REPORTS OF COMMITTEES. 15 



POULTRY. 



Your Committee on Poultry make the following report : 



That the show of poultry this year was large ; the offerings 

 were more numerous than at any former exhibition. 



Most all kinds of domestic poultry were well represented, thus 

 showing an increased interest that the farmers and amateurs are 

 taking, in this important department of industry. The cases were 

 many where it was nice to distinguish the merits of the offerings 

 of the competitors. In many cases we had to resort to the stand- 

 ard work of the Poultry Association, to determine which lot came 

 nearest in marks and form to the accepted standard. 



And then, it is possible to err in our decision ; for fowls, as well 

 as beasts, by domestication sometimes take on marks and forms 

 different from their ancestral types, and like Jacob and Laban's 

 cattle of old, switch off without a deterioration in purity of blood. 

 We found the hens were in good order, for several eggs were laid 

 in their coops, and eggs from well kept hens, are as much better 

 as is beef from well fattened cattle. And eggs are being used as an 

 article of food more freely since the high price of meats has be- 

 come fashionable. One dozen of eggs is worth as much for 

 food and is as nutritious as the best pound and a half of meat that 

 is sold in the shambles. 



In order to obtain the greatest quantity of eggs, fowls should 

 have the various kinds of 'grain, Indian corn, (being the principal,) 

 wheat, barley, oats and buckwheat. It seems that they have not 

 changed their natures since the days of ^sop, the Fabulist, for 

 now, as then, " they would rather have one grain of hordeum 

 (barley) than all jewels." And old chanticleer frequently crows 

 three times before those persons, who do not press their couch 

 when the " curfew tolls the knell of parting day," are willing to 

 leave it, but substitute artificial light for the blessed light of old 

 Phoebus. 



Whether farmers can afford to keep fancy fowls instead of 

 those that lay the most eggs and produce the most flesh, is a 

 desideratum. 



We award the following premiums and gratuities : 



PAIRS OF OLD GEESE AND GOSLINGS. 



T. D. Wood, ist premium, $3 00 



