At the Shuman Farm, Where the Chickens Grow Fast and Life Is Sweet

... The car descends unhurriedly, winding along the roads that overlook the Bekaa plain at the height of its glory!... On its left crouches venerable old Sannine in dignity, bare-headed but for white furrows that fill its gullies driven into the rock. Snow was scarce this winter and crowned its brow only rarely...

On the car's right the carpet of spring spreads out in the freshness of laughing green, folded away from one splendid face only to unroll before a face more splendid still! Here on this stage the bountiful hand of nature has joined with the hand of believing man; the riddle was solved, and the belly of the earth opened upon the finest of crops — springs of generous fertility! Blessed be the soil... master of the greatest giving after the Lord of Glory!!

The car swings toward the village of Jezzine, leaving the highway that leads to the great temples of Baalbek...

Before you, if you look closely, appears a little red house, around which the poplar trees loom, ranged in their towering heights, and the flocks graze in those pastures, lazy, enjoying the abundant fodder! Stop a moment and breathe the sweetest of air!!

★

Lebanon complains in this age of working hands that disdain the service of the land, and of the migration of country folk to the city in pursuit of the office job. Of late a wave of awareness has stirred among the ranks of the citizens — a sincere call to return to the embrace of nature, and to turn, mind and heart, toward agricultural life and the raising of poultry. Perhaps "Shuman Farm" at Jezzine is an excellent display of the triumph of this call. For it is one of the modern farms established to restore to the countryside some of its former glory, and to turn the attention of educated youth from the crush of the cities to free natural life...

The most delightful thing there, in my view, is the ideal family life lived by the farm's owner, Mr. Hassan Shuman, and his wife, Mrs. Nahla Marwa. They are forever in constant cooperation to accomplish the many tasks inside the house and out — in nothing at all different from the life of farmers in the most advanced countries of the West — helped by the modern equipment provided in that little house. Here the kitchen has material and moral privileges surpassing all the other parts of the house, contrary to Eastern tradition... In her kitchen the housewife may receive you while she finishes some of her tasks, and you rest easy in its atmosphere as though you were in the finest salon! Not to mention the taste and the simplicity manifest in every corner.

Let your eyes roam outside, and you will see long plains sown with wheat, chickpeas, broad beans, and potatoes... But the main work at "Shuman Farm" is the production of poultry for meat, and their care is devoted above all to hatching chicks, raising them, and then selling them.

The farm now assures the hatching of 250 birds a week. The work began a year ago with fifty weekly, and the owner of the farm affirms that next year's program will rise to a thousand!

There are various breeds of chicken, and the best of them is distinguished by tenderness of flesh, fine flavor, and speed of growth — and this precisely is what the agricultural engineer Hassan Shuman relied upon in selecting his chickens for eggs, and then surrounded them technically with the most modern means. They have their own houses, equipped with the preventive and sanitary arts of drink and food; meals are served at regular intervals; a record of growth is kept for each bird; and the inspection of the feed sees to it that it contains the sufficient measure of protein, vitamins, calcium, and mineral matter — and this precise, conscious service enables the chick to weigh a kilo and a half and become fit for sale only three months after its hatching. Then it is slaughtered, plucked by means of special machines, and placed in clean bags in readiness for dispatch to the cities.

★

In a quiet sitting with the young farmer, my friend Nahla, I learned that she intends — being herself a specialist in the teaching of small children — to hold a summer camp at her house for ten children of about six or seven years of age, its aim to acquaint the children of the cities with the life of the countryside, and with the daily routine that goes with a farm in the open air — perhaps one of the most delightful activities the little ones need and long for.

★

"How welcome the return of our youth to living with the land with such love and enthusiasm!!... The face of the earth is brighter of brow and more generous of giving than the grim face of the city, and happy is he who can free himself from the artificial atmosphere and turn, heart and hand, to his mother nature!"

This is what was turning in our minds — good company, winding along the black roads in a car, meeting the sunset, our destination Beirut, whether we would or no!!