FANCIERS' JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by Joseph ', 

 Wade, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at "Washington. 



"(Fanciers' Journal and IpouLTRY (Exchange, 



JOSEPH M. WADE, Editor and Proprietor. 



Published Weekly at 39 North Ninth Street, Philadelphia. 



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THE BUFFALO CONVENTION OF FANCIERS. 



Editor Fanciers' Journal : I hope that the gentlemen 

 about to meet at Bufl'alo, to establish an "American Stand- 

 ard of Excellence" for poultry, will apply themselves to this 

 work with earnestness, casting aside all personal crotchets, 

 and produce something in the practical, the true, and the 

 beautiful — creditable to American taste and genius. I also 

 hope they will show their good sense in abolishing the pres- 

 ent scale of points. Neither judges nor any other class of 

 persons will feel inclined to study a table of logarithms, to 

 get at the beauty or usefulness of a cock or hen. We 

 should rather simplify than complicate. We should en- 

 deavor to lessen, rather than to increase labor. If the 

 number 5 will express as much as the number 10 or 20, why 

 not use the lesser number? I can see no more advantage in 

 using the number 100 than the number '50, and if the number 

 100 expresses the highest limit in the scale, what sense is 

 there in using plus 100? I really cannot see that a scale is 

 any more "flexible" by using large numbers than by using 

 small numbers, since the small number designates the same 

 degree of excellence. I cannot see that 100 is any more 

 flexible than 50; if so, then 200 would be better than 100, 

 and 500 better than 200, and so on ad infinitum. If " Pis- 

 cator's " rod is so limber that it will bend double with a fish 

 of two pounds, he had better use a cord, since its flexibility 

 is lost in its limberness. A slight attention to the degrees 

 of comparison in the English language, will aid very much 

 in judging of the relative quality of fowls, since quality is 

 only relative, and perfection only comparative. What 

 Lewis Wright means by 100 plus, or best plus, or perfection 

 plus, is more than I can understand. I can comprehend 

 minus good or minus perfection, but not minus bad or worse 

 than bad. Nor do I agree with those persons who believe 

 that judging really is a question more of defects than excel- 

 lencies. Tou have got to have some idea of perfection be- 

 fore you can arrive at what is imperfection. Tou have got 

 to study the normal condition of an animal before you are 



able to get at its abnormal condition. Science teaches us to 

 judge of the ill health of a subject by studying it first in its 

 healthy condition. You can form no idea of a perfect thing 

 by its imperfections. I would suggest a word to some of 

 our light Brahma fanciers, especially to those wise men of 

 the East, that admire a cock of this variety with a neck as 

 long as a crane's, a breast as flat as a shingle, and a body of 

 the size of a large pigeon. Such an animal has no beauty 

 in my eye, and less. of usefulness. Such a bird always re- 

 minds me of those fowls of the air that boys call " kite 

 pokes." 



Horace, one of the most celebrated of ancient critics, in 

 his " Ars Poetica," says that beauty and utility are insepa- 

 rable, and tersely expresses it in his elegant Latin, " Utile 

 cum dulce ;" the ornamental must be accompanied with the 

 useful. What is a game fowl, with all its perfection of 

 plumage, without its game qualities? What merit is there 

 in a Brahma cock, when from its head to its feet it is shaped 

 like an inclined plane? Of what advantage is it to a Leg- 

 horn cock to carry a comb on its head of the size of a porter- 

 house steak ? It does not contribute any beauty to the bird, 

 but it is a decided inconvenience. A medium-sized comb, 

 nicely arched over the head, and evenly serrated, is to my 

 taste. Why should we keep up the Dorking toe in the Hou- 

 dan, when it is such an incumbrance to the bird, and so 

 mars the beauty of its legs? The Boman epicures always 

 gave a preference to the fowls of five toes, believing their 

 flesh to be the best ; but our modern epicures do not need an 

 extra toe to recommend the meat of a Houdan. And let us 

 abolish the whimsical idea of calling black-breasted red 

 game fowls, with flesh-colored legs, Derbys. 



There is not a game fowl of the present day that partakes 

 of any of the genuine characteristics of the ancient Derby, 

 except in the color of its legs; and since this class of fowl 

 and the flesh-colored legs are entirely repudiated in Eng- 

 land, where they know it best, let us drop this foolish notion, 

 and call them by their right names and breed them willow- 

 olive or yellow legs. 



There are seventeen varieties of game fowl that can be 

 bred true to their kind, and let us have a standard for them 

 all, viz. : 



1. Brown-breasted Reds. 



2. Brown Beds. 



3. Ginger Beds. 



4. Silver Duckwings. 



5. Golden Duckwings. 



6. Berchin Duckwings. 



7. White Game. 



8. Black Game. 



9. Cheshire Piles (red and 



white). 



Greenville, N. J. 



10. Staffordshire Piles (gin- 



ger and white). 



11. Salmon Piles. 



12. Blue Piles. 



13. Spangles. 



14. Cuckoos. 



15. The Furnaces. 



16. Polecats. 



17. Brass Backs. 



Isaac Van Winklb. 



(For Fanciers' Journal.) 



PETS FOR CHILDREN. 



Get pets for the little folks. One of the first elements of 

 success in home government, and it is a question of vital 

 interest to all of us who are so fortunate as to be surrounded 

 with growing families, is that of making home pleasant, a 

 place which shall be more enticing to the little ones than 

 the street-corners of the present or the club-rooms of the 

 future ever can be. The child wants "something that it may 

 call its own. What shall it he? Shall it be a gaudy toy, 

 which in a short time loses its novelty, or shall it be a pet 



