17^ 



CHArTER X. 



EXHIBITION POULTRY AND UTILITY. 



BEFORE entering into the practical details 

 of breeding poultry in accordance with 

 recognised exhibition standards, we must 

 consider with some care the question as to the 

 good or evil effects of such pursuits, of such stand- 

 ards, and of the poultry fancy itself, and all con- 

 nected with it. That question has been more or 

 less debated for many years ; but of late attacks 

 upon the whole system of poultry exhibition 

 have been so repeated and carried to such an 

 extreme, as really to put poultry breeders upon 

 their defence, and make it necessary to see what 

 amount of truth, or how much of error, there 

 may really be in the sweeping charges brought 

 against them. 



The controversy is no new one. So long 

 ago as 1S72, the Hon. J. Stanton Gould, an 

 eminent American stock-breeder, in addressing 

 the newly formed New York State 

 Early Attacks I'oultry Society, complained that 

 on Fancy the standards "tell us nothing about 



Poultry. {Jig physiological condition of the 



birds, nothing about their capacity 

 for laying on flesh, nothing about their capacity 

 for laying eggs, nothing about their powers of 

 digestion and assimilation, nothing about their 

 hardihood." He more definitely proceeded : 

 " In the rules for judging Brahmas, I am told 

 the beak must be well curved. I would 

 respectfully ask, Why ? . . . I read further 

 in the same standard of excellence that the 

 Brahma must have a pea-comb. . . . But 

 why, in the name of common-sense, is it 

 necessary that a Brahrna should have a pea- 

 comb? If it is true that the pea-comb is no 

 indication of the excellence of a fowl, or of its 

 profitableness, or of its purity of blood, and if it 

 docs not minister to the aesthetic gratification of 

 the owner, is it not simple nonsense to include 

 it among the points of excellence of the breed?" 

 The speaker intimated that "there can be no 

 real advance in poultry breeding until it is 

 removed from the realms of caprice and fancy, 

 and placed upon the sure foundations of 

 anatomical and physiological science." 



That crude stage of the discussion is now 

 almost a thing of the past. It is understood, by 



all who have studied these questions to any 

 purpose, that supposing for the sake of argu- 

 ment a Brahma really is of more value than 



some mongrel or scrub race of fowls 

 What the — ^^'-^ ^^1 unspoilt Brahma cer- 

 " Points " tainly is so — if it is to be preserved 

 reaUy are. ^j- ^j] g^g 3^ race, it must at least be 



described as such from characteristic 

 and true specimens, or you cannot distinguish 

 it, as a race, from others. But thus the pea- 

 comb or other points are indications of its 

 " purity of blood." In the main, they are the 

 stamps of the race as such ; while the curious 

 clause about the point not " ministering to the 

 aesthetic gratification of the owner " simply 

 baffles a fancier's understanding, except on the 

 supposition that this was Mr. Gould's first real 

 acquaintance with poultry breeders. So, also, it 

 is now seen that if a race celebrated for laying 

 on flesh is properly described, its standard of 

 form does tell us something about its "capacity" 

 for so doing ; or if a good laying breed be also 

 accurately described in regard to form, and 

 there be any indication at all in outward form 

 of laying capacity, we have, so far, some 

 indication of that too. And thirdly, it is now still 

 further understood that these are the only kind 

 of indications which we can have to decide 

 between fowls in show competition, from the very 

 nature of the case. When Mr. Gould asks why 

 they are not judged by their actual capacity for 

 laying eggs, the simple reply is that it could 

 not be done. That is a matter of experience, 

 or of testimony, which we cannot bring to the 

 show-pen at all. There we are confined to 

 something we can see before us, to outward 

 features of some kind. The actual laying 

 power can only be tested in other ways, as a 

 poultry organisation is now endeavouring to 

 test them in manner to be presently described. 

 But in the pens we are shut up to outward, 

 visible points, just as in a cattle show or a 

 pig show. These should be, as already said, 

 described from good characteristic specimens 

 of any animal it is desired to cultivate ; and 

 when once so described and fixed, it is a mere 

 abuse of terms to call them arbitrary ; they 



