GO AMERICAN POULTRY ASSOCIATION 



have been inferred from several of the foregoing passages. The 

 necessity of that quality described by such terms as health, vigor, 

 stamina, hardiness, ruggedness and several more, perhaps, is so 

 generally understood and recognized that it requires little more 

 than passing notice here. 



It is also thoroughly understood that this quality is just as 

 vitally essential in the yards of the most exclusive fancier, who 

 rears but a few choice birds each season, as on the farm of the 

 commercial breeder who raises his flock for the number of eggs 

 it produces or the number of pounds of flesh ; the first cannot 

 perpetuate his flock to reincarnate the ideals of his dreams, the 

 second cannot produce the eggs or the pounds of flesh without 

 fowls of rugged constitutions, which must prevail in the stock. 

 To maintain health in a flock and to hatch chicks that inherit a 

 strong vital force, weak birds must not be admitted to the breed- 

 ing yards. That is, to maintain constitutional vigor in your 

 flock, select as breeders those birds that possess that essential 

 quality. 



The strongest constitutions may be undermined by injudi- 

 cious feeding, by undue exposures, poor sanitation and poor man- 

 agement generally. These are topics taken up in a later chapter 

 in this work. 



