The Shuman Poultry Farm

Blessed be this awakening in the ranks of our youth! Blessed be this understanding turned toward the countryside, this taking of good omen in the service of the land, this living with it and upon it in love and hopefulness... This group of our young people has grown weary of the heavy, artificial atmosphere that the city and its civilization impose on the herds of human beings dwelling in it, heaps upon heaps, wearing them down, body and nerves, without mercy, and casting them out as masses of exhaustion...

This aware group of our young people took pity on its nerves lest they collapse, and chose to work and live outside the crush of the cities, on modern farms, with nature — bending tenderly over the land, tilling it into flourishing orchards of golden and red fruit, or ordering it into poultry farms, chickens and eggs... And how quickly the dream comes true, and the project buds, and rises into being, and grows!.. And how sweet it is when eyes shine with the smiles of deep, all-embracing joy.

And the glad tidings spread: hillock whispers them to hillock and poplar to its sister, and the goldfinch lets them fly with a song at dawn; and another man, despairing of his livelihood and of his job, hears them — and how lightly he seizes the idea and adopts it... and on the morrow a second farm rises... and the modern farms multiply and reach the dozens, sprinkled with art across the fertile, far-stretching plains of the Bekaa, or in the outskirts of Beirut and the other Lebanese towns... each farm with its own color and its own new style, each farm with its own concerns and its new manner of living.

The Shuman poultry farm at Hizzin is a singular model of the farms we wish to see spread through our plains and on the shoulders of our mountains.. On this farm live the young couple, Hasan and Nahla Shuman. Their splendid, well-ordered work, which all their friends and acquaintances envy them, is the child of two years — from the day Nahla, of her own full consent, gave up her polished Beirut society and went down to the neighborhood of Baalbek, to found a model farm with her bridegroom Hasan..

The first stages of the project were not strewn with roses for the two pampered children of the city; but the couple managed, thanks to their faith, their energy, and their knowledge, to overcome the difficulties one by one, and to smooth away every obstacle on the road to bringing their farm to the level they wanted.

The beginning of the project has an amusing story, whose stage was two rooms behind the house, in the days when the weekly output of broiler chickens did not exceed thirty birds. Nahla recalls, by way of a joke, that she and Hasan would spend the whole day plucking the thirty birds, and when they had finished that operation they were at a loss by what means to push this quantity to the market and how to guarantee its sale!. Now there is no longer any problem of that kind: the project has four large buildings, and production has grown from 30 to 250, then to 500, until it has now reached 1,000 — yes, it has reached a thousand roasting chickens in a single week... And this quantity is prepared — that is, plucked and packed in nylon bags — in less than half a day! And the orders come

to the farm huge and insistent, so that it is impossible to fill them all. All this success is thanks to vigilance and devotion in work, and the fruit of coupling work with the continuous study which Nahla and Hasan keep up: no sooner have they finished the day's work than they stretch out in their small, elegant salon and join in reading the books and world magazines devoted to their branch, in discussing and taking decisions on a given question, in carrying out those decisions firmly and without hesitation... and in keeping records of the results..

Hasan, the agricultural engineer, explains the technical side of the matter, saying:

The chicken made ready for sale weighs 800 grams. At first it did not reach this average before three months; now, thanks to healthful feed and the observance of the rules of cleanliness and of science, the chicken reaches this weight by the end of the second month only — and what a saving there is in that!

On the Shuman farm there are now 400 laying hens and sixty roosters. The average daily collection of eggs is 175. And all this does not meet the demand, so the farm imports 500 chicks a week from Holland..

From these figures one may conclude that the trade in chickens and eggs, when it is given proper care, is a profitable trade, and that on the Shuman farm it surpasses the ideal level... But it is not these virtues alone, for all their importance, that set this farm apart from others... What sets it apart is the "spirit" in which the loving couple work. Their unique house, complete in every provision of taste and comfort, is an open inn — not only for friends and family, but for everyone whom his ambition or his curiosity moves to inquire and to learn... He will find in Hasan and Nahla alike a friendly, cheerful face, and truthfulness and sincerity in answering every stray question that may cross the mind of the inquiring visitor.

And those in authority have taken notice of the technical and practical level the project has attained, and have begun sending to the farm their students who come to this branch from the Arab countries for study and specialization. The last to visit "the Shuman farm" were two young men from Libya, sent by their government in cooperation with the American Point Four.

It is worth mentioning that Hasan and Nahla do not confine their activity to the farm and the house, but carry it beyond, to "Hizzin," through their constant contact with the people of the village. They encouraged them to build a school with the help of "the Eagles Foundation," to which the two belong (and of which we spoke in a previous issue); and one result of the people's zeal was that they bore the entire cost of the building... In Hizzin too, with the help of the Public Health Department of the American University of Beirut, there is a free clinic; health films are shown at the evening gatherings; and Nahla herself undertakes to teach the mothers of the village how to care for themselves while they are with child, and for their children generally; and she gives first aid to everyone the whole year

round..

Nor do the friends of the "Shumanites" who have been guests of the farm for some weekend or a longer stay ever forget to call back that memory, as though it were like no memory they have known... Hasan and Nahla Shuman are a married couple and two farmers of Lebanon, truly living the ideal life of husband and wife and of farmers (1).

(1) As this issue appears, Hasan will be on his way to America on a three-month study and observation tour of the newest poultry farms. Nahla will manage all the work for the duration of his absence.