Breeding. The breeding season for canaries is from February until May or June. The cage for a breeding pair should be a little larger than that used for a single bird, and should be firmly attached to the wall instead of hanging where it can swing. The nest is usually a small wire basket. For nest material cotton batting and cow's hair or deer's hair are used. Deer's hair may be obtained at bird stores. These materials are placed in the cage and the birds use what they want. The hen lays from four to six eggs. The period of incubation is two weeks. During the breeding season the birds should be fed, in addition to the usual supply of seed, a little grated hard-boiled egg with cracker or bread crumbs. They also need a supply of fine oyster shells. By the time the young are three weeks old they are able to leave the nest and to feed themselves. They should then be removed to a separate cage.
CHAPTER XX
DISTRIBUTION OF MARKET PRODUCTS
Producers, consumers, and middlemen. The preceding chapters have treated of the characters and the uses of domestic birds, and of the methods of producing them. In this chapter we shall consider matters relating to the distribution of such of their products as are staple articles of commerce. There are very few subjects of general interest that are as widely misunderstood as some phases of the distribution of market eggs and poultry. Every one uses these products; many millions of people produce them in small quantities; but the consumers who are not producers live mostly in cities remote from the farming sections which have great surpluses of eggs and poultry to send to the cities, and so the work of distributing these products is done principally by traders, or middlemen.
The modern developments of poultry culture have been in a very large measure due to middlemen and could not continue without them. In a large and highly organized population middlemen in many different capacities perform the services which in primitive or small communities may be performed by either the producer or the consumer. Consumers and producers are apt to think that the middlemen get more than their fair share of the profits on the articles that they buy and sell. The true situation and the exact relations of producers, middlemen, and consumers of poultry products are easily understood if we study the development of the existing methods of distribution from the beginning.
How the middleman enters local trade. Suppose that a farmer brings to town 30 dozen eggs; that the storekeeper will allow him 20 cents a dozen for them; and that by peddling them from house to house he can sell them for 25 cents a dozen: how much will he make by selling them directly to the consumers?
As an arithmetical example, considering only the factors which appear in the statement, this is a very simple problem. It is easy to compute that by selling the eggs from house to house the farmer will make $1.50. But the farmer's practical problem in disposing of his eggs has some very important factors which do not appear in a simple arithmetical problem. Unless he had regular customers for his eggs, he would probably have to call at fifty or sixty houses to sell them. He might have to call at a great many more, and then might not succeed in selling them all. He would find that it was of little use to try to sell eggs to families that had not engaged them in advance, unless he called very early in the morning, before they had ordered eggs from some one else. If he succeeded in selling all the eggs, he would still have to consider whether it paid him better to spend his time, and that of his team, in selling the eggs than in working on the farm. Most farmers find that they cannot afford to peddle produce themselves, and unless some other member of the family can do it without interfering with important farm work, they sell such products as poultry, butter, and eggs to the storekeepers.
Now take the consumer's side of the case. The ordinary family uses only 2 or 3 dozen eggs a week. If the eggs can be bought at the store for 25 cents a dozen, and at a farm for 15 cents a dozen, there is an apparent saving of 20 or 30 cents by purchasing them at the farm. But in most cases it would cost the buyer more than 20 or 30 cents to go to the farm and get the eggs, and so he goes to the store for them.
The storekeeper is the middleman, really serving both producer and consumer. Every one can see this clearly in cases where there is only one middleman.