172 AMERICAN POULTRY ASSOCIATION 



practiced without interruption for years that they have been 

 developed. 



Mating number five, by which the excellent females of the 

 present day have been produced is also criticized severely with 

 the statement, "This is or should be the same as number four," 

 a Standard mating which is and always has been a most pro- 

 nounced failure from the beginning in producing exhibition 

 birds of either sex. 



One fact that these quotations from the early works does 

 bring out clearly is the importance placed upon breeding Plym- 

 outh Rocks with clear yellow legs. Breeders of the present day 

 are fully aware of the fact that color cannot be bred entirely 

 out of the shanks and toes and still bred in the feather in all its 

 intensity and beauty. 



The quotations preceding serve one good purpose, that of 

 giving quite an adequate conception of the many and varied 

 methods and systems resorted to in order to breed males and 

 females that matched in color. One by one they prove them- 

 selves worthless. All that survive are number three and number 

 five, according to Corbett, and these are exactly what we are 

 using today, known as the double-mating system, one mating to 

 produce exhibition males and one to produce exhibition females. 



CHAPTER II. 







MATINGS TO PRODUCE EXHIBITION MALES 



Matings for this purpose are popularly called cockerel 

 matings and consist of cockerel-bred males and females, so- 

 called. A cockerel-bred male- is an exhibition male, or at least 

 one of exhibition or standard color. (In accepting this definition 

 or rule the reader must allow two exceptions or modifications ; 

 first, that the term standard color must have general rather than 

 special application that is, some range of shades must be 

 allowed ; second, males bred from strictly cockerel matings would 

 be classed as cockerel-bred. In some cases males considerably 

 lighter and in other cases males very much darker than Standard 

 are produced from matings that are of the cockerel line.) 



A cockerel-bred female is the daughter of an exhibition or 

 standard colored male. 



