1920.] 



Education in Poultry Keeping. 



753 



EDUCATION IN POULTRY KEEPING. 



Percy A. Francis, 



Technical Head of the Small Live-Stock Branch, Ministry of 

 Agriculture and Fisheries. 



The chief objects of education in poultry keeping are to 

 improve generally the methods practised by persons engaged 

 in the poultry industry, so as to enable them to obtain the best 

 possible financial results from their efforts and to compete 

 successfully with foreign producers. 



It is obvious, therefore, that education in poultry keeping 

 must be, as a rule, directly vocational in character, though 

 the importance of developing the student's powers of observa- 

 tion and clear thinking should be borne in mind. Persons v^ho 

 have received a good general education before studying the 

 special problems involved in poultry keeping are undoubtedly 

 in a favourable position to assimilate readily vocational instruc- 

 tion, and can bring to bear trained powers of observation and 

 deduction upon the methods adopted in an industry which is 

 new to them. 



In other words, a trained and cultivated mind has always 

 an advantage over the untrained, given equal natural ability 

 at the outset, and thus the possession of a good general educa- 

 tion is always of great value to students of poultry keeping, 

 and enables them to attack more easily the various practical, 

 commercial, and scientific problems which arise from time to 

 time in connection with their work. 



It is no doubt true that skill in controlling labour, shrewd- 

 ness in buying and selling, soundness and quickness of judg- 

 ment on the various points of difficulty — met with in poultry 

 keeping as in every other industry — are, to a large extent, 

 inherent in the characters of successful poultry farmers, or are 

 only acquired as a result of long and sometimes expensive 

 experience. At the same time technical instruction is 

 obviously of great value to the beginner, and is also the means 

 by which the more experienced poultry keepers are kept 

 informed of the results of the work and investigations of others. 



Need of Education in Poultry Keeping. — It is well known to 

 those of us who have worked for many years as itinerant 

 poultry instructors how often poultry keepers, living a com- 

 paratively short distance apart, know little or nothing of each 

 other's methods, though of recent years the work of poultry 



