The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-01-12

SOMETHING NOVEL IN THE FIELD
 OF cOMMERGIAL ENTERPRISE.
 Don't mind him; he's only chicken gambler"
 "A What?"
 Chicken gambler. Plays the one hundred to one sh6ts in this game of chicken exhibition; and, more's the pity, he wins out, too, Most people call him a professional exhibitor, gut l prefer to call the men of whom he is a type of chicken gamblers"
 And what is a professional exhibi- tor? Aren't all chicken, fanciers gam blers? And isn't the whole game of raising chickens for prizes gambler
 Indeed it is a gamble and the live ! Hest kind of d one. Go ask Philander Williams of Taunton, who developed the partridge cochin; ask Henry T. Sperry, who developed the white polish; ask Mir. Cook over there, who 1 has just refused one thousand dollars ! for his prize winning orpington cock 1 erel, ask any man wno has ever had | to do with the fancy. And yet right under their noses will come one of those professional exhibitors and take the prizes away from them. These chicken gamblers are a comparative i ly new development of the chicken fancier's game, and they play it to the limit.
 "The king pin of the bunch is a shrewd young fellow out in Wisconsin, who is far and away ahead of any of his kind in the east. He has made it a business for number of years, and is making a good thing out of it, better perhaps than most of the men who breed for years to get perfection in feather, color and shape. At the St. Louis fair, which closed a short time ago, he had about three hundred and fifty entries and carried off about one thousand dollars in prizes. beating some of the best fanciers on their own grounds. He made the circuit of the fairs and exhibitions in the west last year, his campaign lasting from Octo- Der to February. In that time he won fifty-one hundred dollars in prizes, about forty-one hundred of which was clear profit.
 Tt is the sure thing end of the game he plays. He and others of his kind are just as good judges of fowls as are any of the men who award the prizes at the poultry shows, generally rather better judges They have made a study of the standard by which all fowls are judged, and what they don't know about feather and markings and form is not worth knowing. This Wis eonsin man has been so long at the game that there isn't a point in it but he is thoroughly familiar with.''
 What breed does he go in for in his raid on the judges? Any fancy as to strains or colors?"
 If strains and breeds and colors are alike to the professional exhibitor. There is no sentiment in it for him. It is all cash. He'd as soon have white wyandottes as black minorcas, Rhode Island reds as buff eochine, barred Ply mouth Rocks as silver-spangied ham, burgs, bantams as turkeys. ducks as geese or guineas as pigeons, so long as they can win the money. That's all he wants, and he laughs at the sentiment about the thing that the regular fean- cier shows"
 But where does he get his stock?" ~
 Anywhere, everywhere, except at a place like this. The New York shows with the chickens priced at all sorts of figures, from one hundred dol lars up to thousand dollars are no place for him, except as q prize win ner. Remember that I told you his , first qualification must be that he is an absolute judge of fowls. In this he must never make a mistake. He knows the peculiarities of the judges that are likely to appear at the shows, for he studies them as much as he does the chickens These known, he is ready for his campaign. He goes all over the country where chicken fan ciers breed aheir fiocks and from them he selects the young chicks that to him seem worthy of development He gets them on an average of about two dollars each, rarely paying more than five dollars for fowl of any va riety In his employ are a couple of the best of chicken raisers-one a graduate of Cornell university-arid to them he intrusts the raising of the thousand fowls or so he keeps con- stantly on hand and all varieties, sizes and colors. These men know the standard better than they know their Bible, and develop the fowls to not only hit that, but to hit the fancy of the different judges that will pass on the different varieties he will show and there are frequently more than one hun dred varieties in his prize winning coops. That is the principal way ir which he plays his game.
 "But there is another and even more profitable string to his bow. From some noted prize-winning strain of whatever sort of fowl he happens tc
 want, he buys one or two sittings ol