RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
1147 
Visiting, the Poultry Industry of Spain 
HE WORLD’S POULTRY CONGRESS. — 
Most people are alike in their natural in¬ 
terest in poultry. It seems as though 
there must he some sort of common ad¬ 
miration for the barnyard hen flowing 
through the veins of people everywhere. I 
had the pleasure during this past May of visiting 
Spain as one of the American delegates to the Sec¬ 
ond World’s Poultry Congress. I spent four weeks 
in that too little known and very delightful coitJftry. 
not only in attending the sessions of the world 
gathering which attracted us to the city of Barce¬ 
lona, but in getting out into the surrounding country 
and visiting the farming, regions. I found among 
those Spanish people a very certain love for poul¬ 
try and its culture. True, most of them have had 
few advantages as to learning modern, economic 
methods and practices, hut they displayed that over¬ 
whelming interest which is so necessary and essen¬ 
tial a factor to success in poultry raising here, there, 
and the wide world over. Since I returned to my 
work for the poultry industry of New Jersey I 
have found that many people have exhibited a very 
keen interest in my impressions of poultry keeping 
in Spain. 
BARCELONA.—Poultry keeping as a well-estab¬ 
lished branch of farming has been gaining in wide¬ 
spread recognition as a reliable and profitable busi¬ 
ness tremendously in these last few years. This 
year of 1924 has seen an international gathering of 
poultrymen and women from over 20 nations held 
ir a great commercial city, and at the invitation of 
a government. Barcelona, a beautiful city of some¬ 
thing over a million and a quarter people, wonder¬ 
fully situated as a port up along the upper Mediter¬ 
ranean coast of Spain, was the entertaining center, 
and the Spanish Government was the host. I men- 
Lon this particularly because it speaks so much of 
the advancement in standing and dignity of the 
poultry industry. Barcelona is a growing commer¬ 
cial city. It was an inspiring place to which poul¬ 
trymen did gather for the discussion of affairs per¬ 
taining to poultry raising in various corners of the 
globe. From the peak of Mt. Tibadabo, the highest 
point in the immediate vicinity of Barcelona, we 
could look off over the hills and valleys of the coun¬ 
tryside, counting over 70 towns and 
villages, and sighting the many fields 
of carefully cultivated grapes which 
bedecked every hillside, the olive 
groves which were scattered about 
through that part of Spain, and the 
thousands of tufted, scrubby pines, 
which looked like lines of soldiers as 
they were silhouetted against the hori¬ 
zon. And then, glancing off in the 
other direction, we could drink deep 
of the beauty of the blue waters of 
fhe Mediterranean Sea, even finding 
the Island of Minorca, so well known 
to poultry lovers as the original home 
of the Minorca breed of fowls, in the 
dim distance. The trip to this moun¬ 
tain top was delightful and furnished 
a picture that cannot be erased from 
the memories of those of us who were 
privileged to see it. It created a real 
desire in some of us to explore the 
Spanish countryside around Barcelona 
a bit more, with the result that an 
auto party was made up and piloted 
by an interpreter through 60 miles of 
winding, hilly roads on one exhilarat¬ 
ing, gloriously beautiful May morn¬ 
ing. 
FARM FLOCKS.—I presume that 
one might expect to find a little in the 
way of very modern development in 
the farm flocks discovered on such a 
trip into the rural sections about Bar¬ 
celona. We found little. Most of the 
fowls were medium in size, tending 
rather toward the type of our Ameri¬ 
can breeds, but they were of all colors, 
shapes, and forms on most farms. The 
Spanish farmers’ wives with whom we 
talked had great interest in their hens, 
but knew little about them. The poul¬ 
try shelters were usually most crude, 
and constructed of canes and old bits 
oi‘ lumber. Of course, no severe Winter ever bothers 
them. Yet, in the aggregate, the fowls from these 
farms form a very considerable source of meat sup¬ 
ply for the great city of Barcelona. The Spaniards 
seem very fond of chicken, and serve it Wequently. 
We were told by Senor Castello, veteran poultry 
leader of Spain, president of the Royal Spanish 
Spanish farm woman feeding her little Hock of hens, 
money-makers for her, even if fed only on infrequent 
handsful of grain. Fig. 486. 
Poultry School at Arenys de Mar, not so far from 
Barcelona, that this city of Barcelona demanded a 
very large supply of live and dressed poultry every 
year, and that the aim of his school had been largely 
to teach Spanish farmers to raise and produce fowls 
of good meat value. We made several stops that 
njorning. The pictures accompanying this article 
give something of an idea of typical farm scenes. 
C haracteristic and interesting glimpse of hillsides about the city of Barcelona 
acres upon acres of grapes furnish the wine factories of the city. Fig, 487. 
The long laying house at the Royal Spanish Poultry School at Arenys de Mar— 
note the manner of handling the windows. Fig. 488. 
We found a land of great opportunities for future 
development in a poultry way. Poultry is possible 
for people of limited capital, as are practically all 
those people whom we visited in those rural districts 
that morning, and so it is conceivable that poultry 
raising may become more and more important in 
that country as the years move on. 
ARENYS DE MAR.—To those of us who are in¬ 
terested in seeing or hearing about the places that 
are moving ahead and progressing, the poultry 
school at Arenys de Mar holds at once a distinct 
place. If you would appreciate the work and con¬ 
tribution of this school properly you must have at 
least a little background furnished by a word paint¬ 
ing of the setting of that poultry farm school, for 
such it is in reality. I wish I could do it justice, 
for the little town of Arenys de Mar is charming, 
quaint, and picturesque, quite different from any 
place usually visited in a trip to Europe. The little 
town lies on the Mediterranean coast, some 40 miles 
upwards f'Tnn Barcelona, a miniature seaside resort 
with a splendid little beach. The little town is very 
hilly. Our congress paraded in single file up from 
the railroad depot through crooked, winding streets, 
which rose at steep angles, until, gaining the upper¬ 
most level, we found ourselves at the gate of the 
Royal Poultry School, and the beautiful home of 
Senor and Senora Castello. Throngs of curious and 
interested villagers lined the streets as we passed 
by, for a big gathering of foreigners was indeed a 
rare sight in that secluded little Spanish village. 
On taking a point of vantage on the doorsteps of 
the home of the Gastellos, we looked off across the 
town and over the Mediterranean. It was beautiful 
indeed. 
ROYAL SPANISH POULTRY SCHOOL.—Thirty 
acies of more or less stony soil, evidently not ex¬ 
tremely fertile and rather barren as to grass, makes 
up the location occupied by the poultry farm. But 
kick of any rain during the Summer season is the 
answer to the question. It surely is dry there. The 
palm trees, plentiful in all the poultry yards, were 
light colored due to heavy coating of dust. The 
poultry buildings are not so different from those we 
find in journeying through New York State or New 
Jersey, for instance. The farm carries about ,’.,000 
head of fowls, made up of representa¬ 
tives of more than a dozen breeds, 
with S. C. White Leghorns, Barred Ply¬ 
mouth Rocks, White Orpingtons, Rhode 
Island Reds, and Prat fowls predomi¬ 
nating. The latter are a heavy type 
of meat fowl native to that part of 
Spain. They have been used to cross 
with the White Orpington in numerous 
instances, notably that of Senor Cas¬ 
tello, who has made from such mix¬ 
ture of bloods the Paraiso fowl, named 
for the farm home which has been the 
seat of the Castello family for many 
years. A beautiful exhibit of 80 Pa¬ 
raiso hens was made at the Interna¬ 
tional Poultry Show held in conjunc¬ 
tion with the congress in Barcelona. 
Ovei 500 Paraiso capons were furn¬ 
ished the leading hotels of Barcelona 
last Christmas. In the matter of poul¬ 
try meat production the Spanish poul¬ 
try-keepers are making broad strides 
forward. Off in one pen of the farm 
were some weird little hens from the 
Andes, brought by Senor Castello 
after one of his many visits to South 
America, which lay blue eggs. They 
are i*eally blue, for I saw them in the 
nests. 
The Royal Spanish Poultry School 
has something like 25 students every 
Winter season, who go there to the 
faim and live for several months, list¬ 
ening to the teaching of the veteran 
Castello and learning to raise poultry 
by doing so on the school farm. They 
raise broilers, “finish” them for fancy 
tiade in Barcelona, carry laying flocks 
thiough the period of their training, 
and in general learn the various steps 
in the business by actual practice. It 
is a good school, striving to turn out 
into the Spanish rural districts young 
