December 1926 – Editorial

Having acquired the “CANADIAN POULTRY WORLD,” W. B. Meyer-Miller and R. H. Storer desire to make their position and policy plain. In the belief that the poultry industry is destined to become the leading phase of agricultural production in British Columbia – and that speedily – the proprietors of this journal ask for co-operation of poultrymen in hastening this achievement, and will work earnestly and unceasingly towards that end.

The logical scope for extension of breeding stock and baby chicks appears to us to lie in later hatches, and the market for British Columbia the supplying of late hatched chicks to outside points, Prairie points chiefly. That there is room for May, June and even July hatched chicks we believe – and the belief is founded upon actual personal experience on the Prairies, and of British Columbia breeders.

Each month a feature of the Canadian Poultry World under its new management will be seasonable articles on poultry diseases to be looked for during that month particularly. The aim will be to provide for readers timely, practical, plainly worded hints on disease and the best methods of coping with the disease; coupled of course with advice based on the true saying that prevention is better than cure. For this and coming months we have already assured a series of reliable articles on diseases, which are usually most troublesome during the month the current article will cover.

Work must be properly directed to achieve anything more than blistered hands; and that is particularly true of the poultry industry. What properly directed work can accomplish in the poultry industry in British Columbia innumerable comfortable homes and happy families know to the Editor of this journal demonstrate splendidly. From time to time actual instances of success in poultry breeding or poultry farming will be the subject of articles in these columns. Those successes are not bounded b mere cash accumulated—rather they are constituted chiefly of happy families living in their own rural homes which afford pleasant and healthy occupation.

The idea that poultry farming consists of throwing feed to hens and gathering basketful of eggs still persists in some quarters, despite its absurdity. But poultry farming conducted by intelligent people on reasonable lines is a sure bet in British Columbia anyway—it can be guaranteed to assure a comfortable living almost from the start, and to lead along interesting routes, maybe slowly but none the less surely, to independence.

Vigor in poultry has lately been emphasized as the essential aim of breeders by George Robertson, assistant poultry husbandman at Ottawa and an outstanding authority on poultry, particularly white leghorns, the favored commercial producers. Vigor is the most important single factor for poultry. Combined with type it has made several breeds in B. C. world famous. We propose to publish regularly authoritative articles on breeding, feeding and marketing. It will be our aim to adequately report all the achievements of B.C. poultry and poultrymen, which are adding to the value and fame of the industry.

The establishment of a stable market outside B.C. for eggs produced in B.C., which at certain seasons would otherwise be surplus so far as our requirements are concerned, is an important matter; the maintaining of disease resistant vigorous poultry, and the guarding against disease infection from outside are important matters; the marketing of live poultry, particularly White Leghorn cockerels, is a vastly important matter; the extension of the incubating season by the widening of markets in B.C. baby chicks is an essential matter, taking the broad view of the future of the industry; the keeping of an open mind towards new developments in the poultry world is important. These serve merely to indicate some of the subjects, which will be dealt with in these columns. We invite the co-operation of the practical commercial poultrymen of British Columbia, our readers, in solving mutually important problems.