I So 



THE BOOK OF POULTRY. 



four eggs a week each all through the entire 

 winter period. The following year, owing to 

 the bitter weather, the top score was only 243 ; 

 but it is noteworthy that it was the same yard 

 and strain which won again, and also that the 

 strain was from American pedigree layers. In 

 the 1905-6 contest 251 eggs were laid by the 

 leading pen (white Leghorns), while in the 

 1906-7 competition 237 eggs were produced by 

 the winning pen (buff Orpingtons). 

 Improvement Similar competitions for an entire 

 of twelve months have been held in 



Laying. Australia with very beneficial re- 



sults. The average, per hen, was 

 increased the second year from 130 to 163 ; no 

 less than 15 pens in 1903 surpassed the winner 

 in ig02 ; and most of the competitors had 

 increased their production, the winning pen 

 totalling 1,308 eggs from 6 birds, or 218 each. 

 Experiments in Ireland have shown similar 

 improvement, though as yet on a much lower 

 scale. The value of such competitions in em- 

 phasising the value of " strain " rather than 

 " breed " has been most useful. 



A report issued by Professor G. M. Gowell, 

 of the Elaine Experimental Station, of theresults 

 of four years' work in systematic breeding is 

 equally conclusive, and the main figures may 

 fitly conclude our discussion of this important 

 topic. Out of 67 pullets, he found four which laid 

 over 200 eggs in a year. Selecting these, and 

 the best of the others, the second year seven 

 birds laid over 200 eggs, averaging 10 each 

 more than the preceding four, and the whole 

 flock averaging 127. The third generation 

 produced eighteen over 200 eggs, the best one 

 laying 251. The fourth year he was able to 

 confine his breeding entirely to birds that had 

 laid over 180 each, and twenty-six had laid 

 over 200. Another view of the result is the 

 fact that, while on an average of even the first 

 three years only one bird in twenty-eight 

 exceeded 200 eggs, the fourth year one bird 

 in every seven did so. It need hardly be 

 added that the breeding cockerels, equally 

 with the pullets, were selected from the progenv 

 of the best layers. 



Exhibitions of dead table poultry offer 

 a very practicable method of effecting im- 

 provement in table qualities. In France such 

 exhibitions were established by market breeders 

 and feeders, whose proper business it is ; but 

 in England these classes had utterly neglected 

 all matters of the kind. Again it was the 



much-maligned " fanciers " who came to the 

 rescue, and established classes of this descrip- 

 tion, but for years utterly without support from 

 those who should have been interested. De- 

 sirous to do their best, they be- 

 ExMbitions ga" by appointing poulterers as 



of judges, and tried to fill classes 



Table Poultry. j^y entering themselves ; but they 



could not compete with practical 

 feeders and their practical knowledge, and their 

 exhibits were derided, while the prizes went 

 to just such large and " coarse " specimens as 

 moved Sir Henry Thompson's wrath. By de- 

 grees fanciers were associated as judges ; then 

 the judging at once improved, and with it the 

 fowls too, and these shows began to spread. 

 At length the poulterers also have come to aid 

 the movement, and the Table Poultry Show 

 at the London Agricultural Hall in December 

 is now one of the features of the year. But 

 it was the fanciers who initiated this move- 

 ment, and worked at it for years against sore 

 discouragement, and without support from 

 those on whose behalf it is supposed to be 

 that they are so persistently attacked. It is 

 they, also, who provide the stock which pro- 

 duces the best birds now shown ; and one of 

 the most significant features of these shows 

 has been the steady displacement or disap- 

 pearance of the so-called " Surrey fowls," for 

 avowed (or unavowed) crosses between the 

 fancier's pure breeds, and even by the pure 

 breeds themselves. 



As usual, then, the real truth about this 

 question lies between the two extremes. The 

 work of the exhibitor is absolutely essential 



to the poultry industry, and cannot 

 Practical be dispensed with. He has done 



Conclusions. most valuable work, and is doing it 



still, though his motives are his own. 

 Nevertheless, besides some serious evils in the 

 present exhibition system, manifest injury is 

 being done by the present judging in some of 

 the classes. Judging must be by outward 

 points ; yet some of these points, once adopted 

 from good motives, are now known to be 

 pernicious. But the remedy does not lie in 

 wholesale tirades, which, on the contrary, 

 obscure the real issues, and actually prevent 

 what ought to be practicable reforms, or the 

 alteration of present judging in certain definite 

 points. On these should attention be fixed, 

 and to these effort directed ; and such reforms 

 we would earnestly urge upon all concerned. 



