14 POULTRY BREEDING AND MANAGEMENT 



are two kinds of selection, one he calls " unconscious, " the 

 other "methodical." To the former he credits, in large 

 part, the evolution of the fowl. The fancier who in spirit of 

 rivalry tries to excel his neighbor by breeding from his best 

 bird, without any attempt to establish a new breed or to 

 preserve some new characteristic, or improve the breed, is 

 practicing unconscious selection. There has always been a 

 standard of excellence, written or unwritten, and fanciers 

 or poultry breeders have been unconsciously following it 

 throughout the centuries. Methodical selection, on the other 

 hand, has to do with the making of breeds and the fixing of 

 new and desirable characteristics. This pre-supposes a 

 knowledge on the part of the breeder of the principles of 

 breeding. According to Darwin, unconscious selection has 

 done more for the improvement of fowls because it has been 

 at work longer than methodical selection. 



The breeder who follows methodical selection is constant- 

 ly on the lookout for new and valuable characteristics. He 

 is not satisfied with following a standard of excellence ; he 

 sets up a new and higher standard ; he believes in progress. 

 While the man who is content to beat his neighbor in the show 

 room and discards everything in his breeding pen that does 

 not conform to the standard set up for prize-winners, the 

 man who follows methodical selection would often achieve 

 his highest purpose by breeding for characteristics or type 

 that would have no standing in the show room. He is look- 

 ing for ' i sports " or " mutants ' ' along certain lines and when 

 they appear he makes them the basis of his breeding opera- 

 tions. 



"Whether the improvement or evolution of the fowl is due 

 more to one or the other method of selection, it would have 

 been clearly impossible to evolve the fowl as we now have 

 it if, in the early centuries, an arbitrary standard had been 

 set up and all breeding made to follow along that line. 



