactory; they 
soon decided to get a small incubator and 
raise their own chickens. They had 
very good success with this one. Soon 
after they were offered a large 360-egg 
incubator at a very reasonable price. 
Soon some of their neighbors wanted to 
have some eggs hatched. B. told them 
that where others furnished the eggs it 
was hardly fair to ask him to stand the 
loss if they proved infertile, as would 
be the base if he hatched them at so 
much per chick, but if they wanted to 
put them in at so much per egg, they 
would do the best they could with them. 
C 7 - - - -: - ^ 
Chicken Dinners 
•t 
Maple Brook Farm 
Good Home Cooking, served wilh the Best of Spreads 
All Preserve* and ReJuhes made m Out Own Kitchen . 
Tk’■It fleurt X»Ir« RrqmirtJ 
SITUATED ON MILLER HOLLOW ROAD ~ 
4 from K«nnrJ), N. Y., 10 mile* from Janwilowo 
MRS M. J. BROWN 
R. F. O. 74 Kroner, N. Y. Ho~« S4 
A Farm Woman’s Business Card. 
A few brought eggs, and when the first 
man came for his chicks lie was so well 
pleased he remarked: “No more fussing 
with setting liens for me.” Pulling out 
his wallet he handed B. the money, who 
passed it over to his wife, saying that 
as she had done the most of the turning 
the eggs, looking after the lamps, etc., 
it was no more than fair that she should 
have the money. Right there I think 
he made a ten strike. I don’t care how 
well most women are supplied with 
money, they like to feel that they can 
have some money that they can call all 
their own. As business increased, they 
added other machines until now they have 
11 and their custom hatching runs up 
into the thousands every season. 
Early Broilers. —In the second place 
we will describe the way in which they 
imitate “the early bird that gets the 
worm.” They set their eggs for their 
own use just as early as they think they 
can get fertile eggs. These early chicks 
are kept growing right along. By the 
early part of June they have some nice 
plump young roosters ready to supply 
the wants of the town people with a 
craving for early Spring chicken, and 
the size of poeketbook that should go 
with such craving. In this way they 
get some good customers that they would 
not get in any other way. Then by the 
time the bulk of the young roosters are 
on the market and the bottom has 
dropped out of the broiler market they 
have disposed of most of their crop, ex¬ 
cept enough to supply their best cus¬ 
tomers, who are willing to pay a good 
price for crate-fattened birds all nicely 
dressed and drawn. They try to get 
enough out of their broilers so that their 
pullets do not cost them very much. 
These pullets are what they depend 
on for eggs during Fall and early 
Winter months, then is the time when 
they need them to supply a grocer in the 
city. They could not hold this good mar¬ 
ket if they could not deliver eggs dur¬ 
hens’ teeth on many poultry plants. 
They watch them closely during this 
time and a pullet that lays well during 
the high price months is marked and 
saved for a breeder. 
Breeding For Results. —Then every 
year they send away to a breeder who 
trap-nests his hens, and got eggs enough 
to raise their cockerels for the next year. 
By this method they get good results, 
and do not have to bother with trap-nests 
themselves. Every time B. goes into his 
henhouse you will see him cast his eyes 
over his flock to try to discover the board¬ 
ers. The one that is last to leave th<» 
roost in the morning is always looked 
upon with suspicion. If she doesn’t 
seem to have any ambition to scratch 
and dig, she is marked with a little red 
or black paint; the next order they get 
for a fowl this non-layer lays her head on 
a block. 
Selling Fowls. —When it gets along 
toward Spring and everybody’s hens that 
ever do lay are beginning to shell out the 
eggs, it is almost impossible to get farm¬ 
ers to sell any of their fowls. They 
think since they have fed them all Win¬ 
ter without getting many eggs, now they 
will keep them until they stop laying in 
the Fall, then sell them. That is just 
the time that fowls are so plenty and 
cheap that it is a job to get rid of them. 
While the fowls are scarce and high B. 
tries to get rid of most of his flock that 
ho docs not intend to keep over. Thus 
he has more room for his growing stock 
pnd during the season when eggs are 
plenty, feed is usually high, and B. thinks 
lie can buy and test eggs for his egg mar¬ 
ket about as cheaply as he can produce 
them himself. 
Dressed Fowls. —As to whether it 
pays to dress and market the fowls in 
this way. I will give one example and 
the reader may draw his own conclu¬ 
sions. One day Mrs. B. received an or¬ 
der for four large fowls—the larger the 
better—so she dressed them and B. left 
them on his way to the mill; stepped 
into an office, laid down a bill for $5.60, 
pocketed the money and departed, all 
parties apparently satisfied. Now if lie 
had sold them to the market he could 
not have received over $1 apiece. In 
order to have sold such large ones at 
all lie would have been obliged to slip 
them in with some lighter ones. There 
are two ways to work up a private 
trade, the first is to try to undersell 
the local markets, the second is to charge 
the same as the local markets and de¬ 
pend upon the good quality of the goods 
to hold the trade. B. chose the latter 
course, and I think his customers think 
just as much of him as if he tried to cut 
under the market price. He delivers his 
fowls, waits for his pay if necessary, and 
it seems lie is entitled to as good a price 
as anyone. 
Some Disadvantages. —Even if one 
has had plenty of experience with poul¬ 
try, she should think twice before try¬ 
ing the experiment of selling dressed 
fowls and broilers direct to private cus¬ 
tomers, as there are some things that 
are not very pleasant. For example, one 
day about noon Mrs. B. received an or¬ 
der for 12 three-pound roasters that were 
to be dressed and ready for the party, 
who would call for them about five 
o’clock. The order had been delayed 
and the woman who usually helped out 
in such emergencies was away, so B. 
had to leave his work in the hayfield and 
help make the feathers fly. As it was 
Saturday and looked like rain he worked 
until after nine o’clock to get his hay 
put up. B. did not feel very proud of 
this, but at the end of the season, they 
found the person mentioned above, had 
paid them over $50 for broilers, etc. 
Large Incubators. —Some one asked 
me the other day if I did not think that 
so many of these large capacity incuba¬ 
tors would tend to overdo the poultry 
business. My mind went hack about 20 
years when incubators first began to 
come around. I remember the dire pre¬ 
dictions of some of the old croakers of 
that time. “Why eggs would not be 
worth five cents a dozen and fowls could 
not be given away in a few years.” was 
their cry. When you think of the price 
at which fresh eggs retailed in New York 
City last Winter those old forecasts are 
amusing. About that same time I had 
made a bargain with my father by which 
I was to have the money for what young 
roosters and old fowls I could sell in 
return for taking care of the poultry, he 
t;> furnish the feed and to have the eggs. 
Well, I had a lot of young roosters, and 
hearing of a man who was said to bo 
paying 25 cents apiece for such birds, 
I loaded up about 40 ranging from 1 
to four pounds in weight, of all types 
and colors imaginable, then drove five 
miles only to have the man refuse to buy 
them at any price. Not being able to dis¬ 
pose of them anywhere, I brought them 
home and we had chickens galore to eat. 
Quality Counts. —Now we will com¬ 
pare this experience of the good old times 
with one B. had last June. A commis¬ 
sion man in New York City was going 
to the seashore for a week or two. He 
wrote out here to a man who had been 
shipping eggs to him ; wanted to know 
if he would send him six or eight Spring 
chickens that would weigh about three 
,~L?. this man did not have any 
< ^.cfcens enough, he gave the letter 
to B. and told him to answer it. B. wrote 
him he had some young roosters that 
had been confined and milk-fed and would 
be pleased to ship him some at 30 cents 
per pound live weight, to be weighed 
by 15. and delivered at his express office, 
the receiver to pay express. As soon as 
“Uncle Sam” could bring it. came a re¬ 
ply which started off like this, “Please 
ship me eight at once.” They were sent 
and the check that came in payment was 
$7.40. Now why was it that B. could 
get that amount of money for eight chick¬ 
ens and have the buyer say “Please” to 
boot, while I as a boy had been unable 
to coax a man to give me 25 cents apiece 
for some as large? The reason is not 
far to seek. His birds were of uniform 
size, color and condition, ready for mar¬ 
ket when there was very little competi¬ 
tion, and this is just what the farmers 
and poultry men have got to do unless 
they are satisfied with the 35-eent dol¬ 
lar. 
Wyandottes vs. Leghorns. —I asked 
B. once if he did not think it would pay 
them to keep “Leghorns” and go in for 
the fancy white egg trade. He said: 
“No. I will put our White Wyandottes 
against anything that wears feathers, 
when it comes to laying eggs from Oc¬ 
tober to March. I believe that I get 
enough more for the eggs they lay (lur¬ 
ing this time to make up for what we 
lose during the rest of the year. Further¬ 
more,” he continued, “I believe that a 
lot of this white egg demand is all in 
their eye. When we started in sending 
eggs to our grocery man in the city, he 
wanted, first of all, fresh eggs; second, 
he wanted good-sized eggs, and third, he 
wanted white eggs. We Began shipping 
in September. We wrote him saying that 
he would get more of the first and second 
class if he did not insist too strongly on 
the third. We tried to convince his cus¬ 
tomers through him that they would bo 
less liable to got cold storage eggs for 
this reason; it is generally admitted that 
the American breeds lay best during 
Autumn and early Winter months, while 
the white egg breeds lay best when the 
price begins to go down and speculators 
are tempted by the low prices to buy 
up eggs and hold them for an advance. 
No one with any sense thinks of holding 
eggs from November to March. I don't 
know if our arguments carried any 
weight or not, but he lias never insisted 
on white eggs since, and pays us as much 
for brown as for white eggs. I know 
a man with 200 blue-blooded hens, who 
for six months of the year, when he 
wants a fresh egg for breakfast, has to 
buy it. Last February I was talking 
with a man who has 600 Leghorn hens, 
and he couldn’t fill a crate of eggs in 
two weeks. These cases can be dupli¬ 
cated by hundreds of others throughout 
the country.” 
Starting With Poultry. —If any 
should be tempted to make the plunge 
into the poultry business by reading this 
article, I want to say, “Don’t do it.” If 
there is any other business in which 
more dismal failures have been made 
than this I don’t know what it is, un¬ 
less it is buying mining stock or Florida 
farms. My advice to anyone getting the 
“hen fever” is this: Buy a setting of 
eggs, borrow a setting hen, and see r f 
you can make them pay before giving up 
a good position and risking good money 
June 26, 1915. 
in what would be almost certain failure 
unless backed up with more grit and 
stiek-to-itiveness than most people pos¬ 
sess. j. c. G. 
A Horseshoe Door. 
The picture given herewith shows the 
door of a blacksmith shop in Illinois. 
Here is a man who has a good eye for 
advertising for certainly nothing could 
be more characteristic of his shop than 
the door shaped like a horseshoe. Build¬ 
ing such a door would probably be some¬ 
what more expensive than one of the or¬ 
dinary shapes, but everyone who passes 
on the road or who enters this shop will 
say at once that this is characteristic of 
the business. This is what we call get¬ 
ting things into the imagination of th.- 
public, and is one of the secrets of adver¬ 
tising success. We see many instances 
of this in the city. 
One milkman who handles a high-class 
milk has a delivery wagon built in the 
shape of an immense white bottle, much 
the shape of the ordinary glass bottl * 
used in delivering quarts of milk. This 
immense bottle on wheels is used for 
carrying about the milk to customers, 
and wherever it goes it attracts atten¬ 
tion. The other day we saw die deliv¬ 
ery wagon of a brewer built in the shape 
of an immense beer barrel. This was 
filled with bottled beer, which was deliv¬ 
ered to customers from this vehicle, and 
90% of the persons who saw it go by, 
from the very novelty of the thing, 
turned to look at it. The brewers, there¬ 
fore, begin to see the necessity of getting 
away from the stomach of the public into 
A Horseshoe Door. 
its imagination, but these things are 
only slight indications or slight evidences 
of the value of using these attractive 
things for advertising ordinary wares. 
Selling Wild Flowers. 
Do you know about a place in New 
York City where I could sell wild flow¬ 
ers and cut flowers from a small flower 
garden? A lady who lives near Dover, 
N. Y., says she sells them to a florist in 
New York, sends them by parcel post, 
to him, so I thought perhaps you might 
know about some one there who would 
like to buy them. E. o. 
New York. 
We can give the names of florists who 
sell on commission, but the Summer sea¬ 
son does not offer any great opportunity 
for trade in wild flowers. Very likely the 
lady you speak of has some personal ac¬ 
quaintance in the trade, so that she can 
sell flowers to advantage. The retailers 
here chiefly prefer to buy from the com¬ 
mission men; it is more convenient, as 
they can obtain just what they want. 
This year wild and outdoor flowers are 
not bringing large prices, and prospects 
for the Summer are poor. There is no 
steamer trade as in former years, and 
this has greatly affected the business. 
Are there no boarding houses or hotels 
nearer home where you could develop a 
trade? Many of these hotels would be 
glad to obtain a daily supply of flowers 
for their dining-room tables. Guests 
would also take flowers for their rooms. 
The chances are you can do much better 
at making sales in these near-home mar¬ 
kets than you ever could at shipping to 
the commission trade in New York. 
