Mr Frank Gary
Crosswicks - N.J. - USA

8-11-1983

Dear Mr Gary,

Received your welcome letter today and first of all please accept my sincere condolences on the loss of Mrs Gary. I remember you mentioning some time back that she had had a spell in hospital I think. I can appreciate how you would feel after being together such a long period. I am 62 years of age so I guess you must have been married somewhere around 1920. I think keeping your interest in the chickens will be of great help in keeping active and keep on with your work with the Standards. You really do have a great track record on that score. The American Bantam Association owes you a lot for the work you have done with the Standards. I have very recently written to Fred Jeffrey and apologised for my absence on the correspondence scene. I appreciate both yours and his concern on my well being.

Your gesture on giving the receipts from the sale of your library etc to the cause of the rarer breeds is to be commended and should no doubt be appreciated by members of the ABA I myself have a pretty extensive collection of poultry books and literature, in fact a room full of it as well as books on Australiana i.e. books written about Australia by Australian authors. Also there are my books on Amateur Radio as I have held a Ham Radio Operators License since 1939. Have not been terribly active in that field over the latter years but in earlier days talked a lot over the air waves with chaps in the US. Just had a quick look thru my acknowledgement cards and found that I talked with a chap in: Succasunna NJ in 1950, a chap in Red Bank, 1970, and another fellow in Closter NJ, 1969. May get back to it one of theses days.

I checked with our State Library here about them taking over my collection when I pass on but I made the stipulation that it had to be kept as a unit. However they appear to have problems when it comes to a situation like that. As My son is really the poultry breeder in the family he has agreed to take it over. I told him and his wife if they didn’t look after it I’d come back and haunt them. I didn’t want it split up as its pretty hard to get a decent collection together out here. There does not appear to be too many comprehensive Poultry book collections in Australia. A lot of mine came from either the States or England I did however pick up a few out here. Thank you for your comment on the color patterns. As you are aware the British Standard is not a great lot of help but when I get working properly it which will be very shortly I will keep you posted on progress and probably seek your advice. I think you are aware that we have no National Poultry Body in Australia so at our Pekin Club meeting last Sunday we decided that as a Specialist Club we should set the Standard. The British Standard is the accepted one for Pekins here in Australia but I think eventually the Suggested Standard in my book will be accepted by the Pekin Club and recommended by them. It is in actual fact the same as we discussed during our earlier correspondence and what you set up for the ABA Standard.

 The only thing we have a scale of points out here which would go into it. The problem was originally that when I put this suggested Standard to the Pekin Club meeting of committee we had one DISSENTER who vetoed the thing before it got off the ground. However he no longer comes to the meetings. I got the thing in print out here anyway and although I know that some of the stick in the muds don’t altogether agree with it no body as yet has taken me to task. Its pretty hard to teach an old dog new tricks. However the Committee is right behind the color business and I have to come up with a draft for the next meeting in February.

They are breeding quite a few Black and Blue Reds and Brown Reds over in West Australia and the photographs look OK. One of the chaps sent over some eggs and I’ve just hatched six chicks. The chicks didn’t come out as our OEG Black Reds come with a stripe down the back so I don’t know how they got them. I think more by chance than anything else.

However we will see how they shape up. I think if they are going to make these colors they will have to start with OEG bantams to get the color right in the first place. What happens in Australia is that with OEG They put Black Red into Pile to darken up the males and Black Reds with Blue Reds etc. It can get a bit confusing if you don’t watch what you are doing. In the OEG Bantams the Black Reds have Wheaten females There are Black and Blue Tail Wheaten and the Partridge hens come amongst the Piles. We have classes for both Dark Leg and Light Leg in these breed.

Had a letter from Professor Skinner of the University of Wisconsin the other day and he tells me they are on with the latest edition of the APA Standard.

You suggest I might get on to book about Origin etc etc of the Domestic Chicken before the others. I have been toying with that idea myself as I have plenty of material that I’ve collected, some of it only hypothetical but nevertheless a lot of it fits together and I have come up with some conclusions which I feel do make some-sense. There does not appear to been any serious work done on the subject. I wrote to Professor Carter of the University of Texas a few years ago as he wrote the Chapter on Pre Columbian chickens in the Americas in the book Man across the Sea. He had concluded his chapter by saying that a lot more research was needed to establish the fact as to whether there were chickens in the Americas pre Columbian. In his reply to my letter he said that after writing that Chapter he didn’t do any more work on the subject. So there you go. I was thinking that if you have a cassette player at your disposal it might be an idea for us to exchange cassettes as we do seem to have a bit to talk about let me know when you reply what you think of the idea.

Had a bit of excitement in the house tonight as a small Black snake ran across the living room. Had nothing to hit it with so it got away. That’s not a regular occurrence, but we do see them around from time to it’s been a very hot day today and that’s what gets them moving. It’s midnight and I’ve got to turn the eggs in the incubator so must do that and get some sleep. So until next time all the very best. Good to hear from you.

Sincerely Yours,

P.S. Regret to hear that reading for you is getting more difficult. So the cassette might be a great help.