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CHAPTER X. 



q COMMENCING A STRAIN. 



Every show "season" invariably produces a certain number of new fanciers, who come forward 

 to take the place of the old, and to extend still further the knowledge and love of fowls. The success 

 of these different individuals, however, varies very widely. Some few continue year after year to 

 maintain and establish a prominent position ; but we have often been amused to observe the 

 numbers who, having purchased the most successful birds of the season, appear to carry all before 

 them for a few months, and then retire again into obhvion — ultimately, in all probability, to give up 

 the pursuit altogether in disgust. The number of those who in this manner commence " poultry- 

 fancying," and then retire from it with more or less loss, is very great, and has given rise to a very 

 common opinion that the cultivation of fancy varieties must inevitably be a losing concern ; but we 

 have no hesitation in saying that such an opinion is altogether groundless. In many cases, where 

 all operations are carried on regardless of cost ; where the houses and yards are of a substantial, 

 showy, and expensive character, and the whole is regarded rather as an amusement for the opulent 

 than with any reference to pecuniary results, it may be regarded as a fair return for even first-rate 

 breeding if the receipts and payments be found to balance at the end of the year : with any other 

 pursuit, carried on in a similar manner, this is the best result which can be expected. But if 

 management and economy be studied, as well as the stock, fancy poultry will yield a very fair 

 profit, and there are not a few real amateurs who actually do reap a very considerable pecunia:y 

 return from it, even apart from tlie few well-known breeders who derive their entire income from 

 the cultivation of fancy fowls. ' 



It is therefore worth while to consider the reason of so great a difference in the results of the 

 same pursuit ; for profit and loss do not depend upon accident or chance, but are necessary 

 consequences of wise or unwise methods of procedure. And to put the matter as tersely and 

 simply as possible, we are satisfied from long and careful observation that the losers and the gainers 

 in the poultry-fancy might in almost every case be as correctly described by the terms of the buyers 

 and the breeders ; or yet again as those persons who are merely exhibitors, or such as are fanciers 

 in the true sense of that term. 



There is a large class of persons who buy and exhibit fowls merely from a feeling of pride in 

 their possession ; not that they love or care for them in reality, but from the same feeling which 

 leads a wealthy man with no love whatever for art to buy and hang on his walls the most expensive 

 pictures. There may be at first a slight passing interest in the birds, but that is all ; and when the 

 fowls which have been thus purchased regardless of expense die, or get out of condition from 

 overshowing, the interest comes to an end along with the success, for their progeny is in all 

 probability worthless. Disgust follows, and another so-called fancier " gives up " a pursuit which 

 he never really entered into at all. 



We shall however suppose that from some cause or other a real interest in and love for fowls 

 has been awakened, and that the amateur desires to enter upon the cultivation of some one or two 



