ood brains will be wasted in the attempt
to produce at a profit something which is, and probably always will
be, produced at a loss.

The reason the broiler is produced at a loss is that 95 per cent. of
the broilers produced are a by-product of egg, fancy and general
poultry production, and as such their selling price is not
determined by the cost of production, or the supply determined by
the demand. That the broiler business received the boom that it did,
is due to plain ignorance of the cost of production, or to the
appreciation that the ability to rear young chicks could find a more
profitable outlet than in broiler production. Let us take an
analogous case. Suppose a city man should discover the fact that
there was a demand for dried casein from skim milk. With pencil and
paper he could easily figure profits in the business. If this
dreamer would attempt to keep cows for the production of casein and
throw away his butter fat, we would have an analogous case to the
broiler raiser who does not keep his pullets for egg production.

The young cockerel, like skim milk, is a by-product and may pay over
the cost of feeding, or some other specific item, but that he does
not pay the whole cost, including wages for the manager is proven by
two facts: First, every large broiler plant yet started has either
failed flatly or shifted its main line to other things; second, egg
farmers would be only too glad to buy pullets at the price for which
they sell the cockerels--a confession that it costs more to produce
broilers than they will bring.

The conception of the broiler business when it was boomed twenty
years ago was to produce broilers in early spring, when other folks
had none. It was, like the early watermelon, or the early strawberry
business--to make its profits in extreme prices.

This idea received several severe blows from the hands of modern
progress. One is the development of poultry fattening and crate
feeding in this country. This has resulted in supplying the consumer
with choice chicken-flesh that can be produced more economically
than broilers. Formerly it was a case of eating old hen--rooster,
age unknown, or broilers--now we have capon, roaster, crate-fattened
chickens and green ducks, all rivals for the place formerly occupied
exclusively by the broiler.

Again, the improvement of shipping and dressing facilities, the
universal introduction of the refrigerator car and the introduction
into the central