The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-07-03
ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY.

The articles published. by the CALL re-
Gently on the remarkable development of
the dairy interest. of California have, been
"a revelation to the readers of the paper.
Formerly a very large proportion of the
| butter which we consumed was brought
from the: East; bnt since some enterpris-
ing men have. organized the dairy districts
into companies, each of which provides
itself with the: fine modern machinery of
+ the:dairy, shipments from the East have
been suspended. and we have turned the
tide by shipping our. own butter to the
Eastern market. We have yet some weak
local customs to set aside. One of them is
the selling of butter by the ''roll" or the
square," When local purchaser buys
one of these he fondly thinks that he is
securing. two pounds. Never was there
stronger temptation to fraud than this
system invites. Our dairymen who ship
butter to the Eastern maket have to pack
it in tubs, and at the Eastern end it is sold
by. honest weight. The people back there
are too shrewd to be taken in by the Cali
fornia ''rolr' or square" device, and yet
we are still complacently submitting to it.
This. great turn in the production and
marketing Of one article OF farm produce
having been made, the invitation TO fur
Their ventures is extended. Let us take
poultry. At this time of the year those Of
us who have chicken tooth learn that
'' broilers'' cost from 60 cents to rs cents
pair in the market. '.fryers" from 10 cents
to dollar, and so on. The student of the
climate of the State wonders that the re-
sources of our. people have proved made
ouate to the production OF young spring
chickens at price at least equal to- that
charged. in any Eastern town, which is
about half the amount which we are re-
quired to pay. tits, OF course, the same
with eggs. All this. opens the Eastern
market to California consumers, and to-
day we are buying Eastern eggs in incredi-
bic quantities.
We are doing all this in spite of the fact
that the mild climate which we enjoy gives
US an advantage which the people OF. the
East are denied. What they accomplish.
with great pains We might do by employ
ing the simple tools with which nature has
provided us. This is written with a full
knowledge of the difficulties that have
been encountered and the. innumerable
failures anu losses Lnat nave DSeQ SuuereQ
in the embarrassing industry. Many
years ago England arrived at the conclu-
sion that chicken-raising as an. independ-
ent industry was failure. It was not un-
til France demonstrated the feasibility of
the idea and reduced it to science that
the possibilities OF the industry became
known.
1t is not our intention to give here
treatise on the poultry industry, for that is
a matter largely of individual intelligence.
1t must be sufficient for the present to
lament the fact that while we have every
natural advantage over the East, not only
in the supplying of our own market. but
in meeting the wants OF the Eastern con-
sumers themselves, there is as little excuse
for the present condition of affairs as there
was for that in which we depended on the
East for our full butter supply before our
dairymen became sufficiently progressive
to take the dairy interest into their own
hands,