The experiment was perfectly successful, however, throughout. I forwarded to all my patrons and friends copies of this Report, beautifully illustrated; and the orders for "pure-bred chickens from the premium stock" rushed in upon me, for the next four or five months, with renewed vigor and spirit.
This first exhibition at the Fitchburg Dépôt Hall proved to me a satisfactorily profitable advertisement, as I carried away all the premiums there that were of any value to anybody. But then it will be observed that the "Committee of Judges" of this show were my "friends." And, at that time, the competition had got to be such that all the dealers acted upon the general democratic principle of going "for the greatest good of the greatest number." In my case, I considered the "greatest number" Number One!
CHAPTER X.
THE MUTUAL ADMIRATION SOCIETY'S SECOND SHOW.
In the month following, to wit, on the 12th, 13th and 14th of November, 1850, the second annual exhibition of the Simon Pure Society with the extended title was held at the Public Garden, in Boston.
No premiums were offered by the society this year, and there wasn't much to labor for. I was a contributor, and I believe I was elected a member of the Committee of Judges that year. How, I did not know. At any rate, I wrote the published Report upon the exhibition. A Mr. Sanford Howard was chairman of this committee, if I remember rightly; and though undoubtedly a very respectable and well-meaning man (if he had not been so, he wouldn't have been placed on a Committee of Judges with me, I imagine), this Mr. Howard knew positively nothing whatever in regard to the merits or faults of poultry generally. He had acquired some vague notions about what he was pleased to term "crested" fowls, and five-toed, white-legged, white-plumed, white-billed, white-bellied Dorkings,—of which he conversed technically and learnedly; but as to his knowledge of the different varieties and breeds of domestic poultry then current, and their characteristics, it was evidently warped and very limited.
But Mr. Howard had been connected for some months with a small monthly publication in New York State, and, like myself, I presume, among the board (God knows who they were, but I don't, and never did!) who originally chose this "Committee," he had "a friend at court," and was made chairman of the committee too,—how, I never knew, either.
In their Report, the Committee observe, again, that "never in this country, if in the world, was there collected together so large a number of domestic fowls and birds as were sent to this exhibition, probably; and, though the most liberal arrangements were made in advance, it was found that the accommodations, calculated for ten thousand specimens, were entirely insufficient. The Committee merely allude to this fact to show the actual extent of this enterprise, and the importance which the undertaking has assumed, in a single year from the birth of the Association.
"According to the records of the Secretary, there were contributed to the Society's exhibition of 1850 some four hundred and eighty coops and cages. There were in all over three hundred and fifty contributors; in addition to which about forty coops, containing some six hundred fowls, were sent to the Garden and received on exhibition upon the two last days of the Show; and which could not be recorded agreeably with the regulations made originally.