SECTION II. 

 CHAPTER I. 



BREEDING DOMESTIC FOWLS 



THE advancement, as heretofore related, has been an 

 accomplishment of the "breeder's art," which consists 

 of many methods and systems of selection and mating. 

 Mating By Natural Selection. Prompted by natural in- 

 stincts to reproduce and perpetuate the species, fowls, in the 

 wild state, themselves choose mates of the opposite sex as they 

 will in domestication, if allowed to do so. What attributes or 

 caprice influences this selection is as yet undiscovered by the 

 closest students of the life and habits of either domesticated or 

 wild fowls. Yet, it does seem that the more magnificent and 

 Icrdly males are always surrounded by a flock of admiring and 

 obedient females. If this is the true situation, it is then a wise 

 natural provision, because it means that the strongest, most 

 rugged and vital of the males become the consorts of the females 

 to the exclusion of the weaker. The doctrine of survival of the 

 fittest, then, has a wide reaching influence ; inasmuch as each 

 male consorts with several females comparatively few males are 

 necessary, and only the most select as to physical fitness have an 

 influence upon the progeny. 



The inclination of the male to gather about him a half-dozen, 

 a dozen, or a score of females is, from an economic standpoint, 

 a lasting advantage ; not so much because so few males have to 

 be kept, but because it is necessary to permit only the males that 

 are best from the breeder's standpoint, whether it be for size, 

 egg-producing lineage or brilliant plumage, in the breeding 

 yards. 



Artificial Selection. Promiscuous matings are no longer a 

 feature of our well-conducted, modern poultry establishments, 

 large or small. The intelligent poultryman must supply a prod- 

 uct that measures up to a certain "standard." Whether that 

 "standard" demands a certain number of eggs a year per hen, 

 or eggs of a certain color, or size, or weight ; a fowl that pro- 

 duces a given number of pounds of flesh in a given time, or one 



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