Mrs Annie Banning-Vogelpoel
Waardenburg - Netherlands

7-9-1984

Dear Mrs Banning,

Nice to receive your letter of August 7th and fine on your cousins in South Australia and Victoria. My friend was also in the Dutch Army in Indonesia after World War 2.

Thank you on the information on Friesland and also Vierländen. My reason for asking about this is that it was written that the fowls on Ester Island were described as looking like fowls similar to the ones in Vierländen when Roggeveen discovered Ester Island (1722). I think Vierländen is near Hamburg?

Fine on your 2 books and Dr Hagedorn. I agree that he wrote very good books. I think he visited Australia at one time during his career. I do have I think a couple of his books. I agree with you that Hagedorn was very practical with his ideas on breeding and also your remarks regarding Darwin. Unfortunately Darwin did not have the benefit of knowing about Gregor Mendel’s experiments on inheritance. Darwin was a great observer. However before Mendel’s papers were rediscovered by De Vries and Bateson and later Punnett and used poultry breeders weren’t sure why certain things happened when breeding poultry.

You mention going to Limburg judging. My friends here in Maitland come from Limburg. Fine on your Chinese geese. I am hatching chickens at the moment. I have the incubator and will brood them, then they will go to my son’s place. He lives about 3 miles away from me.

OK regarding the Araucanas. I will be interested to have your comments on my theory of the origins of the Araucanas.

We are working on breeding new colours in Pekins here in Australia. This season I am putting an OEG Pile over a Black Pekin male. A chap in the North of the State mated Rhode Island Red and Black Pekin last year. The results were good. He will now cross brother and sister of the offspring and in this second cross the colours will segregate and hopefully some Black Tailed Red will turn up. Of course it will take a few years to get the Pekin type.  A chap in New Zealand whom I write to is working on Silver Pencilled Pekins.

Our summer is coming up with days of 20 degrees Celsius. It should be quite warm by the end of the month.

Next weekend my son and his wife, President of the Pekin Bantam Club of NSW and myself are travelling about 90 miles north of here to the Diamond Wedding Anniversary of one of our old Pekin Breeders. He is 82 years old and has been a great supporter of the Club over the years. At the function we are presenting him with a Life Membership badge and a plaque in appreciation of his past support.

All for now. Looking forward to hearing from you anytime.

Sincerely,