March, 1914 



473 



f> Pottltry Notes ^ 



New Breeds. 



Australians are not usually considcr- 

 (.'(1 a conservative race, yet they seem 

 to have a pretty thick streak of it run- 

 ning through their work in hreediujr 

 poultry. In England and America, it 

 would he considered a very slack sea- 

 son, which did not find at least one new 

 hreed or variety introduced to public no- 

 tice. This has been going on for years, 

 so that very few people could tell you 

 offhand just how many varieties of Or- 

 pingtons, Rocks, Leghorns, and Wyan- 

 dottes there are. Some of the newer . 

 varieties have come to stay, no doubt, 

 but in most instances it has been a case 

 of boomed by their sanguine owners 

 and doomed by an unappreciative public. 

 Beyond the Australian Game, we in this 

 hemisphere, have been very moderate in 

 fowl manufacture. 



Two breeds we remember started in 

 Sydney on what proved to be somewhat 

 uneventful careers some few years ago. 

 Both nut up quite respectable scores at 

 one of the earlier Hawkesbury competi- 

 tions, but since then they have as far as 

 we know, faded out of existence. One 

 breed was introduced as the Imperial, we 

 had some at the time, they were docile, 

 worthy fowls, unexciting, but various in 

 appearance, so much so that a friend 

 suggested that if one half were Impe- 

 rialists we ought to christen the other 

 lot Little Englanders, which wasn't so 

 feeble a joke as it looks. If they had 

 had any chickens we might have called 

 them Suffragettes, and they would pro- 

 bably have deserved it. The old birds 

 made good eating if boiled with sutifi- 

 cient severity. They laid a brown egg — 

 we use the singular advisedly — and they 



took their time over it. With regard to 

 the other breed, beyond that we had 

 some, or wanted some, and that the 

 name began with B, we remember no- 

 thing. A dim vision comes to us of 

 something smaller in size, :--prightlier in 

 action and more cheerful in colouring 

 that sojourned with us for a time, which 

 may have been them, or perhaps only 

 the result of an open gate. The open 

 door policy plays the deuce in the poul- 

 try yard just as it did in China. Ber- 

 rillees, by the way, was the name of the 

 second candidate for new breed honours. 



Mr. Tom Penglase, of Hallet, bred 

 some Duckwing Minorcas, which, if not 

 a new breed, were certainly a new va- 

 riety. They were shown on one or two 

 occasions if we remember correctly, or 

 perhaps it was only a phorograph we 

 saw. Mr. Penglase was good enough to 

 send us some eggs. We took a lot of 

 interest in those chicks, so unfortunately 

 did a visiting cat. Mr. J. J. Gabb 

 lired a strain of Columbian Wyandottes 

 on straight out Brahma White Wyan- 

 dotte lines, which he found a useful and 

 attractive fowl. A small lot he sent to 

 England in one of the consignments 

 through the Export Department, made 

 good money. Chittagongs, one of the 

 many reputed ancestors of the Rhode 

 Island Red, are certa-'nly not a new 

 breed, nor are Frizzles, byt boih are in- 

 teresting. The former at least have 

 been shown, and there v/as. wc were 

 told, a few years ago a fair yard of the 

 , latter in one of the suburbs. Mr. Von 

 Bertouch was interested in Black .Wyan- 

 dottes at one time, and has, perhaps, 

 persevered with them. 



Our contribution to the mannfaciure 

 of poultry at the most, however, has 



been small compared to th; innumeraljlc 

 creations of American and English lan- 

 ciers, which range fron< the fairly or- 

 thodox Cuckoo Orpington, Pile Wyan- 

 dotte, and Partridge Rock, to the Excel- 

 siors and Albions of half a dozen years 

 ago, and the Buttercups, Daisies, and 

 Exchequers of more recent times. 

 Australia, maybe, cannot do much in 

 fancy manufacture and nomenclature 

 compared with her rivals, but in blend- 

 ing the American and English White 

 Leghorns into the Australian utility ar- 

 ticle, they Have done more than their 

 share for the practical advancement of 

 poultry. 



We seem to have got rather off ihe 

 track for we certainly began this par 

 with the intention of saying something of 

 Buff-faced Wyandottes into which Mr. 

 W. A. E. Smith (President of the Gene- 

 ral Purpose Club) has put a.i amount 

 of patience and perseveraa;e worchy of 

 a, we will not say better, hut more pro- 

 fitable cause. Just how many years it 

 is since we first saw some whitish birds 

 with faint bluish lacing, which he intro- 

 duced as the first step towards Buff 

 Laced Wyandottes, we do not care to 

 remember. Success came fairly quickly 

 at first, and it is a long time since we 

 saw a couple of cockerels at the then 

 Black Forest yards, which in type and 

 colour showed that the Buff Laced Wy- 

 andottes had really arrived. They were 

 not as good as those Mr. Smith has 

 occasionally shown since, but they were 

 good enough for any man to be justly 

 proud of breeding. "One more year 

 and I'll have them right," said Mr. 

 Smith, but a dog thought otherwise, 

 as he took the precaution to devour the 

 king-pin cock of the strain, besides doing 

 divers other damage to the breeding 

 pen, the dog proved to be the better 

 prophet.. Since then Mr. Smith has 

 bred a few chicks from year to year, just 



Some people are terribly behind the times— been asleep I expect ! 

 Why, they have only just discovered what 



Burford's "SIGNAL" Soap 



• has been doing for over 25 years— WASHING WITHOUT RUBBING— 

 ; and call it a new method. 



BURFORD'S "SIGNAL" scud sohp. 



and a Lightning Cleanser. 



