THE WHITE LANGSHAN. 



A Variety Fortunate in the Langshan Shape and Style— Valuable for Winter Laying— Offering Two 



Sources of Profit if Properly Handled. 



By Geo. D. Black. 



VERY breed of fowls has its admirers and cham- 

 pions; there are many good varieties, and the value 

 of many of them is so nearly equal as to make it 

 difficult to choose among them. I am going to 

 praise the White Langshan, and this I am very willing to 

 do, for having tried it for a number of years by the side of 

 other pure-bred fowls, I have come to be a decided admirer 

 of the breed. There are birds that may be better suited to 

 the fancy and to the wants of other people, but to me there 

 are none whose style and general characteristics appeal to 

 me as those of the White Langshan do. If there is such a 



First Prize Winning White Langshan Cockerel at Dayton, Ohio, 

 Bred and Owned by George D. Black. 



thing as the artistic in chicken conformation, the Langshan 

 has it. For stateliness, for elegance of form, it easily stands 

 at the head of the poultry kingdom. This is true of both 

 the male and female. Every one who knows the breed rec- 

 ognizes that there is a Langshan style which is so distinc- 

 tive that it never can be confounded with that of any other 

 breed. We say that form differentiates breeds; but the 

 American breeds, for instance, are so near alike, as we see 

 them in some yards, that one form easily passes for another 

 to the novice; and ihis is sometimes true in the show room. 

 But a judge would have to be form-blind and style-blind 

 ever to mistake the Langshan conformation. 



The White Langshan is a beautiful fowl; but if it is at 

 the same time a highly useful one, its friends have good 

 ground for their attachment to it. 



For several years I have been trying the White Lang- 

 shan by the side of other breeds, and I have found no chick- 

 ens that will lay more eggs during the year than my Lang- 

 shans, and few that will lay as many. I have had none that 



will come anywhere near them in winter laying. The White 

 Langshan hen has the knack of laying just at the time when 

 eggs are at the tip-top price in the market. Last winter 

 when eggs got so high that only millionaires could afford 

 to eat them, my Langshan hens kept laying. The coldest 

 days did not stop them, and they were not housed and fed 

 differently from the others. I think it may confidently be 

 claimed that the White Langshans are excellent winter 

 layers. 



When it comes to table qualities, this breed will hold 

 its own with the best. The flesh is especially tender, and 

 it remains so in the mature hens beyond any other fowls I 

 have ever had any experience with. Their freedom from 

 dark pinfeathers adds greatly to their value when dressed. 

 They can be cleaned in about half the time that is'required 

 to clean most other kinds, and when they are dressed they 

 look clean. 



One other thing I prize in them especially is the ease 

 with which one can handle them. They are naturally quiet 

 and gentle. A wild chicken I have no use for. It is annoy- 

 ing, to say the least, to go into your poultry yard or poultry 

 house and have the whole flock flying and scurrying around 

 as if you had started up a covey of partridges. My White 

 Langshans will hardly get out at my way as I go among 

 them, and if I come suddenly upon a bunch of them they 

 do not raise a general hubbub and fly all over the barnyard. 

 I pick up my sitting hens and put them in a house used as 

 a hatching place, giving each one a box with a clutch of 

 eggs, and they sit there as contentedly as if the place were 

 of their own choosing. This docility of disposition makes 

 them unexcelled sitters and mothers. You can handle them 

 with their broods without their flying into your face i?| 

 tramping the chicks to death. And yet the Langshan is not 

 a lazy, stupid fowl. It is sprightly and active, and a good 

 forager. 



This quality of docility in the Langshan to me counts 

 for much. I esteem it so highly that I could not be induced 

 to harbor about the place chickens that were nervous and 

 flighty. 



The qualities which I have enumerated are the ones 

 that combined make a good all-purpose chicken, and it 

 may be claimed with assurance that the White Langshan 

 is of this sort. The general farmer keeps from fifty to a 

 hundred hens. If they are good layers and have good car- 

 casses he has two sources of profit from them, and the mil 

 profit, if he manages his business skillfully, will amount t| 

 considerable in the course of a year, to say nothing of the 

 fries and roasts that go to his own table. I am so well con- 

 vinced of the worth of the White Langshan as a farmert 

 fowl that I shall be glad if this book does much toward call- 

 ing the attention of farmers and breeders to it. There 1§J 

 marked increase of interest in it, as I happen to know, «BH 

 I am sure that if its merits were better known it would bl 

 come one of the most popular breeds. 



GEORGE D. BLACK. 



