196 THE BEGINNER IN POULTRY 



expert to ask whether the appearance of color among 

 his white birds, or of white among those which should 

 not show white, was not sure proof of impurity. It is 

 proof of some sort of a throwback, doubtless. But, if it 

 be true that all our breeds go back to the black-red 

 jungle fowl, who is to say from how far back what seems 

 an abnormality now may come ! 



H. L. Allen, in a sensible article on inbreeding, says : 

 " On the moderate scale which has characterized my own 

 inbreeding operations, I have found line breeding as I 

 have attempted to describe it here a most satisfactory 

 method for producing a flock of birds year after year 

 that will adhere closely to the type desired, and with 

 fewer reversions to the earlier type, which, even in our 

 oldest breeds, was existent not so many years ago." 



General estimate of the value of line breeding has long 

 limited its value to those who were striving to produce 

 fancy stock. As its possibilities open with study, with 

 experiment, and with the discovery of unsuspected laws 

 of breeding, such as Mendel's law, discussed above, 

 poultrymen are beginning to systematize their ideas, and 

 to see that there ought to be possibilities in a breeding 

 law that would help the market poulterer and the egg 

 producer as well as the fancier. In Australia, poultry 

 egg producers have for some time been breeding in line 

 to produce strains of unusually prolific layers. This has 

 worked, along with the competitive tests, to increase the 

 general egg-laying productiveness of Australian birds. 



Over in New Zealand, the man who claims the Indian 

 Runner with the stupendous record of 320 eggs, states 

 that he has not only worked up one strain by line breed- 

 ing, but carries several others of entirely different blood, 



