POULTRY.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2430, 19 January 1882, Page 3

POULTRY.

The great Crystal Palace show exhibition which concluded recently was the largest ever held in any country in the world, and is in every sense a sign that there is still life in the poultry fancy, as there is increasing anxiety to encourage the breeding of marketable birds. There are many signs that this is so, and among the chief may bo mentioned that the entries at this show numbered nearly 5000—that is to say, cages of galvanised iron with wire fronts were provided for 5000 separate specimens, each of which cost from 5a to 10s to exhibit, the fees being regulated by the variety and the prices offered. These had to be sent in separate packages, placed in the cages corresponding with the number of the labels on them, fed, watered, supplied with grit and green food, judged, the cards placed on them where honours are awarded, repacked in the same hampers and baskets, tied down and dispatched to all parts of Great Britain. The entries were nearly 1000 more than last year. Next we may notice that the visitors to the show were very much more numerous ; in the fi. st two days the Palace was simply crowded, and exhibitors and others who aro well known would be recognised by otheis from' all parts, and the writer does not hesitate to say that he met hundreds of fanciers who are rarely seen except at exhibitions of this character, each well known in his particular fancy. Again, it may be mentioned that more birds were sold than ever before. Gage after cage was decorated with a card announcing that the birds were sold. Many specimens in the selling classes, where the price is limited, were of much greater value than the price named usually, £2, and the rush was consequently great when the sales office opened at eleven o’clock on Tuesday morning. Wo aro told that over £ISOO worth of birds was sold at the show through the officials, and we know of hundreds of pounds’ worth which were privately sold. Last year a Ooohin sold for sixty guineas, this year a Brahma won a cup which cost the same amount, the exhibitor, a gentleman of title, having given thirty guineas for a pullet of the same breed and £25 for a cockerel. Such sums are, no doubt, startling, and when we see as much as £220 given for three birds, we are constrained to believe that the “ fancy” is becoming a mania, for the gratification of a hobby. At the same show £3O was paid for an owl pigeon ; a plain little bird, not unlike a common bluerock in color, but with a peculiarly formed head ; £3O was paid for a common looking Antwerp, with a similar property, and prices not much less were quite numerous. We see then that the number of birds is more numerous, the exhibitors themselves much more numerous—new names being remarkably frequent—the attendance of the publ greater, and the purchases much larger,