LINE BREEDING AND MENDEL'S LAW 191 



follow line breeding," says one enthusiast. It enables 

 the breeder to add, at any time, from one sixteenth to 

 eleven sixteenths of the blood of either parent, and he 

 can mate the original blood as it appears in descendants 

 who are one half of each. Perhaps the most difficult 

 part of the whole work is in keeping the pedigree and 

 marking records exact and complete. 



Double mating has long been the hoodoo of the Be- 

 ginner ; and this, despite the fact that leading breeders 

 are fast to say that there is no other way to produce 

 winners of both sexes in parti-colored breeds. Double 

 mating means that different types of birds are used to 

 produce exhibition males and exhibition females. It also 

 means that half the birds in each mating (the females, 

 when one has a cockerel mating, etc.) are rank culls. It 

 also means many more pens, more complexity, many more 

 sets of birds, because the exhibition male is not fit for the 

 breeding pen, in many cases. It means disaster to the 

 Beginner, unless he can put himself into the hands of a 

 reliable breeder, who will mate birds for him and coach 

 him as to how he shall mate the progeny. The Beginner 

 who buys birds of unknown breeding, because they look 

 well, has a worse proposition than any in mathematics. 

 If they have been double mated, and he mates good birds 

 with good birds expecting to get good birds of both sexes, 

 he gets chaos ! And this both of mind and of stock. 

 For every breed in which double mating is practiced, the 

 rules for mating must be carefully learned. To learn as 

 one goes along will take a lifetime. The Beginner's 

 only safety is in learning all he can about double mating 

 before buying, and then buying from a breeder of probity 

 who will assist him toward success. 



