THi^; GAkDKN AND FIELD. 



latcd on his firm handling ef a 



])ricklv subject. 



— The Weights. — 



The weijjhts adopted by Mr. 

 liadlins^ton as the mininuim lor 

 entry to the llawkesbury pens are 

 3!j lbs. for Leghorns, 4 lbs. for 

 Wyandottes, and 4)i for Orping- 

 tons. Weight is admittedly a ra- 

 ther diflicult and uncertain gauge, 

 for to a certain extent a bird 

 mav be fed iuid fattened to pull 

 the balance, and a long journey at 

 the end of March might easily 

 cause a bird starting well up to 

 standard to be found below it at 

 the journey's end. In this connec- 

 tion it is interesting to note that 

 Mr. Padman's birds, which The 

 Daily Telegraph considers the stan- 

 dard of the Iveghorn world, aver- 

 aged 3'j lb. on arrival at the col- 

 lege It is possible, of course, 

 that some enterprising competitor 

 at future competitions may re- 

 member IMark Twain's yarn of the 

 Jumping Frog and load up his 

 pullets with buck shot. Should 

 such a breeder be commended for 

 ingenuity or warned off for dis- 

 honesty ? It will be a ticklish 

 point for the committee to decide. 



— General Purpose Breeds. — 

 The Wyandotte and Orpington 

 people will probably accept the 

 weights aUoted as a fair and rea- 

 sonable standard for pullets in or 

 coming into lay. With normal de- 

 development such birds will, on 

 an average, weigh from' i to 

 lbs. more in fair condition. The 

 cockerels will be a very useful gen- 

 eral purpose type, quite big enough 

 for ordinary home and market use. 

 For purely top quality table poul- 

 try purpose there will remain the 

 Dorking, Faverolle, and Game, and 

 their crosses. A reasonable classi- 

 fication of the three types of poul- 

 try seems to us to be that for the 

 laying type 75 of 100 points should 

 be for eggs and 25 for meat. In 

 the general purpose type 50 points 



for each, and in the table type 25 

 for eggs and 75 for meat. Mr. 

 lladlington's standard appears to 

 be in general accordance with that. 

 It may be objected that the 

 weights are too low, though we 

 doui)t whether any practical breed- 

 er of those varieties will be found 

 to do so. The records seem to 

 show that not 10 per cent, of the 

 heaxier division of the various 

 breeds, say 7 lb. in Orpingtons, 

 make any showing in the llayiug 

 pens. In fact with few exceptions, 

 la v nig appears to decrease as 

 weights increase abo\e about a five 

 and a half pound limit. There are, 

 of course, brilliant exceptions, but 

 the question is, is it not better to 

 le.inslate for the average normall 

 bird than to breed up to the ex- 

 ceptional standard. 



— The Case of the lyeghorn. — 

 The case of the lyeghorn 

 is somewhat different and dif- 

 ficult. Technically there may 

 be no standard weight for 

 the breed, but a good big one 

 will beat a good little one accord- 

 ing to the generally accepted un- 

 written law as exhibition birds 

 but the utility lyeghorn is a differ- 

 ent proposition. The question ap- 

 pears to be — Is the 75 points for 

 eggs and 25 points for meat stan- 

 dard, one which makes for the 

 good of the breed and its breed- 

 ers, or is the 100 points for eggs, 

 the rest nowhere, the better ideal? 

 Many people will tell you that if, 

 in a normal season, they get back 

 food and labour costs on Leghorn 

 cockerels, they are satisfied. Others 

 advocate killing as soon as sex is 

 apparent whilst others again say 

 that they make i/- a It), for 

 them. The great majority of 

 breeders and practically every farm 

 and suburban poultry keeper re- 

 gard their surplus cockerels as a 

 necessary but not altogether un- 

 profitable evil. After all a Leg- 

 horn cockerel is not by any means 

 to be despised on the table, he 



may not be in the same street as 

 a milk fed Faverolle liut he is cer- 

 tainly lietter than none at all. The 

 position seems to l)e, firstly, that 

 for the straight out market egg 

 man, who after all is about one in 

 a hundred of ])oultry i)roducers, 

 cockerels arc more or less 

 unwelcome ; secondlv, that for 

 the farm and sulnirban poultry 

 keeper, they are more or less pro- 

 fitable ; thirdly, that tlw: great 

 majority of purebred cockerels are 

 White Leghorns ; iourthly, that the 

 chickens of standard weight par- 

 ents are more likely to make up 

 into reasonably good tal)le poultry 

 than the progeny of pullets, which 

 " when old enough to lay weigh a 

 trifle over two lbs. to 2% lbs," 

 which Mr. Iladlington rejected. 

 Finallv, there is no evidence to 

 show that they would be any 

 poorer layers. 



— The Competition Breeder. — 

 " That's all very wtlll," says the 

 cainpetition breeder and record 

 hunter, " but what I want is the 

 greatest possible number of 2oz. 

 eggs. Just eggs and nothing more. 

 Is it not already difficult enough 

 to breed a 1,500 pen, let alone a 

 1,600 wonder, without being har- 

 assed and hampered with rules and 

 regulations ? What do I care whe- 

 ther the bird that lays them is of 

 canary-Leghorn type or the emu- 

 Leghorn. What I want and what 

 most people want is eggs, first, 

 last, and all the time. There is a 

 lot to be said for the competition 

 breeder no doubt. The commercial 

 egg plant man also has something 

 to say. " I want good two ounce 

 eggs. If I can get as many or 

 more of them from a small bird 

 as a big one, that suits me and 

 they eat less and take up less 

 room. O'ue pound less weight 

 probably means a 10 per ,:ent. re- 

 duction in food cost and 10 per 

 cent, less floor space. If in every 

 one of nw ,So hen pens I can put 

 another .s birds, it means that the 



HAVE Y©U EVER N©TieED THIS ? 



The little bar of Soap has a big lot of talk on the wrapper ; the smaller the Soap, the 

 bigger the talk to make up for the shortage in weight, as it were. 



While the big bar of Soap, such as BURFORD'S PRIZE No. I has practically no 

 talk on the wrapper as none is needed. 



Deeds, not words, made BURFORD'S PRIZE No. IvSOAP Popular, 



and keep it so. 



