Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-01-04
POULTRY SHOW
By Frederic j. HaSkin
WASHINGTON, Dec. 29.-The desire to
NJ raise chickens, like the desire to


make money starting on a small capital.
And probably mother reason is that nearly
every one Of us has few poultry-raising an
cestors hanging on his family tree soma
where, from whom he has inherited at least
a slight tendency toward chicken fancying.
If you want to remain immune to this
chicken fancying fever, which you have had
and cotton over, do not go to a big poultry
show If you do, the chances are that before
you have been there long you WILDE silently
computing the amount Of space in your back
ward, and before you have left you will have
contracted for a setting of Rhode Island Red
or Black Minorca or Blue Andalusian eggs at
50 apiece and guaranteed fertile. You will
have been convinced by government posters
that it is your duty to increase the nations
food supply by raising poultry in your hack
yard, and that a White Leghorn cockerel is
the most beautiful bird which does not fly.
You will have been overburdened with poul-
try journals, advice and samples of mystic
rious foods guaranteed to stimulate the
philoprogenitive instinct of the most reluct-
ant and puritanical hen.
For poultry show is a really Impressive
spectacle. Here is half an acre or so OF coops
full of birds of the most perfect form ana
feather. They range in size from bantam
no bigger than a quail to Buff Orplngton
almost as heavy as a turkey. They run an
astonishing gamut of colors-black, Whlte'
red, blue, buff and gray. There are chickens
barred, speckled, spangled and striped: Ihere
are chickens with double combs and chickens
wits single combs, chickens with crests like
drum majors and chickens with no crests at
all, chickens with feathered legs and chickens
~ All From One Ancestor
And You must reflect that all Of this BIZ
zarre AGGREGATION of feathered wonders was
evolved from single type Oh Dlro-Cne JUL
gle cock of India. That is all nature gave
man to start with. The rest Of this variety
of form. size and color is his hand1Work. NO
other creature on earth has been so varlously
variegated, except possibly the dog and there
were very likely several d1tferent Iorms u
dog to cross in the beginning.
Here in a corner of the poultry show IS
bird of almost incredible color scheme. some
of his feathers are red and some OF them are
white and some of them are graylsn olue'
and these colors are scattered over MIN as
though he had run rapidly through a shower
of assorted paints. He arrests the eye. You
1 pause before his Enclosure.
"What strange looking bird!" you inVol-
UNFAIRLY exclaim.
What d'y' mean, stranger" demands a
gray-haired man who stands near the coop.
You divine that he is the owner of the strange
bird.
strangely beautiful" you explain hastily.
"But how did he happen? Was he an acc1-
dent?"
Accident nothing! This here is the Amer
lean patriot breed-the newest thing in do
nestle poultry, exhibited for the first time
took me sixteen years to produce EN-"
And then you realize that you are looking
upon no mere freak of nature, but upon
dream come true. You realize that this man
conceived the idea of bird which should
epitomize in his color scheme 100 per cent
Americanism, the Fourth of July, Old Glory
and the Spirit of Seventy-six. What you are
looking upon is the work of an artist in Sc
lective breeding-a red. whit and blue
rooster!
The Patriot Breed
1t is true that there are several reds on MIN
and all Of them are a little rusty, and that the
blue is decidedly grayish, but still he mas a
recognizable resemblance to piece OF bunting
in poultry form. He represents a design con-
ceived in the mind of man and carried out IN
the strange and refractory materials OF ami
NAL heredity. Seven different breeds and SIX
teen generations of breeding went into his
making. He is already guaranteed to breed
| SO per cent of the feathers in any bird hatch
ed from an authentic patriot egg, will show
all three of the colors. \
This bird and all the rest Of these arlsto-
| cratic fowls represent real ana ul11lcult
triumph over the forces of nature. For ma
ture is against this tampering with her forms
original model Then all these prize win
ming birds loose in barnyard together and
| let them breed 1romiscuously for a few gen.
| erations and they will revert to the primitive
Jungle type, not only in form, but in color
The scrub chickens that you see in some
| barnyards where no good blood has been in
! troduced for generations, are hardly distin-
| guishable from the ancestral jungle bird.
| They even recover the power of flight to
| considerable degree, and the tendency to
roost in trees. Incidentally their value, both
| as table birds and as egg producers, suffers
sadly.
For this reason the department of agricul-
tire conducts at all of these poultry shows
| a steady propaganda for the raising OF good
chickens It realizes that many country and
suburban folks who keep few chickens IN
| the ward have neither the time nor the IN
| clination to go in for raising blooded STOCK.
But it points out that FLOODED rooster IN
! troduced into the flock once year Will 90
| wonders for it. He counteracts nature
tendency to revert to the primitive form. He
| brings up the egg-laying and the weight. he
more than pays for himself.
| 1t is perhaps to be regretted that Few ex-
cent chicken fanciers go to poultry shows.
the general public could be in some way
| inyeigled thereby brass band or free
| dance. or anything else-the result Woulo
| nrobably be to increase the nations supply
| Of poultry by many hundred per cent. For
| every man is potentially husbandryman-
I q raiser of some kind of live stock. OIter
this impulse in him gets no more expression
| than the somewhat futile one OF keeping
dog or a cat And II he lives in am apart
ment or in cit, where poultry-keeplng is
| absolutely prohibited, that is about all ne
| can do. But in many American cities poul-
| ho suburban