POULTRY FOR EVERYBODY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10191, 17 March 1911, Page 6

POULTRY FOR EVERYBODY.

(By

As the show season is approach- -. ing, I must of necessity interrupt my series of articles on utility poultry culture, for a week or two, and deal with a matter vitally affecting' utility poultrymen during the next five or six months, and in after years as well. I mean the standard of excellence drawn up by Messrs F. Brown, J. Rose, JR. W. Hawke, T. Kennedy, and the secretary of the New Zealand Utility Poultry Club, and intended to govern the points for judging utility classes at shows. This standard' has been adopted by the South Island Poultry, Pigeon and Canary Association for the South Island, and may or may not be adopted! by the North Island body also. The first question ; which arises is this—by whose authority did these five men take upon ■ themselves to issue a set of laws to j govern some 5000 other persons? I ! am not going to say anything as to the ability possessed or not possess- | el by these gentlemen, but leave it. alone, unless, of course, I am forced! i to take up that side of the question also, when I shall not hesitate to do so. Again, the South Island Association adopted it; they, of course, j have themselves to please in the, matter; but are they the governing ! body of South Island utility poul-try-men? Or are they qualified to understand and judge the necessary ; points in a utility bird? To the first, I say emphatically "No!"; and as to the second, I" very seriously.' doubt it. The governing body of utility poultry is the New Zealand Poultry Association, formed on the loth of November last, in the Town Hall, Wellington, by the dulyaccredited representatives of the Dominion utility poultry world. Was : the standard submitted to them for I approval or rejection? No. Why?! Was there ever a better opportunity in the history of poultry culture to do so than at such a representative gathering of utility poultry men ?, ( I make bold to say that had it been submitted it would have been thrown out as at present framed. I may, of course, be wrong; but I do not think so; and if I am alive at the next poultry conference I I shall certainly see to it that the matter is threshed out thoroughly. I intend to take the stand in this i matter that Mr I.E. Felch, of j America (one of the world's fore- i most poultrymen) took in that coun- : try on a similar matter, and how- | ever unworthy I may be to follow j in the footsteps of so great a poultryman, I shall use my best endeavours to emulate him in this. 11 I have also perfect faith in the fact that hero in New Zealand we nave : so many level-headed utility men (in j proportion) to support such a thing i as they 'have in America. Of course j there are many who read these lines who will want to know perhaps my authority for taking up the position I do. To those .who know me best no answer is needed to this; but to others I may.. say (without wishing . to be egotistical) that I have more inventions in practical work in the Dominion to-day; more poultry lit-J era-ure, to my name, including my book on utility poultry, acknowledged by the 'Press of the Dominion to stand by itself in this end: of the world; and finally, I thinS I can claim to Jiave tested more birds than any other man in the Dominion | (over 40,000, in 2J years), besides j being the originator of a test, j which has been again and again [ tried on birds with indrvMual records with success, and has been for two years used by the .Hastings Poultry Society and the Hawke's Bay A. and P. Association for use in judging their~u"tility clashes, Mr. Robertson, of Malfora, H.B:, acting as 1 judge (taught by me) in 1910, and myself in 1909. This, I think, is sufficient warrant for me acting as I am; but if a better is needed it is the fact that no other has .taken, up the matter, and as it means,the final extermination of utility plasses' if allowed to go on, I shall proceed -until someone better qualified than myself takes up the battle, when I shall only be too pleased, to give way to a better man. ' Now, the standard referred to says in substance that if a bird with a poor cohib, discoloured lobes, badly marked (in coloured), and brassy plumage (in whites), wry tail, badly coloured legs, etc., shall be cut so many points for these socalled defects, aihounting to from 35 to 40 points out of a possible 100 points. Looked at from a utility poultryman's point of view, the thing is abnopt laughable, were it not for the fact that if not checked in time, it will bill the utility classes at shows so far as the purely utility man is concerned, and if they are continued for the fancier on -lie lines indicated; they, will be a screaming, farce so far as a. test of the xiseful properties of the birds ju'dged is concerned. What in tdie name of common

sense lias a comb with' one spike or less in it, or (in a cockerel) falling over, or (in a lien) standing fairly erect, got to do with the hen's laying powers, or the cockerel's vigour and reproducing powers? The same applies to all of the other .points. The classes are termed utility classes, and should he judged: on utility points pure and simple. Utility means (according to Webster) "usefulness, .. productive of good, profitableness," and this I take it is all the utility man is aiming at. Do the who so boldly seek to saddle us with these absurd conditions imagine for a moment that the utility poultry man has nothing to do but keep his male (Leghorn) bird in a single pen with a wire fence holding up his comb, so that it may not fall over, or thumbing out creases in it to make it appear smooth and even? This is pure "rot," for the utility man. It is the work of the fancier pure and simple, and while it is quite possible and even desirable ■for the two sections to work together, as in America, the above work is the work of the fancier only, and must be resisted when the fancier tries to force it on the utility man directly or indirectly. (To be continued next week.)