BREEDING, LINE AND IN-BREEDING 47 



When I wanted new blood of late years, I would get a setting 

 of eggs from the best breeder I knew. Select the two pullets from 

 this brood, mate them with one of my own males, and then await 

 results. Some years they would be quite satisfactory; if other- 

 wise, they were consigned to the table and proved delicious eating. 

 When the results were good, I had fine young ones and new blood 

 which I knew would mate with mine and not deteriorate my fowls 

 in regard to looks and standard points, but I could not tell for 

 two years how the laying qualities of the offspring might be af- 

 fected. Here is a place where "close observation" comes in. The 

 pullets were trap-nested for a season, and then if they came up 

 to my ideal I had the satisfaction of knowing I had made another 

 success. This getting in new blood of the same breed is called 

 "out-breeding." 



I know a farmer's wife who had good pure-bred Plymouth 

 Rocks, prize winners. She sent away and bought a first prize win- 

 ner a beautiful cockerel. She thought she would have prize win- 

 ners for the next show, when to her grief she found that all the 

 progeny of that cockerel were disqualified birds. The cockerel did 

 not "nick" with the hens, though they were of the same breed. 

 This out-breeding was a failure. If she thought fresh blood neces- 

 sary, she should have purchased a cockerel from the same breeder 

 of whom she purchased her original flock, and she should have had 

 one that had some of the same blood as the pullets, or if she could 

 not do that, she should have bought a good pullet and mated her 

 to the best male, and if the cockerel from that mating proved good, 

 she could have used one the following year. "Out-breeding" as she 

 did, is a sort of lottery, and one cannot be certain of results. 



Crossing, cross-breeding or out-crossing, all of which mean the 

 same thing, is introducing blood from a distinctly different breed. 

 The first cross will usually give better layers, and occasionally will 

 produce good birds, but the progeny of these will be mongrels un- 

 less a pure-bred male is introduced each year. The new breeds, 

 such as the Orpington, etc., are made by cross-breeding and then by 

 close in-breeding. There is, however, one breed in America which 

 has been made entirely by out-crossing; that is the Rhode Island 

 Reds. This breed has been made by bringing vigorous blood on 

 the male side "Red cocks" from China, Chittagong, Malay, etc., 

 and mating them with the farm fowls of Rhode Island. This out- 

 crossing has produced a breed of great vigor and prolificacy. 

 Crossing as a rule, is not advisable, because one can never be 

 certain which parent the young will resemble; they will be large 

 or small, some of one color, some of another, irregular in maturing 

 and irregular in shape for market. 



However, I knew a farmer's daughter in New York who wished 

 to improve her flock of mongrels of all shapes and colors. She 

 bought a "line-bred" Plymouth Rock cockerel, and the following 

 summer she found that nearly all the young stock had Plymouth 

 Rock markings, even the offspring of the Cochin hens had feathers 

 to their toes. The next year she bought again from the same 



