However, the Rhode Island Red and the techniques used to raise it continue to have a beneficial impact on New England farming. By the early twentieth century, New England poultry farming, unable to compete with other areas of the country where feed and transport costs were lower, began to decline in favor of dairy farming. In 1898, Wilbour also had the honor of naming the breed during a visit to his farm by two professors from the Rhode Island Agricultural Experiment Station - now the University of Rhode Island. Other Little Compton farmers soon followed suit, and the town became the international poultry capital. To understand the scale of this operation, most other farmers at the time had fewer than 500 hens, compared to Wilbour’s 5,000. By the 1890s, Wilbour’s farm became the first large-scale poultry business in the world, exporting 150,000 dozen (1.8 million) eggs per year. Wilbour bought a few of Tripp’s marvelous hens and cross-bred them with local roosters, resulting in healthy, meaty hens with a prodigious egg-laying capacity. This early form of the famous chicken developed a reputation among local farmers, and Isaac Wilbour, of Prospect Hill Farm, stopped by to see what all the fuss was about. These Asian chickens had the brilliant feathers and reliable egg laying for which the Rhode Island Red would become famous. Local farmer William Tripp bought Chittagong chickens from a New Bedford sailor to breed with his own stock. The story begins far from Little Compton in Chittagong, Bangladesh. Their success was the result of effective crossbreeding and innovations in hen-raising. Little Compton farmers bred the Rhode Island Red in response to a need for a meatier bird with more reliable egg laying capacities. The qualities that made this bird so popular didn’t occur by accident. This image is close to the reality in Little Compton today, but for a few decades the town was the center of an international poultry industry built upon a local chicken known as the Rhode Island Red. It’s nothing short of astonishing that the West Island fishermen were able to land fish of 40, 50 and even 60 pounds with their primitive gear, and one can only wonder how many giant stripers were lost to broken lines and other types of equipment failure.Imagine a stereotypical small farm with a few chickens pecking around the yard, the sun shining on their bright red feathers. They had to rely on fragile bamboo rods, linen lines and crude reels equipped with leather “thumbstalls” to apply drag. Anglers of the late 1800s had it especially tough. Landing a big striped bass from among slippery, surf-swept boulders is no easy feat, no matter what era you’re from. When a fish was hooked, the angler played it from his rocky perch until his guide could haul it from the water with a long-handled gaff. Once the stripers arrived to feed on the free handouts, the angler would cast his baited hook into the foaming waters where the fish were spotted. Waquoit Bay, Cape Cod (Boating Camping)Īs the fisherman “jointed” his bamboo rod and readied his reel, the guide would chum the area by tossing chunks of lobster, menhaden and other fish into the waters around the stand.
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