Part 51 (2/2)

I do the o, and my place is a hundred and fifty miles south of that city; if a scalded chicken will keep when I a it that far away it will keep for al to sell many chickens at any point more than a hundred and fifty miles from your place

There is this caution to be observed in scalding a chicken: Do not have the water too hot I had trouble on this score, and as a resultappearance Finally I bought a candy therrees By experirees was the point at which a chicken scalded to pick the easiest, but that a chicken scalded at 165 degrees presented a better appearance after being picked and cooled Whichever method you use, observe this rule: Pick your chicken clean

After h so the flesh will cut easily, I draw it I chop off the head close up, draw back the skin of the neck a couple of inches, and then cut off the neck The flap of skin thus left serves to cover the bloody and unsightly stub of the neck Next I open up the chicken froizzard--if the chicken has been kept off feed for twenty-four hours the empty crop will coall bladder froizzard, and replace it and the liver in the chicken

Then I cut a slit across the chicken just back of the keel of the breast bone I cut the feet off at the knee joint and slip the druh this slit Then I lay the chicken up to cool out overnight The nextit

Wrapping and boxing hted The clean, sanitary appearance of the chicken when it is unpacked in the kitchen of your custo that customer in your favor I buy thirty pounds of waxed paper, twenty-four by thirty-six inches, and have the paper house cut it in two This gives hteen by twenty-four inches, for the price of a ream of the full size--at this time about five dollars, or a half cent a sheet

Each chicken is wrapped in one sheet of this waxed paper, and is then packed in a corrugated paper boxchickens by parcel post

I buy three sizes of these boxes One size, which costs me four cents each, will hold one four-pound chicken when dressed and drawn The next size, costing five cents each, will hold two very s six cents each, will hold two large chickens, three medium-sized ones, or four small ones

Do not use makeshi+fts, such as old shoe boxes In the first place, your shi+pment is not properly protected by such a box; in the second place, your post, as he would be justified in doing; and in the third place, your customer receives his chicken in a box that has been used for he wonders what, and has been in he wonders what places

It is for this reason that I never ask a customer to return a box to me

I do not want to use a box a second ti my chickens by mail, I should want them sent tochickens by mail--and I'd want them in no other box Then I'd feel sure of the by parcel post is low I live ten e required to send a five-pound, live-weight chicken, dressed and boxed, froe required to send that sao, one hundred and fifty es twenty-six cents for the same service, and does not deliver so quickly

But parcel-post delivery was not always so ad up there last Septees to be so delayed that many chickens would spoil

I recall the ”straw that broke the camel's back” I mailed twenty-six chickens one day--and in due course I received thirteen letters, each advising me of the same mournful event The chicken had spoiled because of delay in delivery My anted to quit I didn't I ood the losses to the customers and prepared a label, a copy of which I forwarded to the Third assistant Post his per hi o

In due time I received the desired permission, and ordered the labels printed The schee was not delivered on schedule time the customer notified o

Gradually the service improved until now I have no trouble at all If I were to shi+p two packages today to the sa one by parcel post and the other by express, I believe the parcel-post package would be delivered first At any rate, it has been done for me

The weakness in the parcel-post delivery lies in the fact that perishable products--such as dressed chickens--cannot be handled in eather I think that if the Post Office Department would cut soht packages in air-tight conveyors this particular problem could be solved

You will, of course, have more or less correspondence with your customers By all means use your own letterheads, but do not let your printer es, or the like Not that we are ashamed of them; far be it from such You do not, however, need to have a sheet of paper littered up with pictures of iinary ani the meats of that animal I like a plainly printed letterhead that carries my name, my address and my business That's all

By all means keep books on your farm-to-table venture, if you undertake it Set down on one side of the page what you pay for boxes, labels, postage, and so on, including what you pay yourself for chickens at your huckster's prices On the other side of the page set dohat your city custoes, do a simple sum in subtraction, and you will know just how much you have made

If I kept only twenty-five hens I should sell s and my chickens direct to the city consu the huckster, the poultry house, the commission man, the dresser and the retailer stand between hi will become really profitable

There are too s and ”take it out in trade”