POULTRY NOTES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 10713, 13 November 1912, Page 3

POULTRY NOTES.

(Bj "L'tilita.-lji '' ") Th-o re has arrived in Alston on. a eonvtignmcnt of twelve pairs of pigj.ns for tho purpose of propogating the squab industry. Ample pruvi•,ua iiiir* been liiiKU* by tho new iv.vncr for the care of birds and as we ire informed they eoiuiriouc-ud to mato immediately after their arrival in their new quarters, it- should not f>a many weeks before results in iy be looked for. The financial returns in the Mfiiab industry, whether largo' or small, a;* certainly quick. In the first. pi:u-e Lhoy are reputed to breed ail the yeai round and tho young *>quabs are ready far market at from one tj iv.c months old. Tho coming of these birds brr.u-ht ; to light another of the many instances in the peculiar charges made for the conveyance of goods for farmers and others. The freight for the twenty birds front Sydney to Wellington was 5s 6d, Railway to Masterton. j 4s 6d, an infinitesimal fraction of tho ' former distance, and other charge-*. \ wharfage, customs, etc. Pigeons, we presume, would come under the heading of poultry in the eyes of the G'orermnont, which is supposed to foster the industry, and yet directly anyone ■. is venturesome enough to do a little j importing on his own i s promptly fined tltrough the Customs, and in ad- » dition, the Railway Deportment get him by the scruff of the neck and , make him pay nearly as much for conveying tho birds seventy miles, as tho shipping company did for over twelve hundred. It is wonderful and fearsome system and should prove to further generations a fund of endless mirth, ft does not require much im- ( agination to figure a writer in the next century convulsing his readers j with descriptions of commerce, as it j is to-day.

Mr J. B. Merrett,, Honorary Secretary of tho N. Z. Poultry Association, proposes to install a mammoth three thousand egg incubator, next season, in order to copo with the increased demand for day-old chickens. Doubtless, the great possibilities in tho Export trade are essential factors towards encouraging this outlay. Mr Geo. Birchall, who was reported to hare resigned from the Utility Egg Circle committee, wishes it stated that, lie li.is left the Circle altogether. • We still hoar of demands for sottings of iWytuulottes, late as the season is, and we' cannot too emphatically reiterate* that the person who hatches after November, for commercial purposes, is on a poor wicket. For purely bobby ideals, time is a secondary consideration. Attention is drawn in the advertising columns on_.tho front, page to the Utility's ■Circle insertion. The Utility Egg Circle has handled from its inception up to the fifteentli thousand dozen eggs. It is also building up a comfdVtable. reserve fund for poultry feed. A locil Bank Manager, a great poultry enthusiast, has raised a score of healthy looking chickens, and now contemplates building a small covered in run for tho pullets for the. next laying, season.- Silver Wyandottes are his particular fancy, and he. has obtained eggs and birds both from the Utility Poultry Farm on the Mania and Mi- Rutherford of Mauriceville.