SOLDIER'S POETRY FARM.

North Otago Times, Volume CV, Issue 13936, 19 July 1917, Page 1

SOLDIER'S POETRY FARM.

STATE PURCHASE OF GRANTHAM,

IDEAL SITE AND .CONDITIONS. The purchase of Grantham Stud Poultry Farm'by the New South Wales Government from Mr E. L, Martin is a courageous move in the interests of returning soldiers incapacitated for heavier work. In tho first place, the , farm, with its 118 acres, is ideally situated, about an hour's journey from town on the Western line, and ten minutes walk from the Seven Hills station along a road that spells contentment, with its border of orange groves, here and there a cottage, and immediately before'the farm a j belt of timber. The house attached to the. farm has quite an air of subufbia, and comes as a surprise after the weatherboard cottages passed on the way,

The farm itself was. established iii 1888-at Plnmpton, Booty Hill, and in .1895 Mr J. Hadlington, the present Government Poultry Expert, took over its management, In ,1906 the stock', buildings, and plant were moved 'to Seven Hills, and Mr Hadlington's son is now in charge. From the very small start made in 1888 the farm has grown tremendously. At present the stock comprises about four or five thousand birds,from chickens of a few weeks old to portly grown-ups of over a'year, with a sense of their dignity and the length of their pedigree. For at the Grantham Stud Poultry Farm family trees and records arc very real things indeed! The manager takes you first to view the newly-installed incubator, one of tho biggest in Australia, and capable of holding GOOO eggs in sections of 300, No I Six thousaud fluffy chicks do not emerge together.' The eggs are put in in batches of 1000, so that the handling of the little birds is perhaps less picture-' sque but not as confusing as it might have been.

The new incubator, which is 45ft long and has a shed to itself, is .a wonderful device, in which the heat can be rogulnted! to a nicety. When the chicks conic out they are put into boxes placed in a specially-heated jhed. The back of •each brooder has n blanket curtain, slit so that the little birds will have no difficulty in running through into the outsido runs and' ashphalted enclosure in which they are fed. In tho wall of the shed at the baek'of the enclosure in a little sliding panel, through which the poultry fanner may let the babies out into a bigger enclosure, in which they get their first run under the open sky.

Their first fortnight is spent under these conditions, before they are passed on to another shed, heated, but in a less degree than the first. There are four spaces of a fortnight each of graduated heat, until finally, when they have reached the tatterdemalion stage, the chicken's are passed into a yard to look after themselves and begin their dreams of conquests, big paddocks, and subsequent crowingg and 'duckings. \ • Nine men are kept busy at present at the incubator, tending ths chicks iu the brooders, letting 'the cockerels out in batches in the bigger paddocks, classing them when they are old enough for breeding purposes, the egga, and packing them and tho birds too, for transit to city and country,

You want to know how long it is going to take before the returned soldier will be proficient enough to start on his own account, "A few months," is the answer, "if he's within reach of a place like this, where he can get advice when he wants it. But if he's going right away, beyond the possibility of assistance from those who know the business, he'll want two or three years experience." lu an enclosure passed on the way to the breeding pens, and larger paddocks are numbers of white and crossbred fowls for cooking purposes. On the way out yon will ?rc the egg-room, where precious settings of eggs from aristocratic birds are packed for sale. In packing the birds uo-food is necessary on a journey less than 500 miles. Water is sufficient. But oiPboat jouneys a steward or the butcher is entrusted with the feed-bag, and on long train journeys the guard is requested to feed the feathered passenger. You asked if tho expert has found any marked signs of intelligence in fowls. He has an instance to give, but ono that might easily be an example of stupidity. '";. ■

"They have a groat- bump, of locality," says he. "That is why, down in the paddocks, we can rear'them on the colony system, for when it,is time to go back to their own enclosuro ono batch will never make for the yard belonging to another. This senso is such that if you keep chicks in a yard with an entranco hole, at the loft-liaud side, and then put tliem in a yard where the outrancc is at the right-hand side, they will all crowd to the left-hand, comer and spend the night outside rather than make an attempt at finding another entrance!."' '•■-,'

Portion of the Grantham Stud Poultry Parm is to be cut up into blocks for soldiers, arid it is suggested that the men. Anxious to learn poultry farming should go in batches!of six for three (months trainjug, At present thero is the organisation and capacity on the farm -for rearing from 8000 to 10,000 chickens nrinually, and the idea of Hho Government is to use the farm both as a training school and as a depot for distributing first-class poultry,to the different farms already established. Eiglfty-six acres of the 118 arc already"! cleared, and four are under cultivation. The balance of the 'property i 3 covered by bush timber and wattlo scrub, which, byjlio way, is already in bud, and promises to mako the-farm a dream of I beauty in July, i