252 MY POULTRY DAY BY DAY 
all comers in the most recent (1915) laying competition held at 
the Harper-Adams College under Government auspices. In the 
same competition a Midlothian lady established a record with 
Barred Rocks, and but for sending in her birds in a rather immature 
condition, would probably have defeated all comers in the section 
for heavy breeds. Again, Miss Edwards, of Gloucester, has a world- 
wide reputation as a breeder of high-class utility fowls. When 
one considers that it is only within the last decade that women 
have taken up poultry-farming in earnest, their success seems to . 
show not only that they are capable of competing on equal terms 
with men, but that they are by nature and training peculiarly 
fitted for the task. In the hatching and rearing sections particu- 
larly—and these are the bed-rock of the business—women have a 
real genius for the work. Woman’s patience, her care, her quicker 
perceptions, her greater delicacy of handling, all give her an ad- 
vantage in the creation and nurture of life. It goes without saying 
that all women are not equally fitted, just as all men are not equally 
suited, for this special work, but given an intelligent and trained 
woman she is likely to score over an equally intelligent and trained 
man in the matter of hatching and rearing young chickens. 
I know a case in point. A young poultry-farmer enlisted on 
the understanding that an older man would be left to do the heavier 
work of the farm. His wife, quite a young woman, had previously 
assisted her husband in hatching and rearing, and in his absence, 
without any special training, she took the whole thing into her own. 
hands. She had no help whatever. In less than two months she 
incubated over 3000 chickens and with an incredibly small per- 
centage of loss she reared and brought them to maturity. Living 
as she did in the heart of a big poultry district, her work was 
watched with a jealous eye. She was the only lady poultry-farmer, 
and she was far and away the most successful. Not only were her 
losses trifling, but she produced so many more birds than she 
expected that she was able to sell a considerable number to her less 
successful male competitors. This is not an isolated instance, 
but is one that most recently came within my own knowledge and 
is only one more proof that in the most exacting—and will I say 
