=Conditions in the fancy trade.= The trade in fancy poultry and pigeons and in cage birds is on a very different basis from the trade in market products. With the arrangements for collecting poultry products and for holding them when that is desirable, it seldom happens that market products cannot be sold at any time when the producer wants to dispose of them. The fancy trade is quite closely limited to certain short seasons. In this trade prices depend as much upon the reputation of the seller as upon the quality of his stock. Very high prices are obtained only by those who have made a big reputation by winning at important shows, and have advertised their winnings extensively. Buyers of fancy stock prefer to deal directly with producers, and the greater part of the business is mail-order business. It is almost impossible to force the sale of this class of stock except by selling it for the table at market prices. The producer can only advertise and wait for customers, and what is not sold at fancy prices must be sold at market prices. =Exhibitions.= Competitive exhibitions hold a very important place in the development and distribution of improved stocks of animals. In old times such exhibitions were informal gatherings of the persons in a locality who were interested in the improvement of a particular breed or variety. Our knowledge of these early gatherings of breeders of domestic birds is very limited and is mostly traditional. From what is known it appears that they were usually held in the evenings at public houses, and that each person taking part carried with him to the place of meeting one or more of his best birds; that these were compared and their qualities discussed by the company, and that at the close each participant carried his exhibit home. [Illustration: Fig. 233. View of a section of a large poultry show in Mechanics Building, Boston, Massachusetts] As the interest in breeding for fancy points extended, such gatherings became larger and assumed a more formal character, and rules were adopted for comparing, or judging, the birds; but it was not until about the middle of the nineteenth century that the modern system of public exhibitions of poultry, pigeons, cage birds, and pet stock was inaugurated. The first exhibitions of this kind were held at the agricultural fairs. Very soon after these began to attract attention, special exhibitions, limited to this class of stock and held in suitable buildings in the winter, became frequent. Now large shows are held annually in nearly every large city and in hundreds of smaller cities, and every agricultural fair has its poultry department. For the sake of brevity, shows at which poultry is the principal feature are called simply poultry shows, although they often include other kinds of domestic birds and all kinds of small domestic animals.