Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1912-01-23
Chicken 20 1-3 Cents Per Pound.

Chicken 20 1-3 Cents Per Pound.
The price of chicken is pretty high
in Augusta, for the season, isn't it,
And chicken doesn't go as far as it
used to, either. Why is it, Let us
consider prices. conditions and Gus
toms for moment and then figure.
An Augusta man went into a local
market Monday morning. Jan. %, and
purchased a chicken. The price was
20 1-3 cents per pound. odd price
isn't it? But this is true report.
The buyer selected a handsome bird
of about the right size for his family
and said he would take il home at
once 1t weighed Sc pounds.
When the bird was ready to wrap
up, the buyer asked that it be returned
to the scales. 1t weighed four pounds
and two ounces. The chicken, which
the buyer had calculated as about the
right size for his family. had shrunk
enc pound and six ounces.
SO much for the custom of handling
poultry with only little blood and
few of the coarsest feathers missing.
One of these days we may expect to
buy our beans and peas in the pod,
our potatoes, onions. etc, OH the stalk.
and our wood in the tree, should the
plan be extended.
But here is the way in which the
chicken price came about. The dealer
promptly answered "23 cents when
asked the price of chicken. This is
equal to 1as cents per ounce. The
chicken referred to above weighed So
ounces, and figured up to $1.21. When
he was ready to take home, he still
figured $121 but had dropped in
weight to Sc ounces. thus jumping the
price upward to / So cents per ounce,
or 29 1-3 cents per pound.
If the buyer had been particular
| about having five and one half pounds
| of chicken he must have selected one
| weighing seven pounds or over.
1t is the same in buying meat. If
you wish a choice cut of beef you are
told that it is only % or 80 cents a
weighed with all the attachments of
scraps, dried edges, fat, gristle and
bone, to say nothing of whatever
sticks to it as it goes to the scales
with a generous wrapping of paper.
| eve would say here that the hide,
hoofs and horns had been removed !;
and also that wrapping paper costs
the grocer not over five cents per
pound. for which you paw 25 or 800
And when your cut of only 80 cent
imeat is ready to take home you have
paid at the rate of 35 or IS cents for
what you got.
This. of course, is perfectly proper
land all right, so long as everybody
tagrees to it, but why is it thus? The
leverage grocer or meat cutter car
give you no other explanation thar
that everybody else does it thai
way"
Why not pay for what YOU get, ever
, if the price does sound larger? Why
did not the market man of the CHECKER
incident say to his customer: "Tha
chicken, ready for the oven. will cos
lyou 80 cents per pound? 1t certain
ly would have sounded pretty stiff 70
chicken at mid January, but that i
what it amounted TO.
< And when il is all figured out, tn
: buyer pays the highest market pric
n raiser throws off the prevailing whole
: lsale price for waste in dressing
c Here is frank admission from on
" man who has bought and sold tons O
a poultry:
il Dec 10 | bought d handsome lot o
" chickens of poultry raiser on a
re average market of % cents a pount
in told the farmer his chickens woul
ct dress away 20 per cent. and paid hin
m 1712 cents delivered at my place 'ur
a drawn 4"
~ These chickens We're hung up an
SC retailed at % and "a cents per poun