The Japanese Encyclopedia of Poultry.
In 2 volumes, one highly illustrated in colour ,and one the book of words.
I have come across this book a few times and seeing it arrive into Kenny Pomona’s collection reminded me to look it up again and tell some of its story. It is an odd book to appear in Australia as so few of us can do more than look at the pictures.
The book was produced in the 1930’s at least if I could read Japanese I would confirm this.
The first copy I saw was in the Victorian Department of Agriculture. It had a long history there and the history was verbally related to me. In the early 1930’s Chicken vent sexing was very new and very important. Numerous chicken sexers came to Australia to teach the skills. This was either preceded by, or followed by, a high level Japanese Ministerial visit to all the Australian Departments of Agriculture that were involved in the program. Perhaps also followed by visits to manufacturing and logistics locations. To my knowledge (glad to be corrected) the delegation visited Qld, NSW, Vic, and SA. I have not been able to verify if they visited Canberra or WA. Both these had lesser involvement with chickens though Canberra has a continuing problem with both Chicks and Cock Fighting.
Along the way each of the ministers of Agriculture were given a copy of this book with the compliments of Baron Takakimi Mitsui, 11th President of Mitsui Gomeikaisha, Tokio. See notes below.
The copy that came to Victoria somehow made its way into the hands of Henry Jones perhaps by the use of his whip and a weighted stone. However it disappeared from the Government archives into private hands. This copy was in terrible condition as the pic show with pages falling out. I repaired the volume and made a felt lined cloth case to protect it. It was one of the first boxes I made back in 2007. The book was returned to its owner and has disappeared.
Soon after I located the copy that was similarly given to the NSW Department, now also disappeared unknown private hands.
Another copy with no annotations as to which state is now my archive also awaiting some repairs. I have been unable to establish which state it came from.(what I mean is, I cant remember though I have notes somewhere.)
I believe , awaiting confirmation , that the same delegation visited the NZ Ministry for Agriculture and that copy also has the same compliments tag.
So at least 3 copies are in circulation in OZ perhaps as many as 6 copies, and 1 in NZ.
So was it just about the chick sexing?
I have it on good authority from a breeder, no longer with us, that when he was a young boy in Geelong, he met some of the sexers on the family farm or similar connection. And he told me that one day he was riding his bike up to the lookout over the Geelong Harbour and saw one of the sexers whom he had met at his Dads farm, making a map of the harbour. The breeder related to me, how much later during WW2, he was in a position to see some maps captured from the Japanese, and was surprised and reported to the supervisor that he had seen this map before. The supervisor told him it could not had been it had just been captured from Japanese forces. And the chook man reported he had seen it being made by the Japanese chick sexers well before the war.
So I think the book is an interesting part of the cultivation that the Japanese did with a long term plan to take over Australia, which thankfully failed.
Reminds us of the current political machinations in a number of places around the world and should make us considerate of the kindness of some of our associates.
Spine Photo courtesy of Kenny Pomona.
Other Notes
Baron. Baron Takakimi Mitsui (三井 高公, Mitsui Takakimi, 3 August 1895 – 13 November 1992) was the eleventh head of the Mitsui family. He took over from the 10th Mitsui who was shot by an assassin in 1932. He was also fluent in English. (Wikipedia). It is interesting that Takakimi was the head of Mitsui bank, one, perhaps even the most powerful dynasties in Japan at the time of his visit. So powerful that the officlal government of Japan did not make decisions without full consultations with the Misui family empire. So its obvious that this was not just a casual visit and was not about chick sexing.