THE ASIATICS. 



53 



je.ctionable and unsightly vulture hock. While we must ad- 

 mit that the American type is somewhat altered, yet have 

 we retained the line rolling tails and soft and wonderfully 

 fluffy feathering accomplished. 



The sales have been marvelous, $250, $150, $100, $75, $50 

 each in the past fivt years have been surprisingly frequent. 

 With this breed so prominently before the breeders, can we 

 not agree upon a shape that will improve their egg produc- 

 tion? Cannot the breeders, for their own general interest, 

 agree to a less heavy plumage and a longer body structure, 

 that they may improve the breed's productive merit? 



It has been our hope that our efforts may do something 

 to make the race more practical and more universally ap- 

 preciated in the future, for it is those especially useful and 

 practical merits that add most to a nation's wealth. What 

 will make them heavier, quicker growers, and more prolific 

 layers, and thus more profitable, will make the rank and 

 file of the breeders the larger purchasers. 



What has been the grand reason for the late strenuous 

 effort to introduce these superb colors in other 

 sub-varieties more generally used by the poul- 

 terers? 



The plain unvarnished truth is that the con- 

 trollers of the Buff Cochins have ignored pro- 

 ductive merit for feather. The conservative 

 middle ground is where the majority meet and 

 where the greatest money value is found. A 

 rich buff color in its purity as a color in fowls 

 can never be excelled in any 

 other breed than in the match- 

 less convexity of outline as 

 found in nature's champion of 

 that color, the Buff Cochin. 



Now make this breed match- 

 less for color, as matchless in 

 practical worth, by converting 

 their type to that which will 

 give the very largest amount of 

 flesh for food consumed and that 

 produces the largest number of 

 generous sized eggs (for they 

 are by nature winter layers); 

 thus will you make them money 

 earners, as well as show speci- 

 mens, and all other similarly 



colored breeds will become obsolete, as have Pea Comb Ply- 

 mouth Rocks, Jersey Blues, Dominique Leghorns, White 

 Javas and all such that have failed in their harmony of 

 color with the shape their breeders have tried to marry. 



A multiplicity of breeds of one color has and will prove 

 a mistake for the breeders; first it only divides the demand 

 and sale, that would be controlled by the one breed, could 

 it enjoy the sole position as representing the color in ques- 

 tion. One has only to coop an oblong bodied, reasonably 

 plumed flock, to find that such will lay about twenty eggs 

 a year more than will those excessively short in body and 

 of vulture hock character of plumage. This very difference in 

 the egg product will go far towards securing and keeping up 

 the sales, for a large number of breeders must look to the 

 money earning feature of any breed for support and pleasure. 

 This breed is the oldest that has been adopted by Amer- 

 ica, and should have been the best, but the fads of its fan- 

 ciers have been its worst enemies. Any fad that introduces 

 extremes in a breed has always proved detrimental. The 

 excessively heavy plumage that has been demanded has 

 caused the breed to be given the go-by by the poulterers. 

 Thus has the surplus stock other than show specimens sold 

 so slowly as to cause many to cease breeding them. 



r-t- 



A Massive, Full-Feathered Buff Cochin Cock 



It is the fancier who establishes the lines and beauty 

 to be called Standard; then is it in their power to make 

 the accepted type a money earning one and thereby make 

 the breed of their choice far more popular and valuable. 

 "Give this breed all the exuberance of plumage that can be 

 secured without bringing with it stiff quilled feathers in 

 lower thighs and very long sickles in tail, for a vulture hock 

 becomes a feeder upon the juiciness and roars the flavor 

 of its meat;" so says the poulterer. Then why produce such 

 volume of plumage as makes them a fad? They are not 

 beautiful, they are only grotesque, a burlesque, so to speak, 

 upon beauty, just as excessive dress becomes dudish and 

 subject to derision. 



But too many breeders fail in moral courage; they may 

 come out and demand a practical money earning position 

 for all breeds and exclaim that all poultry breeding is but 

 a fad, but when fashion turns its cold shoulder, give up the 

 breed altogether, A moral obligation to poultry lulture, 

 as a calling they ignore. But has not poultry culture be- 

 come a business in America? We think so and fail 

 to see in the past the same keen insight and action 

 in its control. The same parties exist in the bank, 

 store and factory in which they are interested. 



It will be remembered that during the excite- 

 ment in which the full feathered 

 craze was at its height, the fol- 

 lowing appeared in an English 

 journal: 



"The carrying by storm of the 

 Cochin world in America by the 

 English full feathered type of 

 birds should convince our Ameri- 

 can cousins on the other side, that 

 two of a trade will never agree, 

 and that while the supporters of 

 our type of a bird are engaged 

 in smashing up the favorites of 

 their rivals, the public, who after 

 all is said and done are respon- 

 sible for a most important part 

 in the development of a breed, 

 become scared by the dissen- 

 sions that exist and will be 

 found by the time the matter is 

 financially thrashed out to have 

 quietly invested their money in some other breed." 



We acknowledged the force of the prophecy at the time, 

 but how true has it become in the strenuous effort to per- 

 fect buff in other breeds to the disparagement of sales in 

 the Buff Cochins. Extreme views and contention among 

 the breeders of any variety are a misfortune to the breed. 



To be sure, these Cochins are an English product. The 

 exhibitors there do not have as an end and aim the improve- 

 ment of those qualities that make breeds in America wealth 

 producing money earners outside the show room. To breed 

 these beautiful colored gems of the show world, without 

 merit in egg production, is folly for the American breeder. 

 Statistics give us three per cent that get rich and thus are 

 able to support a fad. The balance are forced to couple 

 with their pleasures work that helps to a living, but all of 

 us enjoy seeing those things we are interested in appreci- 

 ated by the many. 



You ask me how I would make a standard, that which 

 lived up to will secure the greatest practical virtues in the 

 breed. I answer, just as I would make a standard for a 

 horse, one that has all the features acknowledged as perfect. 

 You say there is no such specimen, but there are the best 

 of a thousand good ones and among the whole thousand 



