Breeding Poultry Considered from a Fancier's 



Standpoint. 



How to Produce the Best and How to Condition it. 

 A Paper Prepared for Cortland County Institute, 



By T. F. McGuew of New York City. 



The production of exhibition poultry has gained a position in 

 the live stock world that might be called a science. Experimental 

 work, chance shots, or the production of numbers and selecting 

 the best from the lot, will no more give us the desired quality. 

 Real quality must come through the ability of the handler so to 

 pair his birds that their offspring will be better than the parent 

 birds. Therein consists the real secret of success. It is worse 

 than folly to hope to secure even medium quality from poor stock 

 badly mated; it is also equally useless to look for good results 

 from a better quality if improperly joined in matings that are 

 unnatural and inconsistent. 



It is quite impossible to gain the ability of proper handling 

 from any other source than experience. We may add to our 

 knowledge by study; we may improve, also increase, our experi- 

 ence from hearing others tell us of their methods, but the actual 

 results can come only as the product of practice. One is just as 

 likely to learn to guide a plow upon the parlor floor as to learn 

 to produce high-class poultry without the actual experience of 

 proper matings of an established line. 



When I mention " actual experience of mating an established 

 line," I wish to impress upon your minds the absolute necessity 

 of building up your blood lines within your own yards. Many 

 of us would fail of success if allowed to select the choicest speci- 

 mens from the yards of the most successful breeders. This is 

 no reflection upon our ability; it is simply the results that natur- 

 ally follow the union of unrelated bloods, of which we have no 

 actual knowledge. Even if we had, all the information needed 

 as to their line breeding, we still would lack the necessary experi- 



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