(N'DIVIIlflAI, MISHIT I'llflM THK ST.IS Dl'OINT Of \ JSIVKK S."i 



A world-famous poultryman and editor once lolrl a eurrcspondenl 

 that '-a bird is worth all thai you run get tor it." It would be pretty 

 hard to make a novice, whose judgment of quality is practically value- 

 less, believe that statement if he were buying a bird. Ft might seem 

 all right if be were selling- one. 



There often exists a double barrier between buyers and sellers that 

 cannot be leveled. We have the ignorance and the cupidity of many 

 buyers and the cupidity and the ignorance of some sellers as a perma- 

 nent bar to satisfactory transactions. The determining of the equable 

 cash value of a bird depends upon the individual merit of each party to 

 the transfer as well as that of the specimen sold. In looking at this 

 question from the view point of a buyer possessing average intelligence 

 and fairmindedness we have to consider facts as they really are, or as 

 they appear to us. 



It is not the duty of the poultry press or of the writer to encourage 

 the idea that every novice is legitimately "a soft mark'' for the adver- 

 tiser, while it should be the duty of every friend of the business to 

 combat the all-too-prevalent notion that nearly all advertisers consider 

 him so. 



The American Poultry Association and the Specialty Clubs in for- 

 mulating standards for the different breeds have presumably done so 

 for the guidance of the breeder. The buyer who demands their impos- 

 sible ideal for a rummage-sale price of ¥1.9!) is demanding too much, 

 but he is entitled to a dollar's worth of value for every dollar that he 

 invests in a bird. 



It is doubtful if the good reputation of a breeder has any honest cash 

 value to the average beginner, but the blood that gave the breeder his 

 reputation may. There is little doubt that this value is sometimes in- 

 flated. It is my candid belief that some breeders of established reputa- 

 tion send too few birds to market. 



A case in mind is one where $20.00 was the price paid for a bird (at 

 once returned) that in the opinion of the fairly well informed buyer was 

 worth seven cents per pound. 



Utility has for years been a catchword that has truly covered a mul- 

 titude of sins, or has attempted to cover them. If a farmer or a market 

 poultry raiser chooses to utterly disregard the general standard require- 

 ments — the distinguishing characteristics — of a breed in his efforts to 

 maintain or improve utility qualities he has a perfect right to do so. 



If such a person can make sales to parties who come to his place and 

 see his stock he has a perfect right to do so. But when he places his ad. 

 in a poultry paper he is offering his stock, "sight unseen," to those who 

 are more or less educated along Standard lines and expect pure-blood 

 stock possessing characteristics, visible to the eye, that prove the gen- 



