1907.] DISCUSSION. 83 



poor bird can be made to appear very well by being put in good 

 condition, and oftentimes be made to win over a much better 

 bird. 



Mr. Graham. By good condition you do not mean good 

 grooming, do you ? 



Mrs. Monroe. To a certain extent, I do. A homely per- 

 son is sometimes made to look very attractive by good groom- 

 ing. We always want to look our best. So our fowls want 

 to look their best. I w^ould not send a bird with a poor coat, 

 or one with a torn comb, or one with a toe gone, to the show- 

 room. All such physical defects should be covered up. I do 

 not mean that I would paint feathers or color their legs, or do. 

 anything of that kind, because the judge would probably find 

 it out, but any bird which I sent to a show-room for exhibition 

 purposes should be in the best condition possible. I would 

 take every pains to make the bird clean and sleek-looking, and, 

 of course, care should be taken to have it in perfect health. 



A Member. Does not the handling of a bird improve 

 the condition? 



Mrs. Monroe. Certainly; I am not an authority on all 

 such matters, but where birds are confined in a pen they should 

 be very carefully handled, or their condition will unfit them for 

 the show-room. What little success I have had has come, in 

 my case, from the goodness of the birds themselves and not 

 from any particular merits of my own. I know that where I 

 have failed in the show-room it has been by a lack of condition. 



I want to say one word about houses. We have heard 

 about the Alassachusetts house, the Connecticut house, the 

 Rhode Island house, but I wonder if you would like to know 

 about the New York house. I think most any kind of a house 

 is all right if it has somewhere about it in constant use a 

 muslin curtain. It does not make any difference if it is an 

 old piano box. It does not make any difference if it is a perfect 

 palace of a henhouse, or anything else, if it has a muslin 

 curtain about it so as to provide for a good circulation of air. 



