POULTRY PROGRESS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3598, 23 January 1883, Page 4

POULTRY PROGRESS.

[ST. JAMES' BUDGET, 24Til NOVEMBER. Nobody AA'ill have been surprised to learn that "the Poultry Slioav at the Crystal Palace aa-us tho most extensive exhibition of the kind ever brought foi'AA-ard;" and yet, making all alloAvancc for a tAvclA-emonth's progress, 5390 pens of birds is an astounding figure. With a modest calculation that only 20 por cent, of them are cocks, and they have sufficient self-denial to ltoav only six times in the hour, Avhat terrors do avc find under one roof alone ! This, it is true, is only one aspect of the question, though by no means an unimportant one; for, to an outsider, the rooster's voice is the most conspicuous detail of a foAA-1-housc. With the real essence of a poultry show, lioavCA'er, outsiders Ima-o nothing to do. Life is too short for mere spectators, men of the world, to master the intricacies of artificial poultry-breeding. Even tho judges cannot remain infallible Avithout fresh instructions, for the standard of perfection is so constantly changing that old breeders hardly recognise their favorite birds in the extraordinary monstrosities that carry oft' the cups and prizes noAvadays. Competition is the rage of tho age, and avc live in an atmosphere of "boston record" achievements. Each noAV steamer across the Atlantic, each fresh pedestrian at Lilliebridge, boasts of beating all previous performances by fractions of hours or minutes ; and so each poultry-breeder dreams and labors only to add one more feather to the liind-toc of a foAvl or one more a\tinkle to a earner pigeon's beak. And so at last the typical Cochin China fowl has become just such a gruesome spectre in feathers as the imagination of an artist of Japan might have conceived for one of his fantastic gods to ride upon. All the malice of civilisation has been expended upon fowls. Legs so heavily feathered that the wretched birds only Avalk by a series of fortunate accidents : heads decorated with tufts so enormous that the creature's circle of A-ision is limited to the ground it stands upon ; combs of so Avonderful a kind that each cock appears to carry a beefsteak and two mutton chops above his startled visage ; these are the results of centuries of scientific breeding. Nor need the poultry complain ; for the caHs of high pressure competition are equally obA-ious among bipeds of the '' f eatherless class." In our modern schools haA'e AA'e not results as lamentable in the large-headed, weak-eyed boys of fourth, fifth, or six standards or forms, trained like Cochin China cockerels or stunted standard roses into one stiff type of conventional excellence ? Turn one of these prize fowls into the fields and it -will starve, or after a straddling gallop of 20 yards fall a helpless victim to the first fox that pursues it; and in the same Avay you may send a boy Avho has received a "first prize education " into the world, and he generally finds absolutely nothing that he can do, except to form one more of that too numerous class whose avoos find periodical expression in the public press beneath large type headings of " Oa'ct-sup-ply of Clerks," "Formation of a Regiment of Gentlemen." For years men of all types of thought have combined to denounce '' the rile art of teaching words," as Beaconsfield stigmatised the learning of his yonth. But the world goes on, and avc still offer the same old prizes for the same old acquirements ; and just as the Avhocls of our educational system creak more rustily and grind the liopea out of more young' lives year after year, so poultry slioav succeeds to poultry slioav, and the Cochin yearly finds a greater difficulty in Avalking and the Houdau becomes more hideous. That the results of this competition are CA'il cannot be denied, for everything is judged by a fictitious standard of " results." Parents

judge the nursery-teaching his first school; his schoolmaster is judged by "results" Avhen his pupil leaves him for tho public school; public schools base their reputation upon the " results " of their teaching—the uniA'crsity scholarships; tho university judges by degrees conferred for excellence: and then, grand result of all, the youngman enters life provided Avitli fragments of dead languages Avheroby to make a, living. "The end of learning is Avisdom," and the bourne of a domestic fowl's existence should be the kitchen; but neither Latin _ verses nor feathers on the legs conduce in any especial degree to these desirable consummations. But in neither case is the remedy hopeless ; for the cause of the disease is simple enough. Education and poultrybreeding alike h.'u'c their origin in the employment of the leisure of the rich. It Avas Avell enough, in days Avhen book learning Avas unnecessary and a luxury, that the Avealthy should sot up for themselves toys and trifles of classical delicacy as the object of their labors ; but, uoav that education is a necessity for all alike, let not the golden years of youth be squandered in the acquirement of'what must- bo iv the nature of tilings a useless appendage of pedantic lore —a six-inch feather on the toe of learning. Walking boots are not made of satin, nor the ploughman's spade of goldlcaf. But our modern Avorking day education is still made up too much of odds and ends of old Avorld culture, Avliilc all or very nearly all tlic to mcrctoys —toy fowl*, toy pigeons and toy terriers.