POULTRY SHOWS STIMULATE INTEREST.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 June 1926, Page 9

POULTRY SHOWS STIMULATE INTEREST.

Is the poultry show an essential? What relation does it bear to the poultry industry and the annual production of our food supply? It is iu order to ask the question: “Does it pay?” and. look at the situation squarely and honestly for the answer. The cost of the poultry show includes many items—the printed catalogue, stationery, postage, rental, lighting of the show room, cash prizes to be paid, the hard work of the officers of the association, the expense of judging, and not the least is the expense of the exhibitor in conditioning, cooping and railing his birds, his own time and expense in attending the show, and the effect on his best stock of their confinement in the show pen. All this expense of time, energy, and cash must be taken into consideration when seeking an answer to the question: “Does the poultry show pay?”

It is common for the exhibitor to answer the question according to the amount of cash he takes home with him in cash prizes won at the show. If he spends a few shillings in entry fees, gives several days of his time at the show with his fowls and receives less prize money than his expenses have 1 amounted to, he is apt to go home feeling that so far as he is concerned the thing does not pay, and his mind is made up that in the future he will let the other fellows do their exhibiting and he will stay on the job at home with his chickens and his family. If the show closes without any deficit in the treasury, the members of the elub ' are willing to plan for another show I next season; but if a cash deficiency I stares them in the face as is sometimes I the case, they are likely to say: “No, I, it does' not pay,” and “Finis” is written | at the end of that show. THE POULTRY SHOW DOES PAY. | But I want to say most positively that in neither of these cases is the question answered fairly and justly. There is another very important phase of the question that must be carefully considered, before anyone can say honestly that the poultry show is not a paying institution, regardless of how depressing may be any local or personal conditions. All agree that it would be better if, at the close of every poultry show, after paying all bills, including liberal cash prizes, there would still remain a substantial balance in the elub’o treasury, and such should always be the case. All agree that it should be a delightful condition if every exhibitor could always return home with cash prizes sufficient to pay all his expenses and a balance in his pocket. But the all-important value of the poultry show is its educational influence in building up a great industry. | The poultry show should be regarded as a great educational institution that brings before the people the seed stock of our poultry industry, and impress on the public mind the value, magnitude, importance and development of our pure-bred races of poultry—and its possibilities —and in an effective manner bring home to them the possibilities of such stock. I do not under-estimate the value of the poultry press with its tremendous, far-reaching influence. But eliminate entirely the poultry show, and , the poultry press would, almost receive its death blow. It is through the poultry show that the poultry press exists, as truly as the show is dependent on the press. Each is co-dependent on the other. The poultry show, rightly conducted, reaches the masses and educates. I can best make clear this point with an illustration:

Having judged poultry at Palmerston North each year for the past seven years, I have been, during this period, in a position to note the effect of the annual show in the development of the 1 poultry industry in that district. It has been a common experience with me, after judging, to have people come to me who do not know a Brahma from a bantam, seeking information about poultry; not through idle curiosity, but with a real desire to know’ more about the business. Such persons before leaving the show usually become so much interested that they are pretty certain to make a purchase from some exhibitor and start in the poultry business. Most shows have earned, a wide reputation for business. The value of the show’ to the exhibitor is not so much the cash prize money he wins as the sales he makes, and this condition has been developed by the educational power of the poultry’ show’. The development has not been confined to the fanciers’ side of the business. Many egg farms and commercial plants have been and are being developed during the period mentioned above. There arc several commercial poultry plants in the Dominion and co-operative egg circles which afford the poultrymen the best of facilities for marketing their products. The result is that the supply of poultry products is rapidly increasing.

The poultry industry is in a very healthy growing condition. While there have been other factors that have contributed in a measure to the present condition, the poultry show with its educational power has been the greatest agency’ in the poultry development that I has come to this section.

I With the educational value of the I poultry show in mind, every community I throughout the country should take I steps at once to hold a poultry show | next w’inter. Let the broader founda- | tions be laid for standard-bred poultry I in all sections of the Dominion. Good poultry will lead to better bousing, betI ter feeding, better management of the flock, and. will mean a greater supply of the best, most healthful, vitalising and nourishing food known to man —the fresh, sanitary egg.

PEDIGREE BREEDING. If you are going in for pedigree breeding, which is the only’ form of breeding that yields success, you must use practical knowledge, common-sense, and what little amount of science you may be able to get hold of. Pedigree breeding is a special branch of work, and needs the application of a well-regu-lated system. It cannot be followed in g haphazard manner. It is work that must be undertaken only by men and women who have plenty of push, practical knowledge of the management of poultry, and large stocks, with plenty of room. It is not work that can be done in a back yard. There have been men in the poultry industry who have bought stock birds from known breeders, entered the progeny in laying trials, have been successful,’and have at once blossomed out as pedigree breeders. They’ were nothing of the kind. They attained notoriety on the strength of other men’s work, work which in many’ eases they had squandered and spoilt.

ANSWER TO CORRESPONDENT. M.G., Stratford.—Blood in Egg: The trouble is due to rupture of the minute ovarian capillaries. Such a condition may be the result of over-feeding the birds with stimulating food, or due to cold and damp weather. If you can detect the pullet which produced the faulty” egg give her five drops of tinct. ferri, perchlorid (steel drops) in a teaspoonful of sweetened milk daily.