Report of Missouri Farmers' Week. 247 



scrub stock on the farm. While there are but few really mongrel 

 flocks in the country today, there is still room for improvement 

 among the flocks of standard-bred poultry, and it is largely through 

 selection that this improvement can be brought about. The trap 

 nest plays an important part in the profitable side of poultry cul- 

 ture, whether on the city lot or on the farm, and once accustomed 

 to looking after the nests it is not such an unpleasant task, nor does 

 it require so much time as is generally supposed. If at no other 

 time, by all means mate a few pens of your choicest birds and trap- 

 nest them during the breeding season. 



Breed for eggs rather than feed for them, but breed and feed 

 both for size. Selection, not indiscriminate mating, has given us 

 the heavy milker and the two-hundred-egg hen. In the human 

 family the ofi'spring of diseased parents are seldom robust, and 

 they inherit a tendency to disease if not the disease itself. What is 

 true of the human race is largely true of all animal life, and 

 especially is this true of poultry. Therefore let me urge you to 

 look well to the parent stock. You will recall the old Spartan law 

 that put to death weakly and deformed children, and while this 

 was a most barbarous practice their intention was the very best, 

 as it was for the purpose of establishing a race of physically and 

 mentally sound people. This law, however, could not and should 

 not be strictly applied in poultry culture. 



It is our privilege to select the parents of our feathered family. 

 Do not use an undersized female in your breeding pen simply be- 

 cause she happens to be perfect in color. Better use a male a little 

 short in weight than a female, but, better still, make up you entire 

 mating of birds up to or over standard weight. The country is not 

 flooded or overstocked with birds of this description, but this is 

 what selection does, and when a flock of this kind is once learned of, 

 that particular breeder is indeed fortunate and has no trouble in 

 disposing of all surplus stock and eggs at most satisfactory prices. 

 Here again we find pleasure and profit combined. To the person 

 really interested in raising good birds it is a great pleasure to 

 mate his pens, especially his best one, set the eggs, watch the 

 chicks hatch and grow to maturity. But best of all, to the true 

 fancier, is to see the prize winners develop, and a little later he 

 walks down the aisle of some good show and sees the coveted blue 

 ribbons flaunting from their coops. Perhaps some of you will have 

 this experience here this week, and if you do you will, I am sure, 

 feel fully recompensed for all time and labor expended in bringing 

 your birds to this perfection. If there be those among you who 



