400 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



breed from, should make sm'e that it is only the eggs of his 

 best hens, fertilized by his best males, that are used for in- 

 cubation. The logic of the situation requires that a poultry 

 keeper who thinks it worth while to select the best eggs for 

 incubation should, sooner or later, come to consider it neces- 

 sary to know that these eggs were from hens possessing the 

 other (jualities ju'lzed, and fertilized by males most suitable 

 for mating with these })articular hens. Selection is not com- 

 plete if it stops short of the separation of the fowls selected, 

 — unless the whole flock is select, — a thing which does not 

 often happen. It is in failhig to make selection complete 

 and efiective by separation that nine-tenths of the poultry 

 keepers who do not breed for fancy points make one of 

 their most serious mistakes. Separation would not be so 

 necessary if the whole flock were needed to produce the 

 number of chicks wanted. In that case, it would be simply 

 a question whether the additional product secured by using 

 the poorer as well as the better breeding birds would add 

 to the profit. But, with the exception of those who sell 

 eggs for hatching, there are few poultry keepers who could 

 not get all the eggs needed for incubation from a small part 

 of their flock. In that case, it certainly seems the best 

 policy to use for breeding purposes onl}^ as many of the 

 choicest of the flock as are really required. Then, even 

 though it may sometimes happen that the best hens do not 

 furnish eggs when most wanted, the poultry keeper can 

 know that he is using the best eggs available, and using 

 none from inferior hens. 



Suppose that there is on a certain farm a flock of one 

 hundred hens ; that this is the amount of the laying stock 

 usually carried ; and that each year about three hundred 

 chicks are raised. It would be possible to produce all these 

 chicks from a half a dozen hens. That, however, would be 

 much better than average results. A dozen hens can produce 

 the eggs for these chicks, and do it handil3^ Is it not, from 

 every consideration, better to have all the chicks from the 

 twelve best hens than to have only ten or fifteen per cent 

 of chicks from hens of this quality and eighty-five or ninety 

 per cent from the rest of the flock ? 



