72 



JOUKNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ July 28, 1870. 



A great quantity of poultry is kept almost entirely for exhibition. 

 Points of excellence in the various birds have been argued upon and 

 laid down, by which they are judged. But, as perfection is rare, even 

 in our species, so also it is rare in that of the gallinaceous, and many 

 are the tricks and frauds practised to remove blemishes, and to impose 

 upon unsuspecting judges. The face of a Black Spanish fowl, for 

 instance, must be of a pure white. If a faint blush of piuk obtrude, 

 or if a few straggling hair-like feathers show their unwelcome presence, 

 farewell to all hope of a prize at a good show, so the owner of this 

 bird paints the stains with some white substance, shaves off the ob- 

 noxious feathers, and probably carries off a silver cup, which, had the 

 bird been exhibited in its natural and untrimmed condition, he would 

 not have had the remotest chance of doing. In Brahmas and in 

 Cochins one great object is to get birds with heavily feathered legs. 

 Now this peculiarity is mostly, and as it would seem naturally, accom- 

 panied by a projection of feathers from the leg-joint, which is known 

 as the " vulture hock,' 1 but the arbitrary taste of judges has decreed 

 that this vulture hock shall be deemed a defect. The consequence is, 

 that in scores of instances these hock feathers are skilfully pulled out, 

 and the judges are imposed upon. Then there are smaller sins in the 

 way of trimming. A Silver-Grey Dorking cock must have a breast of 

 spotless black, but a few white feathers will come. "Well, these are dex- 

 terously extracted, and then the bird is pronounced perfect. A Dorking 

 cock'B comb must be rigidly upright ; a Dorking hen's comb must lop 

 over ; and all sorts of schemes are adopted to coax these combs into the 

 required condition. I heard the other day of a gentleman who had 

 two Dorking cocks — cne a splendid bird except his comb, which would 

 lop in Epite of all that could be done to it ; the other bird had nothing 

 much to boast of except his comb, which was magnificent. Well, the 

 two birds were brought together, an expert surgeon was summoned, 

 who whipped off the combs, popped the perfect one on the otherwise 

 perfect bird, and secured it in its new position by a few stitches. It 

 struck, and grew, and flourished, and the bird subsequently achieved 

 distinction as a great prizewinner. A clever case of trimming was 

 exposed at a poultry show last winter. In the West Biding of this 

 county there are two great rival poultry-keepers, more particularly 

 rivals in Hamburgh breeding- — Mr. Beldon and Mr. Pickles. Beldon 

 generally takes the first rank, but last year Pickles almost invariably 

 distanced his lival in Silver-pencilled Hambnrghs. According to the 

 standard of excellence the sickle feathers of the cock's tail in this breed 

 must be black, or very dark, with a fine edging of white, and in this 

 particular the superiority of Pickles's birds was conspicuous; and at 

 the show in question they were awarded the first prize. Beldon has a 

 poultryman named Job, and Job was of course put out at his ill luck, 

 and stood ruminating before Pickles's prize pen. " His birds are not 

 so good as ours if it wasn't for their sickles, but they're stunning i 

 sickles, certainly. I can't make it out how he manages to get them." I 

 Gaining the consent of the attendant, Job contrived to get hold of the ! 

 bird with the wonderful sickles, and blowing into the roots of the tail I 

 feathers, when lo ! the murder was out. " Well I'm blow'd," said i 

 Job, "fetch Mr. Hewitt." Mr. Hewitt, who was the judge of the j 

 poultry at the show, was soon on the spot, when Job pointed out to \ 

 him how the natural sickle feathers of the bird had been cut down to 

 the quill, and the beautiful artificial sickles neatly fitted into their | 

 place. Mr. Hewitt immediately cut off the borrowed plumes, and 

 gibbetted Mr. Pickles, by affixing a notice to the front of the pen, fully 

 describing the iraudulent transaction. 



To prize-poultry breeders the annual show at Birmingham is the 

 great event of the year, where some five thousand of the best fowls in 

 the three kingdoms are exhibited. Among the exhibitors you have the 

 royalty, nobility, and clergymen in great numbers, for your clergymen 

 are generally good livers, and can appreciate fresh eggs and well-fed 

 chickens; notwithstanding Sidney Smith, who says " Barndoor fowls 

 for dissenters, but for the thirty-nine-times-articled clerk of the Church 

 of England — the Pheasant — the Pheasant, and nothing but the 

 Pheasant." I summed up the amount at which the birds were priced 

 in the catalogue of the show of last year, and found it to be £40,000. In 

 many instances no doubt these prices were intended to be prohibitory, 

 but a single bird at the Birmingham Show will sometimes sell for a 

 sum of money which would buy the best cow in this district. I saw a 

 bird, it might be called a chicken, only nine months old, sold by 

 auction for sixteen guineas, and with n the last eighteen months two 

 birds have been sold from Whitby for ten guineas each. 



Having kept poultry for about five years, and having kept also 

 during that time a careful debtor and creditor account of my poultry 

 doings, I can speak with the certainty acquired by experience as to the 

 cost of keeping fowls. Even under the unfavourable position of having 

 all the food to buy, and at retail prices, I have had the pleasure to find 

 at the end of each year a small balance on the right side. The cost 

 of the food does not exceed l^d. per head per week. Then if you kill 

 off the hens, say at the expiration of the second laying season — that is, 

 when they are a little more than two years of age — the entire cost of 

 keeping each bird up to that time will have been, in round numbers, 

 about 15s. Now take the jper contra side — each hen in those two years 

 and odd will lay 250 eggs. I am speaking from my experience of 

 Brahmas ; Hambnrghs will lay more than 400, besides hatching two or 

 three broods of chickens, if you obtain a fair proportion of eggs during 

 the winter season, and you may do so by contriving to have your pullets 

 hatched early in the year. It will be fair to put down the price of 

 these eggs at Id. each, making £1 0s. 10d., and the hen, if put up to 



feed for ten days or so, will not be dear at 2s. 2<£., making a total of 

 23s. of receipts upon each hen, as against 18s. of expenditure. Then 

 there is the dung, and you do not need to be told that the dung of 

 fowls, when mixed with dry earth and pounded, is in value not far short 

 of the best Peruvian guano. In this calculation I have not taken into 

 account any of the untoward contingencies to which all kinds of stock 

 are liable. Accidents will happen in the best regulated poultry 

 establishments, but with careful management these should be few and 

 far between. 



With respect to Ducks, Geese, and Turkeys, I have not had much 

 experience. I believe, however, that they are fully as remunerative as 

 fowls ; and except when very young, do not require so much attention. 

 Ducklings and Goslings for the first two or three weeks, and Turkeys 

 for six or eight weeks, are tender, and require great care ; but when 

 these ages are attained they are all hardy, and require comparatively 

 little care or attention. 



To conclude this desultory paper, and to epitomise, very briefly, the 

 few practical suggestions which it offers — let me say to those who keep 

 poultry, Be very careful in the selection of your stock. If your object 

 be to produce a large quantity of eggs, keep some of the varieties of 

 Hamburghs. If you require chickens for the table, keep Brahmas and 

 Grey Dorkings. Keep young birds only. Introduce fresh blood into 

 your yards every year, or at any rate every second year. Pay strict 

 attention to the sanitary condition of your fowls. Give them, in short, 

 the same care and thought which you would give to other branches of 

 husbandry, and you will not much longer entertain the opinion that 

 poultry- keeping does not pay. 



Mr. S. Burn said he entirely agreed with many portions of Mr. 

 Stonehouse's able paper, and with some portions he disagreed. For a 

 length of time he had been one of those maniacs alluded to by Mr. 

 Stonehouse (laughter), and he had certainly derived both pleasure and 

 profit from the pursuit (hear, hear.) He had been the fortunate 

 owner of a chicken that was sold by auction at Birmingham for ten 

 guineas, a result which had not been attained without some little care 

 and attention. As a farmer's bird, he reccommended a cross between 

 the Brahma and the Dorking. Most farmers looked upon poultry as 

 a department belonging entirely to the mistress, forgetting that if she 

 did not rear the poultry and the poultry lay the eggs, they would have 

 to give the goodwives money to make the marketing with. Lately, he 

 (Mr. Burn) had superintended the poultry department of a farmer who 

 thought he was not receiving as much from his grocer as he was spend- 

 ing in corn, &c. He (Mr. Burn) found that this individual had on 

 his farm many of the same fowls that were there when he entered, and 

 some of them must have been part of the original birds introduced into 

 this neighbourhood. They had a general slaughter amongst them, 

 some fresh birds were introduced, and the effect was so beneficial that 

 poultry-keeping became much more profitable. The owner was 

 astonished to find that by going on this improved system, it made 

 about £30 a-year difference. He brought about three hundred eggs to 

 market every week, and had a large fine stock of poultry. He (Mr. 

 Burn) had put this theory to the proof, for he had one six-year-old hen 

 which had laid very few eggs, and he had another, a young Golden- 

 pencilled Hamburgh, which had laid 204 eggs since the 1st of January. 

 As to food, he entirely agreed with Mr. Stonehouse. The scraps ought 

 to suffice, and poultry should be made the cleaners-up of the farm, 

 except in winter time when they required feeding well. If farmers 

 would feed their poultry well, they would find the benefit of it when 

 eggs were Id. each, and generally poultry was not sufficiently well fed. 

 In France they had a moveable poultry house, which went on wheels 

 from field to field. He believed farmers would find all kinds of poultry 

 profitable if they paid the same attention to it as they did to other 

 stock.— [Whitby Times.) 



THE CANADIAN "POULTRY CHRONICLE"— 

 HATCHING EXPORTED EGGS. 



I have received the first number of this new journal by last 

 mail. It contains sixteen octavo pages, but the editor seems 

 to have found some difficulty in filling up his first number. 

 It is not stated in the " Chronicle " itself, but I learn from 

 other sources that it is edited by Mr. McLean, Secretary of the 

 Canadian Poultry Society. 



The most interesting paper in this number is one containing 

 the results of eggs imported from England, the number being 

 fifty dozen, all from one breeder. The eggs were badly packed, 

 and many were broken or altogether missing; nevertheless, the 

 results were better than could have been expected. From 

 twelve Brahma eggs the result was four chicks ; twelve Houdan 

 eggs, eight chicks, four of which were Black Hamburghs ! as is 

 remarked with good-humoured irony by the writer ; from ten 

 Pencilled Hamburgh eggs four chicks, with two dead in the 

 shells ; from twelve more of the same breed, seven chicks and 

 one dead. The remainder of the consignment were not hatched 

 at the date of the report. 



I suppress the name of the exporter for the purpose of 

 remarking that the purchaser complains ^tTongly of his con- 

 duct in sending varieties not ordered in place of some he was 



