104 AX EGG FAKM. 



tion enough, but the average hight of its men would be 

 less than if the selection had not been handicapped by 

 the specifications we have supposed. 



Apply the same reasoning to cattle. The Jerseys are 

 now of every imaginable color solid, broken, black, 

 white, red, fawn, brown, roan, buff, spotted, brindled, 

 ring-streaked, speckled and grizzled. Suppose it were 

 desired to select breeders for a hundred years from all 

 the pure Jerseys in the world to produce a strain of the 

 largest sized, pure-bred animals possible. Two entirely 

 separate herds are to be built up, neither of which shall 

 draw from the other, but each to draw freely from the 

 whole world beside. One herd must be produced of the 

 greatest sized animals possible and all of a solid bay, 

 and the other herd of the greatest sized animals possible, 

 but entirely irrespective of color. Which herd, at the 

 end of one hundred years, other things being equal, 

 would contain the largest cattle ? 



A drawback to the Leghorn family is the great size of 

 combs and wattles. Possibly this trait may be gradually 

 bred out in time without impairing the useful traits of 

 the breed, but it is doubtful. It has been noticed that 

 the most yigorous birds and the best layers have these 

 appendages the most fully developed, and it is probable 

 that in the Mediterranean regions, where they originated 

 and where they were bred at the monasteries for cen- 

 turies, the monks of the middle ages being enthusiastic 

 poultry fanciers, and the breed being extremely ancient, 

 the conscious selection of the best layers for breeders 

 resulted unwittingly in the selection of birds with the 

 biggest combs, 



Or, the mere fact of the keeping of the breed un- 

 mixed for hundreds of years, would, of itself, have 

 resulted in a large combed breed, even if the keep- 

 ers were not consciously selecting eggs for hatching 

 from the best layers (if large combs and prolificness 



