FANCIERS' JOUENAL AND POULTET EXCHANGE. 



41 



A REVISION OF THE AMERICAN STANDARD. 



Editor of the Fanciers' Journal. 



Dear Sir: In the first number of your journal appears a 

 communication from Mr. H. Woodward, and also in the 

 December issue of the Poultry Bulletin an article of the 

 same tenor, under the above heading, in which he endeavors 

 to answer these two questions, viz. : " What is the use of a 

 standard 1" and, " How can a standard be applied to be most 

 effective?" The writer goes on to speak about the errors in 

 judging at exhibitions, and the dissatisfaction which arises 

 from this evil ; the failure of the English "standard of ex- 

 cellence " to correct these errors, and also of our American 

 " standard," for the same reason — " that it was powerless to 

 reach the existing evil." He then answers the questions in 

 this wise : " That a standard, which should be the result of 

 long and deliberate study of our wants, founded upon the 

 ripest experience which can be brought to bear upon the sub- 

 ject, may be a necessity in breeding for the exhibition, no 

 one who is conversant with poultry fancying will probably 

 deny ; but such a standard should only be used, and can only 

 be used to be of any service, in assisting the breeder to bring 

 his stock, of whatever kind, up to the highest ideal. Beyond 

 this we cannot go with the most perfect standard which can 

 be devised, and any attempt to do more than this will result 

 in inevitable failure, because we cannot make any arbitrary- 

 standard sufficiently flexible to meet all the circumstances of 

 time, place, and occasion." 



After reading these articles they leave a rather obscure 

 impression of exactly what Mr. W. intends to express, if he 

 means that judges should be bound by no fixed standard, but 

 make their awards according to their own views, I think he 

 is wrong. If a standard is necessary for the breeder, it is 

 also necessary for the judge. What is the use of breeding 

 to a standard if the fowls so bred are not to be judged in 

 accordance with the same? By this system we should be 

 worse off than we are by our present method, as it would 

 not even have the merit of consistency which the other has ; 

 it would be different were all the exhibitions judged by the 

 same men, and even this would be on a par with the English 

 " standard," which Mr. Wright characterizes as the opinion 

 of one or two individuals. But in this country of great dis- 

 tances, very few good judges can afford the time and money 

 to visit even the most important of the numerous exhibitions, 

 and therefore committee-men and amateurs in the " fancy," 

 of only perhaps a single year, are allotted the task of judging 

 a certain breed which they are acquainted (?) with. If 

 these judges are authorized to award according to their own 

 opinions, which have probably been formed from acquaint- 

 ance with one strain or style of the breed, with all proba- 

 bility their awards will be biased by this knowledge, and it 

 would be as likely that birds which were put last at this ex- 

 hibition would receive first prize at another show with the 

 same competition, through the views and opinions of some 

 other judge, whose opinions have been formed by acquaint- 

 ance with another strain of the breed. " Everybody to their 

 taste," as the old woman said when she kissed the pig ; like- 

 wise of opinions, they are as apt to differ. 



The only way in which this method of judging, without 

 regard to the " standard," could be carried out with any ex- 

 pectation of success, would be to have professional judges 

 thoroughly posted in everything pertaining to each and every 

 variety of fowl, whose business it should be to officiate at all 

 the exhibitions in the country ; their awards would have the 



merit of being consistent at least, and fanciers could breed 

 to the standard expressed in these awards, resting assured 

 that future awards would be in conformity with the standard 

 bred to. 



But this system of judging is not the best that can be de- 

 vised. A. proper standard of excellence and scale of defects 

 combined with it, is decidedly the best basis to judge our ex- 

 hibitions upon ; and I have devised a plan for such a crite- 

 rion, and a method of applying the same, which appears to 

 me to present the best possible results attainable with our 

 present light on the subject, and I will endeavor to present 

 it in as clear a manner as possible. 



I have felt the want of some radical change in the scale of 

 points of our "standard of excellence," which resulted in 

 my article in the first number of your journal. In that com- 

 munication I advocated the adoption of Mr. Wright's method 

 of valuing defects solely, and also of his scales with what 

 alteration would appear desirable. I had applied his scale 

 for Brahmas some time ago, when I first received the number 

 of his work containing it, and found it much preferable to 

 ours in general principles, and ease of application ; but, 

 since writing the article mentioned above, in attempting to 

 make a standard for Houdans, on the same basis as his, I at 

 once found that among the defects in his scale no notice was 

 taken of any wrong color of legs, except that "yellow 

 shanks" was put among the disqualifications; this omission 

 would allow any other wrong color to go unnoticed ; and 

 again, that no account was taken of " fifth toe not perfect in 

 form and development," while in Dorkings a numerical value 

 of ten is given to this defect ; now supposing the compara- 

 tive value of the defect to be the same in both cases, in Hou- 

 dans it would have to be taken out of "want of symmetry," 

 and in a case so bad as to barely escape disqualification, by 

 taking this amount from "want of symmetry," which is put 

 at twelve, it would leave but two for defects in the rest of 

 the body. It immediately occurred to me that in endeavor- 

 ing to be concise, and make his scales or tables apparently 

 simple, and easy of application, the author had failed in 

 making them sufficiently flexible, and, consequently, they 

 are not so accurate as is desirable. I have, therefore, come 

 to the conclusion, that a scale of defects to be correct in this 

 particular, should go more into detail, and in fact take cogni- 

 zance of all the characteristics, both of general shape and 

 color; that is, the standards of general shape and color, and 

 the scale of defects should be combined and not separated. 



The plan I propose is, that the scale of points in the 

 "American standard of excellence" be struck out entirely; 

 that the standards of "general shape" and of "color" be 

 united in one schedule; that under each point or character- 

 istics of the various birds, in the schedules thus formed, there 

 be enumerated special and general defects pertaining to it, 

 and a numerical value given to them which should be in the 

 proportion that the various defects bear to each other ; and 

 no arbitrary number whatever should be given as the value of 

 the " standard, of perfection." 



It is the height of absurdity to judge by an idea, a con- 

 ception, by nothing tangible ; we do not care to know how 

 near our birds come to the judge's ideal of a perfect bird ; 

 judging is more a matter of excellence between two or more 

 specimens, and each should be judged by the other. To 

 illustrate: supposing two cock birds were entered for a spe- 

 cial premium— the question for the judges to decide is, 

 which of the two is most deserving of the prize in respect 

 to the various points of the breed as laid down in the 



