Village Shows. 3 



The enormous prices paid at the poultry shows of 1852 

 and 1853 for fancy fowls gave a new impulse to poultry- 

 keeping ; and many persons who formerly thought the 

 management of poultry beneath their attention, now super- 

 intend their yards. Mrs. Ferguson Blair, now the Hon. 

 Mrs. Arbuthnot, the authoress of the " Hen wife," whose 

 experience may be judged by the fact that she gained in 

 four years upwards of 460 prizes in England and Scotland, 

 and personally superintended the management of forty 

 separate yards, in which above 1,000 chickens were hatched 

 annually, says : 



" I began to breed poultry for amusement only, then for 

 exhibition, and lastly, was glad to take the trouble to make 

 it pay, and do not like my poultry-yard less because it is 

 not a loss. It is impossible to imagine any occupation 

 more suited to a lady, living in the country, than that of 

 poultry rearing. If she has any superfluous affection to 

 bestow, let it be on her chicken-kind and it will be returned 

 cent, per cent. Are you a lover of nature ? come with me 

 and view, with delighted gaze, her chosen dyes. Are you 

 a utilitarian ? rejoice in such an increase of the people's 

 food. Are you a philanthropist? be grateful that yours 

 has been the privilege to afford a possible pleasure to the 

 poor man, to whom so man}' are impossible. Such we 

 often find fond of poultry no mean judges of it, and fre- 

 quently successful in exhibition. A poor man's pleasure in 

 victory is, at least, as great as that of his richer brother. 

 Let him, then, have the field whereon to fight for it. En- 

 courage village poultry-shows, not only by your patronage, 

 but also by your presence. A taste for such may save 

 many from dissipation and much evil ; no man can win 

 poultry honours and haunt the taproom too." 



For those w r ho desire to encourage a taste for poultry 

 keeping in young people, and their humbler neighbours, we 

 would recommend our smaller work on the subject as a 

 suitable present.* 



* Piper on Poultry : their Varieties, Management, Breeding, and 

 Diseases; Price Is. Groombridge & Sons, 5, Paternoster Bow, 

 London. 



