1 Avea., 1898.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 113 
rearing, &c., &c., he has learned by close observation and intelligence of the habits 
and requirements of the birds he breeds. I spent some hours with Messrs. Ellis and 
Dobeson at the farm when in Sydney the year before last, and I very soon found 
that, with all my years of experience among poultry, my knowledge was worthless 
beside Mr. Sam {llis’s. Seeing the birds fed alone was a liberal education to me in 
such matters, and J admit that I learned more at that farm in one hour than I had in 
all the years before when keeping ducks myself. Queensland, with one of the grandest 
and most suitable climates for poultry-raising, has not three farms worthy of the 
name of poultry farm, and, to my mind, it approaches a disgrace that it should 
be so. The very few who go in in a haphazard way for raising a few birds for 
market, and selling a few dozen eggs, complain of a lack of demand. But it is approved 
fact that a good supply usually creates a demand, and there is no sense in declaring 
an industry a failure until it has been properly tried and proved. Here we are in a 
city boasting something over 19,009 inhabitants, and at least a dozen rich men, and 
there is not a single poultry shop in the place. Someof you may wish to tell me that 
So-and-So did try a poultry shop and could not make it pay. Yes, I bought 
poultry at that shop, and I reckon that not only the shop, but the poultry too, 
were a failure. The public will not buy antediluvian hens a second time even 
when dressed as spring chickens. As a matter of fact, most of the people 
who iry poultry-farming fail through want of knowledge of the subject. ‘They 
start with the idea that 100 hens must produce 100 eggs every day, whether they 
are fed well or ill; that there is but one food for them—namely, maize; that the 
only way is to give them as much as they can eat; that fowls don’t want any atten- 
tion, and that, like cocoanuts in the South Sea Islands, they must grow if they are 
planted, and on some places I have seen they are firmly convinced that fowls should 
never want water. For the information of such benighted persons 1 beg to state that 
every adult hen drinks from half to a cup of water every day when she can get it, 
and she is not particular, for if no other source be supplied, she is quite prepared to 
imbibe from the nearest drain. I am convinced that one of the most prolific sources 
of typhoid in this city is the egg laid by the gutter-bred hen. It is.the generally 
accepied impression that a new-laid egg is the purest and most harmless of all food, 
and £ suppose the idea will live until the microbes have been abolished from every- 
thing else, and finally discovered in the gutter-hen’s egg. In New South Wales 
poultry-farming is an established industry, and within the last twelve months they 
have appointed #n expert from the old country (Mr. G. Bradshaw), whose business it 
_ itis to superintend every department of the export poultry trade.. In a private letter 
Thad from him a few weeks ago, he speaks of having had 6,000 head of fowls for 
export through his hands between November, 1897, and March, 1898. He also 
touches feelingly upon the evil of introducing the smaller breeds, such as Leghorns, 
Hamburgs, &c., into the utility-purpose flocks, as they invariably tend to reduce size 
allround. J am sorry to say this is exactly what many of our farmers are doing at 
the present time, and it isan evil we will surely feel when the time comes for us, too, to 
have an export poultry trade. At present all our aim is for a good egg supply, and we 
are constantly introducing the non-sitting breeds into our flocks for the purpose of 
increasing the eggs, with the result that we lose in size; and in the near future, when 
T hope we will be exporting too, the trouble will be to breed out these smaller strains. 
T must say that personally I like the Leghorn for this climate. The only fault with it, 
as with all the non-sitters, is the tendency to produce such a superabundance of male 
birds. One yearalone L averaged five cockerels to every pullet. What this colony wants 
is an expert, and I sincerely hope that our new Minister for Agriculture will see his 
way towards appointing some thoroughly practical person—man or woman, it matters 
not which— who would be prepared to visit the smaller holdings, where, at present, 
the people are making less than a bare living, and instruct and teach them how to do 
something with their poultry. I have quite a large number of correspondents who 
are making pocket money with a few head of fowls; and what children and young 
people can do, the poultry farmer can do on a larger scale. I do not wish to deceive 
anyone into believing that there is a fortune in poultry. I think I have conclusively 
proved that such is not the case. But there is a good living for a young couple 
whose olive branches are not many, or anold couple passing into the sunset of life. 
Combined with other industries, such as fruitgrowing, general farming, &ec., &c., 
poultry makes an excellent auxiliary. In the not very distant future I hope we shall 
see Central Queensland broken up into small holdings, on which the stock will be 
farmed under quite a different system to the present, and where each farmer will 
work scientifically to get the utmost out of the land by ‘intelligence and a trained 
knowledge of its capabilities, instead of this present system of good or ill luck and 
trust in Providence. Providence, in my opinion, only helps those who help themselves, 
and shows small sympathy for the muddler; and I am very sorry to have to say that 
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