350 



JOURNAL OF HOKTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ October 14, 1876. 



■when lot after lot of the finest Dorkinga ever bred went at the 

 fall of Mr. Elijah Smith's hammer to new homes in distant 

 counties. We suppose there are very few fanciers who have 

 not heard of it. Mr. John Martin might well be proud of the 

 birds he had bred as he heard the sums gradually rise higher 

 and higher. Yet those were no days of exorbitant prices. Birds 

 commanded a steady sale, but the reaction had not then set 

 in, and we did not hear of the prices then which we weekly 

 know birds have fetched and are fetching in 1S74 and 1875. 

 Nevertheless we would not recommend fanciers retiring from 

 the poultry world to have such a sale. We would sooner advise 

 them to imitate Mr. Beachy when he gave up his yard of White 

 Cochins and the trustees of the late Mrs. Williamson, and sell 

 their birds privately in one lot. It is better not to ask such a 

 large sum, and so make a private sale a certainty, than run the 

 risk and incur the trouble and expense of an auction sale, for 

 snch events as the Linton Park sale, where all the birds sold 

 well, are but of rare occurrence. 



Ntxt we come to the regular sales of poultry which are in the 

 present day the most fashionable. We allude to the periodical 

 poultry auctions in Loudon, Manchester, Liverpool, and many 

 other large towns. We think when breeders and others have 

 made up their minds to sell by auction it pays them much 

 the best to send their birds at intervals to the nearest poultry 

 sale. In many of the big cities sales are held fortnightly, and 

 the auctioneers have a fixed tariff of charges, supply baskets, tfec. 

 But we do not call even these sales satisfactory to the vendors. 

 We have seen lot after lot of really fair birds go for 3s. &d. or 

 4s. 6tZ. each, for anything like a good price is but rarely obtained. 

 The birds are often crowded up in these sale rooms, and penned 

 in small baskets, consequently they never look at their best. 

 Of course there are instances on record of individual birds 

 obtaining good prices at these sales, but we think it is far from 

 the rule. But were we obliged to sell by auction we should do 

 ao by means of some such sale. It would then be to our interest 

 to advertise our birds as about to be sold in such an auction 

 room, apart from the general advertisement of the auctioneer ; 

 and we should naturally choose a date in November or December, 

 when the young birds would be matured and the adults in 

 bright feather. 



We are of opinion that at the root of the evil is the fact Ihat 

 flo many inferior birds are sent to the auction sales, birds which 

 really are only fit to pat into a pie. Faulty and badly-marked 

 chickens are not half killed off enough in their early youth. 

 We went the other day to one of our most successful exhibitors' 

 yards, and the higgler had actually just bought of him eighty 

 pure-bred well-marked birds, their faults beitig quite of a miner 

 kind. That is the way to do well. Kill off the most inferior 

 specimens, and devote more time, and food, and apace to the 

 remainder, and we shall then find the prices of ordinary speci- 

 mens at auction salerooms and everywhere else much better, 

 and much more faith put in the quality and breeding of the 

 birds found there. We are quite suie too many poor specimens 

 are allowed to live, and hence we find the wretched rubbish we 

 do at these general auction sales. Good birds can always fetch 

 a good price, and we are certain expenses would bu made to 

 meet much more easily if the chicken ranks were only thinned 

 in good time — as soon as ever the bad can be diecerned from the 

 good, for then the extra care the remainder would receive at 

 the hands of the attendants would make them finer birds, 

 and more valuable for whatever purpose they are to be de- 

 voted; for, quoting a gentleman who sold his eighty chickens 

 for killing purposes in one lot and had 2.s drl. each for them, it 

 paid him much better to sell them so and to get rid of them 

 €fntirely out of the chicken world, than to send them to an 

 auction where he would perhaps obtain 6s. or 7s. each and have 

 to pay for carriage and railway journey of the attendant, besides 

 the auctioneer's fees. And once more : The trade in prize 

 poultry is much weakened by the broadcast dispersal of inferior 

 specimens throughout the various poultry yards in the country, 

 for they, in their turn, producing even less worthy specimens, 

 actually choke the fancy with mere rubbish. — W. 



members of a Columbarian Society, &c., has been presented by 

 Mr. R. Falton. As it is especially intended for amateurs he has 

 signified his intention of not competing in the class. 



SECRETARIAL SHORTCOMINGS. 



I WISH secretaries could be induced to pay more attention to 

 the despatch of catalogues. I mention a recent instance of care- 

 lessness which is not, I am afraid, singular. 



When I sent my entry fees to Nottiugham I fent at the same 

 time the money for a catalogue ; thinking it not improbable that 

 the Secretary might forget that I had doue so, I wrote to remind 

 him of it when I sent off the birds. No catalogue came, and I 

 wrote again, and with the same result. 



Secretaries might with advantage recollect that exhibitors are 

 apt to apply the proverb, " A feather shows which way the wind 

 blows," and that they are not likely to trust their birds to shows 

 where inattention seems to be the lule. — F. G. Ddtton. 



THE OXFORD POULTRY SCHEDULE. 



I VENTURE to think that one class does not receive fair play at 

 the hands of the Committee. I allude to the class for Sebrigbts, 

 in which the first prize is only £1 10s., and the second 1.5s , 

 whilst in most other classes there are three prizes of .i.S 3s., 

 £1, and 10s., and in none is the first less than £2 2s. Even 

 the Selling class for Bantams any variety has a better prize 

 offered. This seems to me, as an interested individual, a slight 

 upon this new favourite breed, and the only blot on an otherwise 

 liberal prize list. I trust the Committee will do something to 

 put us exhibitors of Sebrights on an equal footing with others. 

 — J.\MES W. Lloyd. 



Great National Poultry Show, Crystal Palace. — We 

 anderetand that one of the cups in the special classes for 



CRYSTAL PALACE POULTRY SHOW. 



The little volume of the " Great National " has again come to 

 hand, and the contents are indeed startling. Tlie rules and 

 regulations come among its first pages, and we find most of 

 them ill statu quo — 3o much so that there is nothing new to say 

 of them, for tbese worthy people will not even allow the use 

 of double baskets. We have so lately urged the advantages of 

 this arrangement in these pages that we will say no more here ; 

 and only hope that the authorities will realise, before it is too 

 late, the advantage it will be to them to alter this rule as their 

 rival sister did after her schedules were issued. 



Next we come to the Judges, and a goodly muster they make, 

 for we read who the gentlemen are to be, and they comprise 

 nearly all that exist of any note. The names might have been 

 omitted for all the good they do, as exhibitors will have no 

 knowledge as to which of the gentlemen is to award the prizes 

 for the various classes. Had the Committee said Mr. So-and-so 

 will take the Dorkings, and Mr. So-and-so the Brahmas, and so 

 on, we should say the National had indeed set the ball rolling in 

 the way it should go. Entries close on the 18th inst. 



We next come to the cups. Forty-five pieces of plate, or 

 equivalent in money value, will be given among the potiltry 

 clashes, beginning with one value i'21 for the best pen in the 

 wbule Show. This is with a vengeance returning to the valuable 

 champion cups which we advocated a few weeks ago. i;250 is 

 spent in cups alone on the poultry department, which must 

 make this Show more gigantic than ever. Wherever will Mr. 

 Billett procure his pens from ? 



Dorkings come first on the list. We find thirteen classes with 

 forty-five prizes among them. White Cochins come off as well, 

 but we think Black Cochin cocks and hens should have been 

 divided. From the fine show of Black chickens at this Exhi- 

 bition last year we must all know there will be lots of good old 

 birds about this season, and we think they should have conse- 

 quently partaken of like favours as White and Cuckoo Dorkings, 

 which are now divided as to sexes in this Society's schedule for 

 the first time. Brahmas, too, are well cared for. A new feature 

 is a claps for mottled-breasted cockerels, so we conclude the 

 former cldf-s is for Black- breasted birds only, though the sche- 

 dule dues nut state this. We only mention it, knowing from 

 experience how many fall into these little mistakes, and are 

 consequently greatly disappointed afterwards. 



The other classes are well arranged and classified, but most 

 assuredly Malays should have had two classes. We had hoped 

 we should find one for Whites or Piles, but if this was too much 

 to expect we did trust to find a class for gentlemen as well as 

 one for the ladies. Polish, Leghorns, Silkies, and Andalusians 

 all have classes and good prize money. We are glad the latter 

 breed is provided for, and wish we could say the Minorcas were 

 here able to do battle in a class to themselves, which we believe 

 they would have filled right well. 



Bantams have fourteen classes, nine of which are for Game. 

 We shall expect to find a grand array. We are pleased to notice, 

 too, a class for the quaint, old-fashioned, booted Bantams. 

 Ducks are well seen to, but Calls have no class. Resent it. Call 

 fanciers, for if you send four birds in class 116 against the orna- 

 mental waterfowl it will be only throwing money away. The 

 Sale classes are legion, and we shall expect to find really good 

 birds here, as we always do. 



Pigeons are as nobly provided for as the poultry, forty cups 

 of ail values being distributed among the classes. The Dra- 

 goons alone should make a show, for they have no less than 

 fourteen classes. Jacobins, Fantails, Owls, and Turbits are all 

 divided as to colours and should make a fine company. There 

 is, as a finale, a class for the best collection of four pairs of not 

 less than two varieties, and two classes for collections open to 

 members of societies only. 



We have nade no mention of the special poultry classes, 

 which seem to be causing so much excitement — viz., for un- 

 trimmed or ut plucked specimens, as we prefer waiting to see 

 what the results will be there, in the latter class especially, 

 which is for all varieties not Game. But aa we read in a con- 



