POULTRY COLUMN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 80, 16 November 1911, Page 8

POULTRY COLUMN.

POULTRY-FARMING FOR WOMEN A PLEA FOR COMMON SENSE. (By "Wilfrid H. G. Ewart in “Poultry.”) It is rather a platitude that woman is in the forefront of everything at tlic present day. Whether we dismiss politics or economics or athletics or the more complex features of rural life, we find a female mind in the thick of it, and a female dogma settling the whole question. If there is a sanctum in the wide world which was once considered sacred to the brains and the hands and the energies of men, that sanctum has long since been invaded by women. It is unfortunate—deplorable in many ways —and apart from its general significance, wo might consider how the movement has affected an easy-going rural occupatioh. Most of us are aware that poultryfarming has been advanced in the daily press as a very suitable profession ior women and for girls. It lias been advocated, too, by a more technical class of journal, and, in fact, | there prevails a general idea that the fowl possesses some peculiar virtue which ought to attract, even if it actually does not, the female sex. 1 believe the basis of this virtue is a supposition that liens are profitable', whereas the labour of looking after them is light; that while requiring a genteel supervision their demands are the reverse of exacting. And these assumed advantages arc supported by the belief that because women are notoriously successful in the control of a month-old baby, tney must of necessity be equally successful in the management of a day-old chick. This is a common argument, and doubtless it has been swallowed by quite a considerable number of people. Let us discuss the matter critically.

Taking the theory of a light task and plenty of profit, from a rational and matter of fact stand-point, can it be accepted? It scorns to me rather on a par uiln the parable which is nowadays so noisily vaunted—the parable of the lazy young man who was told that an easy livelihood awaited him in the poultry industry, tried it, made an incalculable number of mistakes, failed miserably, and wont to the bad. In this similar case of the young woman the fptnic fickle inducements arc surely held out, and with what better prospects? But one is suggested, and that shall bo dealt with later. For all practical purposes one can sec little difference between the young man and the young woman at the outset of a poultry-farming career. Going farther, can it be said that the actual daily business of a poultry farm is inconsiderable or that the profits therefrom are even proportionately remunerative? Ask the few who have emerged from the ordeal successfully —close-grained unsentimental men who have learned and toiled, and within five minutes your theories and

speculations will fall to dust. A brief acquaintance with' the actual routine of a poultry plant dispels all illusions. It is not merely a life of occupation, it is a strenuous life, and abilities are demanded, energies required which are beyond the physical capacity of the average woman. To illustrate this, because some people cafinot imagine “what there is to do” on a poultry farm, I would instance one common and obvious task —that of cleaning. It is uninteresting, nnilluminating job, and withal essentially exacting. Picture the day of now snow and gripping cold, when perhaps a score of coops and bouses have to bo cleaned. The dreariness of it, the physical martyrdom! There are many things of this kind on a poultry farm that must be done, rain, snow, or fine. Twice a day, and maybe more often, the duty of feeding occurs, and that, common task as it is, is in itself arduous. Driving periods of winter the full extent of a man’s energies is tested, and under similar conditions a woman v/Quld either' ruin herself constitution-

ally or neglect the stock which' is supposed to provide her livelihood . There are women, wo know, -of an almost' masculine strength, hut those as ,n rule belong to the yeoman class. Even though they ho capable in one direction, they are utterly incompetent in another, because the very important business side of poultry-farm-ing has to be taken into consideration. That requires a woman of education and not merely of education, but of commercial ability and enterprise. Such are rare. In a ,self-support-ing concern it is useless to possess practical skill yet lack those qualities which conspire to utilise it. There must be*a combination of the essentials, practical skill and business ability, each working in with the other, to achieve a livelihood from poultry; and how rarely either in man or woman is that combination found. Here is the fatal blow to the theory of poultry-farming for women. With two or three exceptions the commercially successful woman poultry-farmer is an unheard of thing. The exception usually proves the rule, and it is perfectly obvious that, to all intents and purposes, this lady does not exist. She is virtually a creation of theory who never has been and never will be. S|ie belongs in part to the daily press, in part to the fanciful novelist, who iias more than once depicted her in a calm valley, with a stream flowing down to the sea, and an environment of buttercups, spinneys, and an eternally blue sky, collecting eggs and dabbling in tbe scr.i iincuts, incidentally becoming hch. That is worthy of a certain class of novelists, but it is not practical. And I would indicate something still less practical, which is the idea that the common female experience of infants is applicable to the day-old chick. This, to bo frank, is sheer nonsense. It seems, in fact, almost too ridiculous to deserve mention, hut, for that matter, there has ever been a prevailing notion that the hen is essentially a female property. . Possibly the idea arose originally from the fact that the farmer’s wife is by custom—and a very bad principle—the manager of the poultry, possibly because the domestic fowl is invariably amiable and generally timid. Put it is going too far to tell ns the average woman, given experience, can handle exhibition or utility fowls with the same skill as a pnnltryman and with equally satisfactory results. At the same time we know there are eminently successful women poul-try-keepers. Perhaps their success has been achieved chiefly on the utility side, and one readily recalls names which arc immediately connected with laying competitions and egg-produc-tion. A woman fancier who can really claim a fancier’s knowledge and is familiar with all branches of her business, is rare. The kind of lady, on the contrary, who exhibits ’ poultry I irgely and owns a more or less extensive plant is not uncommon. Put she can in no conceivable sense be cited as a successful woman poultryfanner. . It is doubtful whether she is successful, commercially spanking, and at any rate her triumphs in the show pen are due to substantial capital and the efforts of a very competent manager. That hobby of poultry-fanning or of the poultry run is an entirely different matter. One has every wish

to see rich people, of whatever sex, patronising the poultry fancy, because, ■ naturally, this needs a much-needed fillip, a financial rejuvenation. So long as the virulent form of decksweeping is under reasonable control wo should like to see the woman of ideas as regards feathered stock figuring largely in the ways and means of the fancy. It does not matter in the smallest degree whether these good ladies know a cock from a hen, or whether they have ever attended a poultry show. 'They circulate money, provide employment, and that constitutes the sum total of their economic value to the industry. r i'he other case is on another footing altogether. Hero you have, say, a young woman of the upper middle class, with a . backbone of education at schools and colleges, a comfortable home, and a living to earn. Nowadays wo, know—it has been already instanced—persons of that class arc ciiavactorisccl by ■ a vast independence of idea—and a great energy which distributes itself in various ways. Instead of teaching French or music at a Briglitbn seminary,• this young lady prefers “the romance of the pastoral life”—that is to say, she cultivates bees and poultry. ' With a slender capital, mediocre experience, and little capacity for work, she sots out upon a task which really has no seasoning of romance, whoso single recompense is hard toil, whose inevitable end is dreary failure. The disillusionment of such an experience proves perhaps ruinous to a well-educated woman, and it is radically wrong that the error of the venture, doomed from the outset, should have been suggested or permitted. So one might suggest in no patronising spirit that when the gentlemen of , the daily press write in an irresponsible .enthusiastic vein upon the possibilities of poultry-farming for women they are committing not merely ' a blunder, but a very dangerous blun- ‘ dor. ! t • j , r .• .

N.Z. UTILITY POULTRY CLUB’S COMPETITION. Pidiets. Misses Bradley (113) ... ... 902 T. Kennedy, S.W. (22) ... ... 897 A. R. Bifownc (37) ... ... 880 G. H. Robinson, 8.0. (17) ... 885 Heretaunga Poultry Co. (35) ... 815 Heretaunga Poultry Co. (34) ... 838 W. Nixon (34) 838 A. R. Browne (33) 833 A. Tisch (27) 821 T. Frethey (23) 803 W. Halpiii (34) .'. 802 W. Nixon (34) 793 A. E. Wilson (29) ... 788 Rangiuru Egg Ranch (36) ... 780 Ducks. Heretaunga Poultry Co. (36) ... 931 W. Knight (31) 908 A. R. Browne (32) ... ... 868 P. J. Keller (35) 787