No. 4.] FARM POULTRY. 399 



larly enough to make improvement through natm'al selection. 

 Natural selection, as has been said, does operate in the 

 poultr}^ yard ; but, the lines of progressive development 

 being largely artificial, its general tendency is to retard 

 rather than to accelerate such development. Progress along 

 the artificial lines of development, which have given to 

 domestic plants and animals their peculiar value, may with 

 truth be said to be always the result of design on the part 

 of the breeder, — of design accomplished tlirough inten- 

 tional, intelligent and systematic selection. Wherever you 

 find a really good flock of fowls, though they may be only 

 mongrels, you will find that the man or woman in charge 

 of them has some system of selection which will account for 

 the excellence of the flock. It may not be as comprehensive 

 and thorough as the methods of an expert and critical 

 breeder, and will not make as great improvement or im- 

 prove so rapidlj^, but it will at least save the flock from 

 marked deterioration. 



There are several ways by which a farm flock can be kept 

 up to a very good standard of excellence for practical pur- 

 poses, by just a little effort of the keeper. Thus, where it 

 is the practice to take the eggs used for hatching from the 

 general flock, if, besides reserving his best pullets, the 

 keeper weeds out all the decidedly inferior ones, and uses 

 only well-developed males, any one of which would be con- 

 sidered a desirable breeder, the stock cannot go back very 

 rapidly, even though, as we have seen, there might not be 

 enough of the product in any year from the best birds to 

 strongly impress their quality on the flock. 



It is such selection as this, accompanied by selection of 

 the largest eggs for hatching, that is practised on most 

 farms where some special attention is given the matter of 

 making poultry profitable. It is doubtful whether any 

 marked progress was ever made by such methods, but they 

 are a long way in advance of leaving it all to nature. At 

 best, these methods are crude ; their use under the condi- 

 tions described is illogical. 



The logic of such a situation requires that a poultry keeper, 

 who realizes the importance of reserving his best fowls to 



