40 FANCIERS’ 
JOURNAL? AN Ds POULT RY | EB XSCE AN GTi: 


Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by JosepH M. 
WADE, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
a: 
SacnsJ OURNAL AND Af OULTRY (Fxonanes, 
JOSEPH M. WADE, Editor and Proprietor. 
Published Weekly at 39 North Ninth Street, Philadelphia. 
SUBSCRIPTION. 


POT A NIN, aces -psecsogechsessue ssvune adesccesapeemeetesee teres $2 50 
DIXECODIES, ONC) V.Ale--.c.cosns-<-005.+.clemensaeuelarnens 12 00 
-Specimen Copies, by mail,...... wsadeetecgsacsascsess 10 
ADVERTISEMENTS 
From reliable parties, on any subjects interesting to Fanciers, will be 
inserted at 10 cents per line, set solid; if displayed, 15 cents per line of 
space will be charged; about 12 words make a line, and 12 lines make an 
inch of space. 
1 inch of space, set Solid..............006 $1 20, displayed............$1 80 
1 column, about 108 lines, set solid.....10 80, se eeeeaessseeLGn a0) 
i page, 216 lines, solid. ................e0s0-. 21 60, Sec cose rence 32 40 
Advertisements from unknown parties must be paid for in advance. 


SHERMAN & Co., PRINTERS, PHILADELPHIA, 


HOBBIES AND REST. 
Every hard-working man should have a hobby. This is 
sound doctrine. Especially should the professional man and 
the active business man remember this. He whose mind is 
occupied during the day with severe labor will find it impos- 
sible at evening to abandon his work. The responsibilities 
of the day will weigh on him at night; he cannot rid him- 
self of them. Social enjoyment, conversation, ordinary 
amusement and recreation will serve but a temporary pur- 
pose, and cannot be relied on to divert the mind from anx- 
iety and care. Try the experiment. Take to collecting en- 
gravings or coins or shells or anything else, so it be a subject 
to interest you, and make a hobby of it. It will absorb the 
mind, enable it to throw off all business thought, afford sen- 
sible relief and refreshment, and bea great insurance against 
those diseases of the brain which close the labor and useful- 
ness of so many strong intellects. 
The summer vacation, which is about the only recreation 
an American professional or business man allows himself, is 
apt to be wasted entirely by the want of mental refreshment 
which cannot be found in the ordinary resorts of summer 
pleasure seekers. The vacation does little good to him who 
earries his business on his brain; and it too frequently hap- 
pens that men go to places where they have no resort for 
amusement except to the newspapers and the business talk 
of other weary men like themselves. It is not every man 
who should go a-fishing, but there are many who would find 
this their true rest and recreation of body and mind. 

(For Fanciers Journal.) 
THE DUST-BATH FOR FOWLS. 
It has been noticed by many breeders that a great many 
Asiatic fowls raised and kept in a city have white legs, and 
particularly the light Brahmas of this city. It is often re- 
marked by the owners of these fowls that if they had a grass 
run for awhile they would come all right, but could not give 


a reason for their legs being white. It is a well-known fact 
that nearly all fowls kept in large cities have no grass runs, 
and the yards in which they are kept are usually on a strata 
of ashes, and as their dust-bath is composed of ashes also, 
a great portion of which is from wood, the alkali I am satis- 
fied is what causes the mischief; and, having no grass run, 
the natural color of the legs does not return, and so many 
an otherwise good fowl has been condemned for this, which 
is no fault at all. City fanciers, cover your yards with sandy 
loam or road dust. Make your dust-bath of the same mate- 
rial, into which a little carbolate of lime may be put, and 
my: word for it, you will have no more white-legged Asiatic — 
fowls. This is no theory, but has been proved by actual test. 

(For Fanciers’ Journal.) 
THE NEW DEPARTURE. 
Mr. Epiror: I am glad to know that the Buffalo Show, 
which is now the largest and most prosperous in this coun- 
try, adopts what you call the ‘‘ New Departure,”’ in offering 
society premiums for single specimens instead of trios. A 
few years ago I wrote several articles for one of our poul- 
try journals advocating this departure from our usual mode 
at least so far as giving premiums for pairs in preference to 
trios is concerned. Iam glad to know that the Western 
New York Society takes the lead in this matter, and sets up 
the true standard for the country. 
When you or I come to purchase a fowl, as when we come 
to purchase a blooded cow or a blooded horse, we examine 
into the individual merits of the specimen. It has always 
been a mystery to me why fowls, particularly chickens, 
should be exhibited and be made to compete for premiums 
in trios, while every species of animal, cows, horses, sheep, 
dogs, and all, were made to compete by single specimens. 
The Connecticut society has for several years been exhib- 
iting in pairs, and I have wondered why their plan has not 
been followed by other Societies; in fact, all the Societies 
have, in a great measure, acknowledged the truth of this 
principle, by securing and offering special premiums for 
single specimens. 
The result will certainly be to bring out the best indi- 
vidual specimens. There is many a one who may have an 
excellent specimen, or a number of them, and yet they may 
not match as perfectly as some one’s trio of much less beauty 
or perfection, and yet, by the old method, the inferior birds 
would carry off the prize, and the best bird be made to accept 
the second, or possibly a lower premium. Single specimens 
of excellence now have a chance, and let us hope that ad- 
vantage will be taken of this new departure, and the best 
fowls in the country be brought forward at Buffalo, and 
doubtless the remaining Societies in general will not be slow 
to adopt the same plan if it prove good in practice. 
Another suggestion in this connection and I have done. 
Now that this plan bids fair to be adopted, would it not be 
well always to have the number of points adjudged the first 
premium bird published in the report of the exhibition? It 
seems to me, as I have argued before, that this would have 
a tendency to encourage many to exhibit who now keep their 
fowls at home, believing that they will have no chance to 
win. When it is generally known that even a first premium 
bird may not carry more than eighty-five or ninety points, 
the tendency will be to call out birds of excellence which 
have never been before the public. A. N.R. 
Lock Haven, Pa. 
