March 81, 1863.] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



251 



must judge according to the rules ; and any person having a com- 

 plaint of a glaring departure from the rule9 of judging, shall lay 

 the same before the Stewards who may be present to investigate. 

 The Stewards to call on the Judges "for an explanation. This 

 rule appears to be a joke. Has it entered into the minds of 

 the frainers to ask themselves whether the office is a profitable 

 one, and whether men of standing and position in society are 

 disposed to submit to this ? Any one would suppose, and it 

 may be so, that there are competent persons who are constantly 

 applying for the office, and either that it affords them a liveli- 

 hood, or that the office lias such charms that those who seek to 

 fill it will submit to such rules as these. 



But let us deal with the programme. " A want has been felt 

 of a fixed standard by which each variety may be judged." 

 The list of Stewards comprises some of the most successful 

 exhibitors in England. If there has been such difficulty in 

 knowing how to breed for certain points of excellence essential 

 to success, whence arises their good fortune, for it can be nothing 

 else? 



The duration of poultry shows, and their success where they 

 are well conducted, bear good testimony to the soundness of the 

 awards taken as a whole, while the position constantly occupied 

 by certain yards proves that good strains hold their own. 



We like clubs ; contact is good and profitable for men engaged 

 in the same pursuit. The communication of knowledge one to 

 another ; the record of novel and interesting events connected 

 with the pursuit ; compiling statistics, of which we stand so 

 much in need ; and the treatment of the poultry question as 

 one affording a delightful and healthful amusement — all these 

 come within the legitimate scope of a Poultry Club, and are 

 calculated to do good ; but when the Committee of Stewards 

 talk of laying down rules for judging, we think they have only 

 to try them among themselves with closed doors to find the 

 impossibility of agreeing. 



We believe the Club's outset to be in the wrong direction, and 

 we anticipate a short life for it. 



MALAY FOWLS. 



In your Number for March 10th (which, unfortunately, I did 

 not receive until the end of the week), I notice a letter from Mr. 

 Eos, of Devizes, asking for a fixed standard of points to be 

 adhered to in rearing " Malays," and referring to the variations 

 in opinion amongst judges respecting the points of this breed. 

 You have appended a very full, and, in the main, a very correct 

 description of those points ; but as a Malay breeder and admirer 

 of twenty-five years standing, I am desirous of pointing out what 

 appears to me likely to be misunderstood in your description. I 

 refer to the use of the word " scanty," as applied to the plumage. 

 If your meaning be that the feathers should be very short, I 

 quite agree with you ; but this is not the meaning generally 

 attached to that word. Were it possible to number the feathers 

 on the body of a fowl, I believe it would be found that every 

 breed possesses the aame, the difference being length and soft- 

 ness in some breeds, shortness and hardness in others. Amongst 

 the latter I place the Malay. I know of no breed in which the 

 feathers are so short and hard ; but I demur to the necessity on 

 this account, for the plumage to appear so scanty that any part 

 of the body should exhibit a destitution of feathers. Certainly, 

 "the plumage should nothide shape," which it would do if long, 

 loose, and flowing ; but unless the plumage be in the most 

 perfect order, and brilliant in metallic lustre, the shape of the 

 body and shortness of feather render this breed the most un- 

 gainly of any ; and it is owing to the absence of condition in 

 plumage, in which bo many owners of Malays exhibit their birds, 

 which gives rise to the remarks we often hear at exhibitions, in 

 depreciation of this most valuable and (if shown as they ought 

 to be) majestic breed. Your description ends with the sentence, 

 "there is no fixed colour for the legs or plumage." As to 

 plumage, of course all colours are admissible, from white to 

 black ; but the legs, in every case, should be yellow. Birds with 

 legs of any other colour could not be exhibited in the Malay 

 class. 



I fear in many cases perfection of plumage has been lost sight 

 by some of our judges, and prizes awarded to birds of good blood, 

 though in wretched feather. I venture to think (and upon 

 this principle I have ever myself acted in awarding prizes, what- 

 ever might have been the breed) that blood and feather should 

 both be looked for in greater or less perfection ; but that birds 



possessing only one of these qualifications are ineligible for 

 securing a high position on the prize list. — Chas. Ballance. 



[We have seen as good Malays with white legs as we ever saw 

 with yellow ; and we have seen birds in the highest condition 

 running in a farmyard, faultless in lustre and feather, yet 

 showing the points we noticed in our laBt — viz., naked partB of 

 the body and wings.] 



TAUNTON POULTRY ASSOCIATION. 



I AM sorry to find that this well-managed and promising Show 

 is dissolved. I cannot perceive what the non-attendance of the 

 subscribers has to do with it in any way. So long as they pay 

 their subscriptions it is quite optional whether they attend the 

 meetings of the Association. The resignation of the Secretary 

 is, I grant, a serious obstacle ; still, is there not some enter- 

 prising gentleman on the Committee who is qualified " and at 

 the same time willing" to undertake the laborious duties of the 

 Secretary ? I do hope Mr. Ballance will reconsider the matter, 

 and, if he is still determined to give-up the office he has held "30 

 ably for some time," he will find a substitute. 



I have sent several pens to this Show for the last two years, 

 though the distance is over three hundred miles each way, and 

 the birds always returned to me in excellent feather and con- 

 dition, which speaks well for the general management ; and the 

 plate and prize-money were always sent to the successful com- 

 petitors within a week after the closing of the Show. Mr. 

 Ballance I alwayB found most obliging, doing everything which 

 lay in his power to please, and, at the same time, win the 

 confidence of his exhibitors. 



I am convinced many exhibitors have no conception of the 

 downright hard work which devolves on a secretary in a show 

 of say four to five hundred pens, and am the more confirmed in 

 this opinion when I see the thoughtless remarks which are occa- 

 sionally made, " that the Secretary and Committee have no right 

 to be exhibitors." What absurdity ! Why, who would do the 

 drudgery if these unselfish individuals had not the chance of a 

 prize ? And I dare venture to say nine out of ten of the Com- 

 mitteemen throughout the country keep prize poultry. — 

 Westmobelakd. 



WOECESTEE AND BATH AND WEST OF 

 ENGLAND POULTEY SHOWS. 



THE POULTEY CLUB. 

 My attention has been directed to a letter in your columns 

 relative to the length of time the birds have to be kept in the 

 yard at the Worcester Show, and I say that I altogether agree 

 in the opinion expressed by the writer. The arrangements of 

 the approaching Bath and West of England Show appear, how- 

 ever, to be still more objectionable — the birds in that instance 

 being required to be in the yard by ten ou Friday morning, 

 whilst the Show will not open till the Monday morning follow- 

 ing. Surely the parties who have superintended these arrange- 

 ments must either have had but little experience in the duties 

 they have undertaken, or have committed a serious oversight ; 

 for unless the circumstances are of a very peculiar character 

 indeed there can be no necessity for having the birds cooped-up 

 so long before the Exhibition commences. Besides, as any one 

 with the least pretension to experience in such matters well 

 knows, few birds can undergo such an ordeal of confinement as 

 that involved in the five days during which the Show is to be 

 open, and the three-days confinement previously, especially at 

 such a season of the year, without serious injury— an injury 

 that would render them next to valueless as exhibition birds in 

 future. It is, indeed, a question whether the chickens _ would 

 survive it, the heat of June being, in fact, far more trying for 

 birds thus penned than the cold season of December. Then the 

 old birds will be on the point of moulting, when they are un- 

 equal to sustaining the same amount of hardship as at other 

 times. 



Before closing this communication, I will, with your per- 

 mis3ion, add a remark or two on the Poultry Club in the course 

 of formation. I had quite expected to see the matter more fully 

 canvassed in your paper.* It is right that those who are in- 

 terested in the subject should be put in full possession of the 

 objects contemplated in its establishment, and the mode in 

 * The writer had not seen what we published last week.— Eds. J. op H. 



