26 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



POULTRY. 



[From the Report of the Committee of the Bristol-county Society.] 



The Committee on Poultry respectfully submit the follow- 

 ing report : — 



The show of poultry was not so large as last year, but of 

 great merit, embracing fowls of most of the leading varieties, 

 all pure breeds, affording satisfactory evidence of an increased 

 regard for pure-blooded poultry, and a determination to im- 

 prove the stock to a point of excellence not even aimed at a 

 few years ago. 



Your Committee, in years past, took the liberty, in making 

 their report, to impress on the minds of poultry-breeders the im- 

 portance of breeding from pure blood and the very best stock. 



We are gratified by the belief that our reports are very 

 extensively read, and that they are generally approved by our 

 largest breeders, and instructive to many, who, for the first 

 time, read in their pages of the principles which we desire to 

 impress on the mind of the reader. It is not our intention 

 to make a very extended report this year; but our desire to 

 increase the breeder's faith in pure blood induces us to say a 

 few words concerning the lessons that our recent exhibition 

 was capable of teaching. 



One marked feature, distinguishing this from all previous 

 exhibitions, — the absence of mongrels, — encourages the be- 

 lief that the faith in the old adage that " a hen is a hen " has 

 already given way to the more sensible theory that blood is 

 blood ; and we have no fear that they will often, hereafter, 

 appear on a Bristol-county show-ground to have the ugliness 

 exaggerated by comparison with the fine blooded stock of 

 Philander Williams, James Davis, R. G. Buffinton, and 

 others of our first-class poultr3^-breeders. 



The oj^portunity for an examination of the different breeds 

 presented by our annual exhibitions is one of their chief 

 recommendations. 



The last exhibition was very successful in affording to the 

 farmer and others an opportunity to study from living 



