FIRST LESSONS IN POULTRY KEEPING. 19 



This group of facts, which is given above as one general fact, Is self-evident to tbe breeder of 

 several years experience, but is so at variance with the common ideas of persons iut familiar 

 with the history and methods of the improvement of domestic animals and plants, that it needs 

 to be specially emphasized here. 



Tbe idea prevails that breeds, varieties, strains and stocks of fowls are fixed, established so 

 well that a poultryman who wishes to use a certain kind of stock has only to get that kind of 

 stock and all will be plain sailing. That this is not the case the novice discovers very early in 

 his work, but too often fails to realize what his discovery means. He frequently blames the 

 breeder of the stock he begins with or the stock itself for unsatisfactory results, tries other stock 

 with similar results, and perhaps repeats the process several times before he discovers our 

 second important general fact, which is: 



That any grade of excellence attained in the breeding of poultry can only be main- 

 tained or excelled by continuing the same careful selection by which such excellence 

 was developed. 



A beginner cannot expect or be expected to do work that will rival that of the experienced 

 breeder in the production of fine fowls, but he may easily produce fowls that if not of high 

 excellence in the special features of their kind are stih good fowls, and using the experience 

 and results of expert breeders and relying upon their advice, he may produce fowls of very 

 good breed or variety type. 



The First Principle. 



The foundation principle in all breeding to type or standard is, "Like begets like." This does 

 not mean that all fowls of one breed or variety are exact duplicates. What it means is, that 

 the qualities and characteristics of each individual fowl are derived from its ancestors and 

 chiefly from its immediate ancestors. 



This is one of those statements which at first may seem so self-evident as to make insistence 

 upon it, or emphasis of the fact it declares absurd. To most beginners it seems like an insult 

 to their intelligence to ask them to give the matter special consideration. But the beginner, no 

 matter how clearly he may see the logic of the statement, cannot understand its real significance 

 until he begins to study fowls for the purpose of mating them to produce what he wants in 

 their progeny. 



Then he finds that with breed resemblances go variety differences, with variety resemblances 

 go strain or family differences, with strain or family resemblances go individual differences. 



These individual differences are of varying character and value, and mark the fowl as an 

 ordinary or a superior or an inferior specimen ; or as ordinary, superior or inferior in a par- 

 ticular character or characters. 



A fowl that is in all points ideal is so rarely produced that practically we do not have to con- 

 sider the production of a union of two ideal specimens. What we have to do is to consider 

 how to get fowls as nearly as possible of the type which is our ideal from fowls which while in 

 a general way of that type depart from it in some particulars. 



In practice the mating of fowls finally becomes a carefully studied system of balancing desir- 

 able and undesirable characters, of offsetting lack of development in a certain feature in one 

 fowl by a full, or perhaps an exaggerated development of that feature in Its mate or mates of 

 the opposite sex, of securing certain points as a result of the union of fowls in which these 

 points differ. All our established breeds and varieties of fowls have been made by breeders 

 working in this way toward common ideals. Fowls that are not pure bred are for the most 

 part results of breeding in which no intelligent selection was used, and as a rule will not trans- 

 mit their characteristics with any such regularity and uniformity as is found even in ordinary 

 thoroughbred stock. Because of this it is much better for a beginner in breeding poultry to 

 begin breeding thoroughbreds than to waste his time with crosses or mongrels. For though 

 the laws of breeding are always the same, the results of these laws in crosses and mixtures are 

 often so confused that the breeder makes no progress either in the development of his stock or 

 in knowledge of the subject. 



Selection of Breeding Stock. 



The first step in breeding upon the principle that like produces like, is the selection of indi- 

 vidual specimens considered most suitable for the production of offspring of the desired type 

 and quality. Selection should be based on the following points: 



