PART II. 



BANTAMS. 



The Advance of the Bantam Industry. 



What a pleasure it must be to the old breeder as he walks 

 down the aisles of our leading shows and lets his memory drift 

 back fifteen or twenty years and compares the exhibits and the 

 quality seen in those days to our present-day exhibits and 

 quality. In those days if a hundred bantams were seen in shows 

 it was considered remarkable, and the quality was very crude. 

 Now we see sometimes as high as 1,500 in a single exhibition, 

 and the quality of the classes as a whole is just as good as the 

 standard bred birds, and in some classes excels. The advance 

 of the bantams has kept pace with the standard varieties, and 

 to every dollar that was invested in them twenty years ago there 

 are one hundred dollars invested to-day, and many men are 

 making an exclusive business of it and find it profitable. As a 

 general rule the breeders of the different varieties find it impos- 

 sible to meet the demand, and a demand is bound to increase. 

 As the city man fully realizes that it is impossible to raise suc- 

 cessfully standard fowls on his ten by twelve yard, yet at the 

 same time he not only finds it profitable but pleasant as well to 

 raise and care for forty or fifty bantams in the same space as 

 he could keep ten or fifteen hens in an unsatisfactory and un- 

 profitable way. To-day many of the finest exhibition specimens 

 are raised on the small city lot, and we dare say that those going 

 into the bantam business will find it pleasant and profitable as 

 well as having the assurance of an increasing demand, 



