40 



THE LEGHORN'S 



breeding, that was the result of line inbreeding good fe- 

 males for a series of generations, no matter how said male 

 looked. Particularly was he indifferent to how far he 

 failed to line up to the then accepted idea of how a pullet 

 line male should look. What selec.ing he did, he did be- 

 fore the future sire was six weeks old. He so strongly 

 believed in his theory that one year finding only one baby 

 cockerel to suit him, he destroyed all the rest. The baby 

 cockerel that was to be a future sire had to have the real, 

 soft, brown color and be linely and evenly stippled all. 

 over. Such birds were not plenty, but after some years of 

 breeding such and such only, some of these baby cock- 

 erels would carry these stippled and soft brown feathers 

 in back, wing and saddle hangers even into adult plumage. 



Two Lines of Blood 

 On our place at Alientown, every hen was trap-nested 

 and a strict and honest pedigree was kept, not necessarily 

 for publication but for our own protection and advance- 

 ment. The interesting fact developed that while this orig- 

 inal hen and much of her get were strongly prepotent or 

 bad in them the ability to breed on, there were really two 

 lines of blood in the family — what might be called a pre- 

 dominant line and a dormant line. Whenever this dor- 

 mant line asserted itself there was a marked difference in 

 the shade of color and the quality of the stippling and 

 curiously enough usually a variation from the type. The 

 predominant line also frequently split up and gave an ofT- 

 •colored specimen. Knowing intimately ail the history of 

 this family I believe I can explain these marked variations. 



WINNING BROWN LEGHORN HEN 

 One of the most remarkable Brown Leghorn hens in color markings 



To start with, there was undoubtedly a dash of cockerel 

 line blood in the make-up of the original mother hen and 

 in a future generation a half-blood male of the family was 

 used. The explanation of why the party who got the bulk 

 of Mr. Morris" famous and unrivaled string of Madison 

 Square Garden winning females never accomplished much, 

 is that he had such a male only. 



The males of this line were most decidedly not much 

 to look at. "In all the good ones the black was entirely 

 lacking in lustre and of a peculiar quality readily recog- 

 nized by the initiated. Many of them had no red in the 

 wing-bows and altogether they were an unlikely looking 

 lot. Inbreeding of the deepest kind made little or no 

 color changes in these males, while intelligent selection 

 coupled with the strict and glaring white light of the trap- 

 nest steadily continued to improve and refine the females. 

 "Orange II," a male direct from Mr. Morris and the 

 twice inbred son of the original hen, on his looks, would 

 not have sold for $2.00, yet, without a question, he was 

 the strongest sire in his variety, that ever lived. Bred 

 back to his own daughters down to the third generation 

 the zenith of his breeding powers was reached in the sum- 

 mer of 1904. In the fall of that year the writer had 

 gathered together on one run forty-two selected pullets, 

 every one of which was a star. Running with them were 

 a few extra choice old hens, including the old original hen 

 then still living in fine health, but no longer laying. Such 

 a bunch of superbly colored Brown Leghorn females had 

 never been gathered together before and perhaps never 

 will be again. Many of the pullets were on the point of 

 starting laying. All of them died of 

 criminal poisoning, most of them 

 being dead before the act was discov- 

 ered. Although this reason was never 

 given, it was the real reason why the 

 business was sold to Exmoor Farms 

 in December. The latter a few weeks 

 later won first, second and third in 

 both hen and pullet classes at N. Y. 

 Throughout his breeding opera- 

 tions with Brown Leghorns the 

 writer never allowed himself to be 

 scared into discarding a breeder with 

 a white tip or even occasionally with 

 white undercolor. Being an inbreeder 

 of the deepest dye he was only afraid 

 of lowered vitality, being well aware 

 that burning a candle at both ends 

 was suicide. Hence white flights and 

 white tips were to him merely a re- 

 minder that he had sinned somewhere 

 in the handling or feeding. Another 

 thing he will always regret, that it 

 was not until in the winter of 1900 

 that he began to appreciate the value 

 of cold, fresh air on the color and 

 plumage of Brown Leghorns. 



Color disqualifications should be 

 removed from Brown Leghorns and 

 the writer is unqualifiedly committed 

 to working towards this end. For in- 

 stance, a male with a green stripe 

 and a tail showing green lustre with 

 a white undercolor, is a hundred times 

 more beautiful and valuable than a 

 dingy purple and purple barred one — 

 a kind all too common in the sho.v 

 room of today. 



