344 AMERICAN POULTRY ASSOCIATION 



ought to be bred to definite points and judged by them, and that 

 the points could be and ought to be defined. This was a great 

 idea and a great service, though the first club's existence was 

 brief and its Standard very crude. The scale of points only 

 added up to a total of fifteen, through all the breeds, 

 which quite shut out the modern system of "cutting" a portion 

 off for defects ; and in the descriptions themselves there were 

 several errors such as attributing red eyes to Malays which, 

 however, could scarcely be avoided at that early period. The 

 existing judges ostentatiously declined to be bound by this 

 Standard, which had, in fact, no authority; yet, nevertheless, 

 its definitions or descriptions undoubtedly had great influence in 

 bringing about greater uniformity of type and more general 

 acceptance of a real type in many breeds." 



A. M. Halstead, Rye, New York, issued a reprint of this 

 English Standard in 1867, but it did not prove satisfactory to 

 American poultry breeders. A year before the above made its 

 appearance, I. K. Felch, Natick, Massachusetts, devised a Stand- 

 ard and Score Card, with a scale of points, for Light Brahmas, 

 that proved to be the forerunner of an American Standard of 

 Excellence. Mr. Felch claims that his score card was the first 

 to be used in America. 



The Lockwood Standard, adopted in New York City in 1871, 

 was the result of the embryonic scale of points on Mr. Felch's 

 first score card, embodying his valuation for shape and color, 

 but the Felch scale was raised to 100 points and, instead of four 

 sections, eleven were allotted to each breed. The bulk of this 

 Lockwood Standard was made up from the English Standard, 

 however. A. M. Halstead, in the fall of 1871, also published an 

 American Standard of Excellence, but neither of these Standards 

 proved satisfactory. 



It was not until the American Poultry Association was organ- 

 ized, February 15, 1873, at Buffalo, New York, that the work of 

 compiling a Standard of Excellence which would meet with the 

 approval of American breeders of pure-bred poultry was begun. 



At a meeting of the reorganized American Poultry Associa- 

 tion held at Buffalo, New York, January 15, 1874, the first Amer- 

 ican Standard of Excellence was adopted. This standard con- 

 sisted of 102 pages. At the third annual meeting of the Ameri- 

 can Poultry Association, held at Buffalo, New York, January 21, 

 1875, a larger and more complete Standard was adopted, con- 



