Poultry "string men" of the past

Ontario Chick · Post by **Ontario Chick** » Tue Nov 22, 2016 12:42 pm

I find this subject very interesting and was reminded of it again, when I came across a story of one of the APA honored breeders in APA yearbook KB lent me because of an interesting article on Columbian Wyandottes.
By now I have read the book cover to cover as I am want to do and this story caught my attention....
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This is an excerpt from Rev. R Roming story..
At the age of 18, I went to work for Pleasant View Farms of Horsheads, NY, there I put together 105 breeding pens of LF and 75 pens of bantams, plus water fowl and pigeons.I also began putting together Fair strings.
The first contained 1 000 birds while the second came around 650 of which about 75% were raised on the farm.
It was during this process I discovered the joy of completing the strings, by going to and buying from many of the old time breeders of quality poultry.
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For those who aren't familiar with this, the "string men" travelled from Fair to Fair, where they put on displays of these birds.
As far as I can tell, this practice existed from early eighteen hundreds, before APA was formed until sometime in the fifties.

BobG · Post by **BobG** » Tue Nov 22, 2016 1:05 pm

Do a google search for " Stringmans Scrap Book " by Marion Nash some excellent history of past stringmen

kenya · Post by **kenya** » Tue Nov 22, 2016 1:27 pm

I saw an article about this don't know where now but it was really interesting, they used to take a string of birds to all the fairs and back then made pretty good money.

Ontario Chick · Post by **Ontario Chick** » Wed Nov 23, 2016 10:43 am

BobG wrote:QR_BBPOST Do a google search for " Stringmans Scrap Book " by Marion Nash some excellent history of past stringmen

Thank you, googling "stringman" turned out to be a bad idea

didn't realize there was a book, although $999 seems to be a bit much, price on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca doesn't list it. Will have to look up in some poultry specialty bookstores.

JP* · Post by JP* » Wed Nov 23, 2016 2:36 pm

Ontario Chick wrote:QR_BBPOST
BobG wrote:QR_BBPOST Do a google search for " Stringmans Scrap Book " by Marion Nash some excellent history of past stringmen
Thank you, googling "stringman" turned out to be a bad idea
didn't realize there was a book, although $999 seems to be a bit much, price on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca doesn't list it. Will have to look up in some poultry specialty bookstores.

Now I am curious as to what turns up....

kortispoultry · Post by **kortispoultry** » Wed Nov 23, 2016 3:50 pm

Ontario Chick wrote:QR_BBPOST
BobG wrote:QR_BBPOST Do a google search for " Stringmans Scrap Book " by Marion Nash some excellent history of past stringmen
Thank you, googling "stringman" turned out to be a bad idea
didn't realize there was a book, although $999 seems to be a bit much, price on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca doesn't list it. Will have to look up in some poultry specialty bookstores.

I own a copy of "THE STRINGMAN'S scrap book" by Marion R. Nash. Purchased this around the mid seventies. Forgot what I paid for this back then, I know that it was not cheap, but for sure less than $100 Canadian though, nowhere even close to $999!! I know that it's an extremely interesting and excellent book for the avid Poultry Fancier, but for that kind of money, $999, you can buy your chicken feed for almost 6 months! Just my humble opinion. Pete.

Ontario Chick · Post by **Ontario Chick** » Wed Nov 23, 2016 5:01 pm

:)
Although I tend to be pretty generous when I purchase my Christmas presents for myself, I am not that generous.
This is going to be another book on my list of "if I come across it in used book shop" which is a pretty long list by now.

windwalkingwolf · Post by **windwalkingwolf** » Wed Nov 23, 2016 5:08 pm

If you don't mind reading in electronic format (I HATE it but sometimes make exceptions) Jessica Books online has loads of free out of print stuff. Worth a look?

kortispoultry · Post by **kortispoultry** » Sat Dec 10, 2016 11:12 pm

Ontario Chick wrote:QR_BBPOST :)
Although I tend to be pretty generous when I purchase my Christmas presents for myself, I am not that generous.
This is going to be another book on my list of "if I come across it in used book shop" which is a pretty long list by now.

Here are a few peaks of what you can expect when you ever come across a copy of it OC.

Ontario Chick · Post by **Ontario Chick** » Sun Dec 11, 2016 9:17 am

Thank you so much for posting, what a treat to get a peak at the book. !
and of course now I really really want it...