Mr. Harwood, in the World's Work for May, 1908, after describing the
"City of a Million Hens," raises the question, "If in Petaluma, why
not anywhere?" I would like to answer that question by saying that
while anywhere is a little broad, the reason the industry has not
developed elsewhere has been because of the diversion of interested
capital towards impractical large individual poultry plants, manned
by hired labor. Another reason has been the lack of the technical
knowledge necessary to construct and operate efficient hatcheries.
The poultryman has been a disciple of the poultry papers and poultry
fanciers of the day. The poultry papers and poultry literature has
generally been supported by poultry fanciers and manufacturers of
incubators, patent nests and portable houses. The good folks have
vied with one another in complicating the business. They have built
steam-piped houses, with padded walls and miniature railways with
which daily to haul away the droppings. A few famous fanciers
selling eggs at $10.00 per setting have made such business pay, but
alas for the luckless investor in what the visiting poultry editor
would style a "handsomely equipped modern poultry plant."
A few years ago a Government poultry expert paid a visit to
Petaluma. He came back and reported, "It is a great disappointment,
the methods are very crude." The case is most pathetic. Here was a
man employed by the people to teach them how to make poultry pay.
His carfare is paid across the continent that he might visit the
only community in the United States where at that time any
considerable number of people were making their living from poultry,
and because he did not find lightning rods on the poultry houses, he
came back with the look of Naamen who, when he was requested by
Elisha to bathe seven times in the river Jordan, replied, "It is
very crude."
Will Co-operation Work?
That magic thing, "Co-operation," while utterly lacking in the
Utopian qualities with which the word artist paints it, is a
decidedly bigger factor in American affairs than the average man
realizes.
The chief difficulty with co-operation is that the manager, if not
incompetent, has an excellent opportunity to be a grafter. In Europe
co-operation in agricultural and mercantile enterprise is older and
better developed than in this country. Perhaps the Europeans are
less inclined to be grafters, but a more likely explanation is that
the members of such associations as these have learned how to
prevent and detect graft, just as our business men have learned to
avoid losses from the dishonesty of employes. That this is the true
explanation is substantiated by the fact that when co-operation once
becomes established in this country, it succeeds even better than in
Europe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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