44 THE AMERICAN BREEDS OF POULTRY 



in type, so beautifully marked and precisely colored that even his own 

 friends are reported to have doubted his ability to produce such won- 

 drous lilliputians of the feathered tribe, and to have stated openly 

 that he must have imported them from some foreign land. 



It is selection that has enabled the Polled Hereford breeders to 

 breed the horns off Hereford cattle within a single decade something 

 that nature had not done in all the centuries. It was intelligently 

 directed selection that established the American breeds and arranged 

 in order that medley of heredity and variation that arose when the 

 Asiatic and European stock was crossed. 



Selection is not new. It is recorded that the ancient Chinese 

 sought to improve their sheep by choosing with particular care the 

 lambs that were to be used for breeding, in nourishing them well, 

 and keeping the flocks separate. They practiced the selection of rice 

 seed of large size. The phaeony tree has been cultivated, according 

 to Chinese traditions, for fourteen hundred years. 



The propagation of plants and the domestication of animals is 

 one of the oldest pursuits of man. When the human race entered the 

 agricultural stage it could not have been long in learning that what 

 it sowed, that likewise did it reap. The appearance and very exist- 

 ence of his food became the result of man's own act. It is not 

 improbable that the cock that made a successful growth and attained 

 a maximum development against the one that made a moderate and 

 indifferent growth, has long been selected for the stud. It is said that 

 the Fuegian, possessing but the small intellectual attainments of the 

 south sea savages, practices selection in the breeding of his dogs, 

 and if he has "a large, strong and active bitch" he puts her to a fine 

 dog and takes care to feed her well, "that the young may be strong 

 and well favored." 



Natural selection. Man works quickly by consciously making 

 selections of the best and most desired type. It is important, how- 

 ever, to realize that while man on this earth is loose in a portion 

 of the Creator's workshop and is endowed with a brain that aspires 

 and still aspires, he has only limited dominion. In addition to his 

 artificial selections, natural selection, or the survival of the fittest, is 

 working all the while. The breeder is on safe ground only as long 

 as he works in harmony with nature, who always is seeking to keep 

 the domesticated races from becoming enfeebled; and if the breeder 

 disregards the fundamental biological factors of constitutional vigor 

 and by careful selection perpetuates a short type of Wyandotte, or 

 effeminate type of Bantam, natural selection steps in and decreases 

 fertility. It is important, therefore, that all ideals should be sound, 

 that they should represent the most useful and productive types. 



Inbreeding. Having an understanding of type which is funda- 

 mental in breeding, the breeder makes selections of this type from 

 year to year, and practices inbreeding, that variability from the 

 desired type may be reduced. The very word "inbreeding" is highly 



