No. 4.] FARM POULTRY. 397 



which we now group together as the American class was 

 done. These are what are called "made" breeds. In one 

 sense, all breeds are made breeds ; but we don't know that 

 any one ever deliberately went to work to make the Light 

 Brahma, or the Black Spanish, or the Dorking, or the 

 Houdan, while these American breeds, with a possible ex- 

 ception, Avere "made to order." The Barred Plymouth 

 Rock, the oldest of them, has been before the public only 

 about thirty years. 



Varieties so widely popular as the White Wyandotte and 

 the White Pl}^Tnouth Rock were very new ten or twelve 

 years ago. Buif Plymouth Rocks and Buif Wyandottes 

 may be said to have been made within ten \'ears ; and the 

 exhibition Rhode Island Red is of even more recent manu- 

 facture. In developing all of these varieties the elementary 

 rule has been : careful selection of breeding stock, for the 

 purpose of producing fowls of a certain ideal type, which 

 ideal type, though not uniform in the minds of all the 

 breeders, was far more uniform than the fowls themselves, 

 and very much in advance of the actual results obtained. 



Coming now to the direct application of the principle of 

 selection in poultry breeding to methods of farm poultry 

 keeping, let us begin with the consideration of the condi- 

 tions on farms — that is, on ordinary farms. 



There are a great many farm poultry keepers who, while 

 recognizing the uses of selection, do not see how necessary 

 it is that they should take specific measures to insure that a 

 right selection is actually accomplished. 



It is often said that natural selection is constantly working 

 for the improvement of every stock of poultry, even when 

 the owner makes no special eflbrts for improvement. It is 

 argued that, as the best and most vigorous males fertilize 

 the most eggs, and the best hens lay the most eggs, the 

 greater part of the chicks produced each year must necessa- 

 rily be from the best of the stock ; and thus there will be 

 constant improvement. This looks plausible, but the argu- 

 ment goes to pieces as soon as we begin to examine it. 



To my mind, a sufficient answer to it is found in the fact 

 that flocks of poultry left to improve in that way invariably 



