Kings County Biographies This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm W. C. MACFARLANE A native of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, W. C. Macfarlane was born June 3, 1868, and now is proprietor of the Richland Egg Ranch, at Hanford, Kings county, Cal. He went to Chicago when a lad and learned the printer's trade and finally engaged in business on his own account. He came to Hanford from Chicago in 1886 and for a time worked at his trade in this vicinity. His second claim to distinction is his prominence in the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. In the fall of 1911 he organized the lodge at Hanford and served as its Esteemed Leading Knight. February 16, 1891, he married Miss Mary Sevier, of Visalia, who has a son, Harry C. Macfarlane. Writing, two or three years ago, of the beginning of his egg enterprise, Mr. Macfarlane said: "About eighteen years ago I traded a scrub calf for three dozen scrub hens, and the first month they netted me $15. That caused me to 'sit up and take notice.' I then purchased a few settings of Brown Leghorn eggs and raised that breed for a few years; but finally discarded them for the White Leghorns, as they are a larger bird, lay larger eggs and as pullets get to laying a marketable sized egg much sooner than their brown sisters." His original White Leghorns were "bred to lay," but he improved the strain by the use of trap-nests, and constant work and breeding produced birds that laid as many as two hundred and twenty-seven eggs in a year. Hens showing a record approaching this were yarded for breeding. Until five or six years ago he never offered or advertised eggs or birds for sale, and even now will not sell a female from the two hundred and twenty-seven stock, but is in the market with male birds and eggs. He confined his breeding to hens laying one hundred and ninety-two to two hundred and twenty-seven eggs a year and has increased his size of birds and eggs so that they are larger and more vigorous than the average Leghorn. Pullets from the high-grade layers were laying when fifteen weeks old and pullets from the one hundred and ninety-two egg strain were laying two weeks later. The Richland Egg Ranch, four miles northwest of Hanford, comprises ten acres, its soil is good and it is watered by the People's Ditch. Mr. Macfarlane improved the place by building a small house and soon afterward planted part of his original five acres to peaches and sowed the remainder to alfalfa. When he was well started in the poultry business, he named the place the Richland Egg Ranch. A practical man of mechanical mind, he has done much of his own building and the ranch shows care and the painstaking work of a practical owner. The buildings are simple in construction, but neat and attractive. Under the sign bearing the name of the place stands the brooder, a building with a ground area of thirty-six by one hundred and twelve feet, which houses about twenty-five hundred pure bred White Leghorn chicks from a few days to a few weeks old. The brooder is fitted with thirty-two runs and is heated with nine gas heaters by which the temperature is kept at ninety degrees for the younger chicks down to seventy degrees for the older ones, according to season. Mr. Macfarlane averages a loss of but five per cent, leaving ninety-five per cent for successful breeding and maturing, notwithstanding many scientific poultry-men have a loss of fifty per cent. The incubators turn out fully ninety-four per cent of the fertile eggs and Mr. Macfarlane is able to keep the chicks alive and growing after they come out of the incubators. His brooders are devised on a plan of his own, adopted after he had visited all the principal poultry farms of the state, and the part under the mother boards is cleaned daily, the runways twice a week. During the first ten days of their life the chicks are fed on Richland Ten Day Chick Feed, a preparation of Mr. Macfarlane's own, and after ten days they are placed on a diet of meat, blood, bone, bran and barley, a food that stimulates the body growth of the fowls so that the feather growth does not impair its healthfulness. Pure water is furnished to the chicks in stone fountains. When they are ready to leave the brooder they are placed in yards laid out in a peach orchard, which furnishes the necessary shade. Each yard is watered automatically by means of pipe and automatic fountains and there are no puddles or mud holes. Mr. Macfarlane breeds entirely for eggs. All the product from October to July he sells for hatching purposes, usually taking up six or seven hundred eggs daily. He ships hens and cocks as far east as New York and as far west as the Hawaiian Islands. He sells about twelve hundred birds a year. Breeding only White Leghorns, he has taken first premium on his showings at the county fair for several years past. His four-story tank house, which cost $500, was built with the profits of one season's broilers. His yards measure one hundred by one hundred and sixty-five feet and he never keeps more than eighty birds in one yard; and he never feeds any kind of food on the ground, but uses troughs for the soft food and hoppers for grain. Some information concerning the prices he receives will be of interest in this connection. For males from the one hundred and ninety-two egg strain he gets $3.50 to $5 each, age and appearance causing difference in price. For males from the two hundred and twenty to the two hundred and twenty-seven egg strain, $7 each. For females, from April until sold, $1.25 each; these, being hens in their second season, are the best breeders, especially when mated with a two hundred and twenty-seven cockerel; no females of the two hundred and twenty to two hundred and twenty-seven egg strain are sold. For eggs from selected trap-nested layers that pass the one hundred and ninety-two mark, $2 for fifteen, $7 for one hundred, $70 for one thousand, delivered at the Hanford express office. He now offers settings from hens that have records of two hundred and twenty to two hundred and twenty-seven at $4 for fifteen, or $25 for one hundred. Having increased the number of birds of this class, he can supply settings in greater numbers than in previous seasons. On his ranch Mr. Macfarlane now has three thousand White Leg�horn chickens. In December, 1911, he received the largest order for eggs for hatching purposes ever given in California and at the highest price�two hundred and twenty-five thousand eggs at seven cents an egg. This great order came from Petaluma, Cal. He ships eggs in lots of fifteen hundred and twelve, for which he receives $100 a lot. Mr. Macfarlane thanks his White Leghorns for a ranch worth $10,000, a business block in Hanford worth $30,000 and considerable other valuable property. All printing of catalogues is done by himself on his ranch, and he is now using his fifth press. History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913 pp. 778-780 Transcribed by Kathy Sedler