THE BOOK OF POULTRY. 



sell stock far more perfect in points, and really 

 of higher breeding value too, because his work 

 will then be largely done ; but in the earlier 

 stages he is losing the very work itself, if he 

 loses the best embodiments of it. 



The second and, still more, the third year's 

 breeding will show a marked advance ; but it 

 should be understood where this is to be sought 

 and how measured. If our breeder 

 Effects of was able to afford first-rate speci- 

 ■uch a mens at the start, there may not be 



Course. ^j^g chicken apparently a bit better 



now. But the proportion of good 

 ones in the produce will be increased, and it is 

 this proportion which is the chief test of real 

 progress ; moreover, as this increases, in the 

 long run the " very best of the best " must be 

 better too, which bears on the question of prize- 

 winning. In any case, out of those good in 

 points A and B we shall have much less difficulty 

 now — perhaps very little — in selecting specimens 

 good, or fairly good, also in C and even D. Thus 

 we reap the advantage already of never dropping 

 the main points A and B. Though imperfectly 

 fixed, even yet, they are so far fixed that we 

 find we have a wider choice in regard to C and 

 D as well ; and it will be more and more so in 

 each succeeding generation. It will even be 

 found that when the most cardinal points are 

 thoroughly secured, a little may be occasionally 

 risked ; and this is another great advantage of 

 such a course of breeding as here described. 

 Our points A and B will have become at last so 

 fixed that a bird a i&\'^ degrees worse in one of 

 them may occasionally be bred from for the 

 sake of some other point badly wanted. But 

 let the nature and reason of this procedure be 

 understood. It is simply that the main point, 

 known to be so fixed, is probably only accident- 

 ally somewhat deficient in the bird so chosen, 

 which is therefore trusted to revert to the more 

 perfect type in his or her progeny. Such a step 

 should only be taken with caution, and never 

 repeated through two generations ; nor should a 

 bird absolutely bad in point A or B be so used. 

 It is only that one not quite so good in the first 

 points may be occasionally risked ; and that 

 even so it is a risk should not be forgotten. 



Such is what we have termed " a course of 

 selection " in forming a strain, and in default of 

 which there is little deserving the name of a 



strain at all. There is just one 

 Different more point about it which is worth 



Courses and mention, especially as it will lead us 

 their Results, naturally to the other of the two 



great factors referred to above. It 

 will be obvious that two breeders, in starting to 

 breed the same variety, may adopt "courses" 



somewhat different, led thereto by the tenden- 

 cies of their original stock. Suppose two men 

 starting in Buff Leghorns. One may have birds 

 from a stock in which much colour-work has 

 been done, but good combs are rare ; while the 

 other's first stock may be generally good in 

 comb, but very rarely indeed good in colour. 

 Both would probably place colour and comb as 

 the first two points ; but comb might probably 

 be the A of the one, and colour of the other. 

 This difference in the course of selection has a 

 consequence whenever such two strains are 

 crossed, which we have never seen pointed out 

 clearly. We will suppose both breeders to have 

 bred for some years, with care and success ; then 

 at the last their birds will probably be to all 

 intents and purposes alike in appearance, equally 

 good now both in colour and in comb. We 

 proceed to cross these strains — a bird from each, 

 and both good birds, assuming that the blood 

 has never been mingled before, but that it is 

 what is known as a " raw " cross. The result of 

 the cross — merely as a cross — in conformity both 

 with what Mr. Darwin has taught us and with 

 wide experience, is more or less reversion to the 

 ancestral characteristics ; and here these are 

 governed largely by the two " courses of selec- 

 tion " in the two strains. In one the more 

 remote tendency is to a bad comb, in the other 

 to a bad colour. The result of the cross is 

 therefore very likely to be, in the first progeny, 

 a great deal of reversion to 6ot/i these faults, so 

 sedulously bred out. 



We thus see the importance of finding out 

 that a bird purchased for " fresh blood " is not 

 only good in itself, but the product of a "course 

 of selection" similar to that in the 

 Fresh Blood, home yard ; that it has not only 

 reached about the same point, but 

 reached it in about the same way. It is this 

 which throws light upon a very common disaster, 

 after some rash use of fresh blood from another 

 yard. We find something in our stock needs 

 remedy, though secondary to the all-important 

 point to which our own chief attention has been 

 directed. We find a cockerel that gives us what 

 we want, and also seems all we could wish for 

 in what is to us the all-important point. All, 

 therefore, seems safe, and it may be so — happy 

 for us if it is ! But, on the other hand, the bird 

 may be almost the only one in the other yard 

 that has our own point A near perfection — only 

 a happy and rare exception. If so, we shall 

 have trouble, for his progeny will tend to the 

 more average and lower standard (in that point) 

 of the yard from which he comes. Or the matter 

 may be looked at in another way. The pro- 

 ducts of any carefully bred strain are the 



