A large poultry show, with a great variety of exhibits of birds and of the appliances used in aviculture, affords an excellent opportunity to see good specimens of many kinds. Those who have such an opportunity ought to make the most of it. But the novice who can attend only small shows will find that, while he does not see as many different kinds of birds there and may not see many really fine specimens, the small show affords the beginner a much better opportunity to learn something about the differences that affect quality and value in fancy poultry and pigeons.
At the large show there is so much to see, and the differences between the winning specimens in any class are usually so slight, that only those who are familiar with many varieties can make a critical examination of the exhibits. At the smaller shows the varieties are not as numerous, the competing classes are smaller, and the differences between the specimens which win prizes are often plainly apparent, even to a novice, if he has a clue to the method of making the awards. Those who visit large shows can use their time to best advantage if they make as careful a study as they can of the few things in which they take the most interest, and take just a casual look at everything else. In the four or five days that it is open to the public it is not possible for any one to make a thorough, discriminating inspection of all that there is to be seen at a large poultry show, and an experienced visitor to such shows never tries to do so. At many of the small shows even a novice, by studying the exhibits systematically, may get a very good idea of all the classes and may add something to his accurate knowledge of a number of different kinds of birds.
=Rudiments of judging.= While even an ordinary poultry show contains a great deal that is of interest to those who know how to get at it, the visitor who does not know how to study the exhibits and simply takes a cursory look at all of them, tires of the regular classes at a show in a very short time. After the awards have been made, the ribbons or cards on the coops will show the winning birds and their relative positions, but unless one knows something of the methods and rules of judging and compares the birds with some care, he is likely to get the impression that making comparisons between show birds requires a keener critical faculty than he possesses, and to conclude that it is quite useless for him to attempt to discover why the birds have been ranked in the order in which the judge has placed them.