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

True cooperation in the service of farm and home

special machines, and placed in clean bags in readiness for dispatch to the cities.

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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.

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"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!!

The chicken house at the Shuman farm