STANDARDS FOR EXHIBITING POULTRY. 



227 



ostentatiously declined to be bound by this 

 standard, which had in fact no authority ; yet 

 nevertheless its definitions or descriptions un- 

 doubtedly had great influence in bringing about 

 greater uniformity of type, and more general 

 acceptance of a real type, in many breeds. 



This influence was accentuated by a Poultry 

 Convention held at New York in 1872, which 

 issued an American "standard." It was mainly 

 based upon the foregoing as regarded the de- 

 scriptions, but increased the total 

 The American numerical value of the points from 

 Standard of I5tolOO. This was an alteration of 

 Perfection. cardinal importance ; because the 

 value of every point, being now mul- 

 tiple, admitted of being diminished (or " cut," as 

 the Americans term it) for defects in fair pro- 

 portion. Hence it was held that if the values 

 of points accurately represented proper judging, 

 and they were equitably cut or diminished for 

 any defect, the adding up of the lowered figures, 

 or the " score " of the bird, as it was called, 

 scored on a card, would give the proper relative 

 position of every pen. The convention was re- 

 constituted soon afterwards as the American 

 Poultry Association, consisting of delegates from 

 all parts of the country, and which revises its 

 standard every five years in open session. This 

 is now termed, as in England, the " Standard of 

 Perfection," and in its present descriptions, as 

 well as values of points, differs from the first 

 English standard pretty widely. The Associa- 

 tion also controls the naming and admission of 

 any new varieties to the American Standard, and 

 such a history as that of the Buff Orpington in 

 England, for instance, would in America have 

 been impossible. A few remarks on this standard 

 and its method of application will be found a 

 little farther on. 



In 1 874 the first edition of the Illustrated Book 

 of Poultry was con^pleted. In this was included, 

 under the title of " Schedules for Judging," a 

 standard of our own which embodied 

 The several new features, the result of 



Book of many trials and much practical check- 



Poultry." ingover,beforecompetingpens. First, 

 its basis was different ; for whereas 

 both the previous ones had embodied the 

 " views " of their compilers, we had taken these, 

 or our own revised " views," as a starting point 

 only, and endeavoured to ascertain how far they 

 were borne out by the best judging, as accepted 

 by public opinion, which was by this time crys- 

 tallised into fairly definite shape. Our experi- 

 ence was that what appeared beforehand to be 

 reasonable comparative value of points, in many 

 cases could not be harmonised with evidently 

 correct judging, so that the standard should 



place the birds in the same order as the judges 

 did. We would then attempt to modify figures, 

 or their definition, so that the two should har- 

 monise ; and the modified result was checked 

 again on the next opportunity. Years of de- 

 tailed criticism at shows had prepared us for this 

 work, in which considerable practical success 

 was ultimately obtained ; and our figures were 

 eventually published, though avowedly upon 

 merely personal responsibility, not as embody- 

 ing our own opinion — for in many points they 

 differed widely from what we would have pre- 

 ferred, and even had previously supposed — but 

 as an analysis of the average actual jvdgbig in 

 England. A second point of difference was, 

 that we were subsequently led to prefer as a 

 system the tabulation of defects rather than of 

 positive points. The third was that, whilst we 

 started from a total of 100, many analyses led us 

 to give considerably more than 100 to the total 

 of possible defects, fully added up together. 

 The reason was that while points must have a 

 certain proportion to one another comparatively, 

 in order to represent correct judging each point 

 must also have a certain proportion to the 100 of 

 perfection. We found often that, if only 100 

 was divided amongst them all, proportionate 

 deductions according to the amount of defect 

 did not deduct efiough to give always the true 

 order of merit, as a good breeder-judge would 

 reckon it ; whereas raising the numerical value 

 of all points proportionately to some higher 

 ratio, brought nearly all such irreconcilable 

 awards into line. Such were the main features 

 of our own standard of 1874. 



It is only the bare truth to say that this 

 standard has exerted profound influence on all 

 those of the present day, with the exception of 

 the last feature above mentioned — its excess of 

 total added defects, over the standard total. 

 The reasons for that, proved too subtle to be 

 grasped by the majority of breeders, and we are 

 now convinced that the simple 100 point system is 

 the only one capable of general acceptance, while 

 it will give true results in the majority of cases. 

 The reasons for the other are, however, as real now 

 as in 1874; and if any fancier of a mathematical 

 turn of mind will, on the next exceptional 

 occasion when he cannot possibly square the 

 order of merit per standard with the evidently 

 correct decisions (for it is no standard's business 

 to square with bad ones) of the judge, make the 

 experiment of deducting considerably heavier 

 cuts than the lOO-point scale seems to allow, 

 he may probably understand what we mean. 

 Our numerous revisions in description have 

 been mostly adopted in substance, where 

 not in words, on both sides of the Atlantic 



