El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1911-09-02

/" HIS poultry department Is written
especially for the southwest AS
a rule a newspaper In the south
west running a stock, an agricultural
or poultry department depends en-
tirely upon clippings from other pa
pers, and it Is rare indeed that single
line is published applicable to this
particular section. The consequences
is that every particle Of information I'D
CLEANED from them Is misleading and
worse than no information
Conditions relative 10 the poultry
business in the southwest are peculiar
and obtain nowhere else, in conse-
quence of which a thoroughbred poul-
tryman can come to Ell Paso from the
east, and after a few years effort he
win find that what he learned about
the raising of poultry in the east
avails him nothing in the west His
lessons are all to be un1earned and
then learned over again.
When / came TO Ell Paso, seven or
eight years ago, I thought 1 knew the
poultry business pretty well and
branched out into II on a small scale
made no effort TO raise fancy stock,
and yet bought 20 hens and two roost-
ers of barred rocks-good specimens
and Of good strains I had been told
here, and after twei years trial with
these barred rocks. was almost OF
that opinion myself having failed to
raise enough flyers for our own use
and getting an average Of four or five
eggs day from the 20 hens
Lose Faith In Plymouth Rocks.
I still had faith in the country. but
lost faith in Plymouth Rocks Conclud-
ed that this was the- climate for the
lighter and liveLsf breeds, so paid a
good price for~z4 early Matched White
Leghorn pellets and three cockerels.
They/Were beauties, but looked better
the day I placed them in my yards than
they ever looked afterwards. They
were strictly non-setters and praeti-
caliy non-layers. kept them one
year and was about to swear off from
ever letting another chicken make
track in my yard. These Leghorns
quit laying entirely, commenced to
moult in July and 1t was positively the
middle of January before they were
in full feather again and beginning
to lay In the meantime two Of the
males and about one-fourth Of the fe-
males had died under the strain or
moulting A man in another line or
business encountering such failure
would have given up in disgust-but
not so with true poultry fancier- He
never says quit I disposed Of my Leg
horns and bought me a bunch Of scrub
hens for setting and commenced busi-
ness on a more extensive scale. but at
the very bottom.
Cause OF Failure.
know that my failures were attrib-
utable not TO the breeds nor to the eli
mate, but to my not understanding con-
ditions / went to using my head,
which I had not done before. and in
a little while I had a theory which I
was sure would work. and to show my
faith, as It weres bought turkey
eggs, duck eggs and two varieties OF
chicken eggs and set them. Set them
all on the ground. dampened a little
(Which Is common sense), and got good
matches, as I felt sure 1 would. and
which had not done heretofore The
raising OF the little fellows is too long
a story for this time, but / Will give
1t later on Suffice it to say that the
chief contributor to your poultry de-
partment must have stolen his ideas
from me- / raised practically ali /
Matched and they, up to the present
writing. have proved source OF profit
and pleasure. They have always been
a healthy flock and furnish me q lib