FANCIERS’ JOURNAL 
AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 
41 

A REVISION OF THE AMERICAN STANDARD. 
EDITOR OF THE FANCIERS’ JOURNAL. 
Dear Sir: In the first number of your journal appears a 
communication from Mr. H. Woodward, and also in the 
December issue of the Poultry Bulletin an article of the 
same tenor, under the above heading, in which he endeavors 
to answer these two questions, viz.: ‘‘ What is the use of a 
standard ?” and, ‘‘ How can astandard be applied to be most 
effective ?’? The writer goes on to speak about the errors in 
judging at exhibitions, and the dissatisfaction which arises 
from this evil; the failure of the English ‘‘standard of ex- 
cellence ”’ to correct these errors, and also of our American 
‘‘standard,’”’ for the same reason— that it was powerless to 
reach the existing eyil.’’ He then answers the questions in 
this wise: ‘That a standard, which should be the result of 
long and deliberate study of our wants, founded upon the 
ripest experience which can be brought to bear upon the sub- 
ject, may be a necessity in breeding for the exhibition, no 
one who is conversant with ‘poultry fancying will probably 
deny; but such astandard should only be used, and can only 
be used to be of any service, in assisting the breeder to bring 
his stock, of whatever kind, up to the highest ideal. Beyond 
this we cannot go with the most perfect standard which can 
be devised, and any attempt to do more than this will result 
in inevitable failure, because we cannot make any arbitrary 
standard sufliciently flexible to meet all the circumstances of 
time, place, and occasion.”’ 
After reading these articles they leave a rather obscure 
impression of exactly what Mr. W. intends to express, if he 
means that judges should be bound by no fixed standard, but 
make their awards according to their own views, I think he 
is wrong. If a standard is necessary for the breeder, it is 
also necessary for the judge. What is the use of breeding 
to a standard if the fowls so bred are not to be judged in 
accordance with the same? By this system we should be 
worse off than we are by our present method, as it would 
not even have the merit of consistency which the other has; 
it would be different were all the exhibitions judged by the 
same men, and even this would be on a par with the English 
‘““standard,”? which Mr. Wright characterizes as the opinion 
of one or two individuals. But in this country of great dis- 
tances, very few good judges can afford the time and money 
to visit even the most important of the numerous exhibitions, 
and therefore committee-men and amateurs in the ‘ fancy,”’ 
of only perhaps a single year, are allotted the task of judging 
a certain breed which they are acquainted (?) with. If 
these judges are authorized to award according to their own 
opinions, which have probably been formed from acquaint- 
ance with one strain or style of the breed, with all proba- 
bility their awards will be biased by this knowledge, and it 
would be as likely that birds which were put last at this ex- 
hibition would receive first prize at another show with the 
same competition, through the views and opinions of some 
other judge, whose opinions have been formed by acquaint- 
ance with another strain of the breed. ‘‘ Everybody to their 
taste,’’ as the old woman said when she kissed the pig; like- 
wise of opinions, they are as apt to differ. 
_ The only way in which this method of judging, without 
regard to the “standard,” could be carried out with any ex- 
pectation of success, would be to have professional judges 
thoroughly posted in everything pertaining to each and every 
variety of fowl, whose business it should be to officiate at all 
the exhibitions in the country ; their awards would have the 


merit of being consistent at least, and fanciers could breed 
to the standard expressed in these awards, resting assured 
that future awards would be in conformity with the standard 
bred to. 
But this system of judging is not the. best that can be de- 
vised, A proper standard of excellence and scale of defects 
combined with it, is decidedly the best basis to judge our ex- 
hibitions upon; and I have devised a plan for such a crite- 
rion, and a method of applying the same, which appears to 
me to present the best possible results attainable with our 
present light on the subject, and I will endeavor to present 
it in as clear a manner as possible. 
I have felt the want of some radical change in the scale of 
points of our ‘standard of excellence,’’? which resulted in 
my article in the first number of your journal. In that com- 
munication I advocated the adoption of Mr. Wright’s method 
of valuing defects solely, and also of his scales with what 
alteration would appear desirable. I had applied his scale 
for Brahmas some time ago, when I first received the number 
of his work containing it, and found it much preferable to 
ours in general principles, and ease of application; but, 
since writing the article mentioned above, in attempting to 
make a standard for Houdans, on the same basis as his, I at 
once found that among the defects in his scale no notice was 
taken of any wrong color of legs, except that ‘yellow 
shanks”? was put among the disqualifications; this omission 
would allow any other wrong color to go unnoticed; and 
again, that no account was taken of ‘ fifth toe not perfect in 
form and development,’ while in Dorkings a numerical value 
of ten is given to this defect; now supposing the compara- 
tive value of the defect to be the same in both cases, in Hou- 
dans it would have to be taken out of “want of symmetry,”’ 
and in a case so bad as to barely escape disqualification, by 
taking this amount from ‘‘ want of symmetry,’’ which is put 
at twelve, it would leave but two for defects in the rest of 
the body. It immediately occurred to me that in endeavor- 
ing to be concise, and make his scales or tables apparently 
simple, and easy of application, the author had failed in 
making them sufficiently flexible, and, consequently, they 
are not so accurate as is desirable. I have, therefore, come 
to the conclusion, that a scale of defects to be correct in this 
particular, should go more into detail, and in fact take cogni- 
zance of all the characteristics, both of general shape and 
color; that is, the standards of general shape and color, and 
the scale of defects should be combined and not separated. 
The plan I propose is, that the scale of points in the 
‘American standard of excellence” be struck out entirely ; 
that the standards of ‘general shape’’ and of ‘color”’ be 
united in one schedule; that under each point or character- 
istics of the various birds, in the schedules thus formed, there 
be enumerated special and general defects pertaining to it, 
and a numerical value given to them which should be in the 
proportion that the various defects bear to each other; and 
no arbitrary number whatever should be given as the value of 
the *‘ standard of perfection.” 
It is the height of absurdity to judge by an idea, a con- 
ception, by nothing tangible; we do not care to know how 
near our birds come to the judge’s ideal of a perfect bird ; 
judging is more a matter of excellence between two or more 
specimens, and each should be judged by the other. To 
illustrate: supposing two cock birds were entered for a spe- 
cial premium—the question for the judges to decide is, 
which of the two is most deserving of the prize in respect 
to the various points of the breed as laid down in the 
