144 THE PRACTICAL POULTRY KEEPER. 



only needs toleration for exhibition of slightly ticked or 

 laced breast in the cockerel, to breed both from one pen.* 

 The present plan, also, only secures lighter ground-colour 

 by the loss of another beautiful point, for the pullets are 

 gradually now losing that striping of the hackle which used 

 to be such a beauty in the dark Brahma, a bastard transverse 

 "pencillirg" taking its place. We cannot, however, enter 

 further into this here, and only point out the principle of 

 this division of the sexes in breeding. 



It is well worth while to add, that exactly the same 

 procedure will develop any quality in fowls, such as that of 

 laying. Here the procedure is simplicity itself. It is only 

 to hatch chickens from eggs of the selected best layers, and 

 in successive generations to match the best laying pullets of 

 the progeny with cockerels also the progeny of the best 

 layers. This has for years been done on American poultry 

 farms, with the result of raising the egg-product in some 

 cases to 175 per bird over a large number. Only lately the 

 same methods, which we have explained over and over again 

 from thirty years ago, are being carried out in England, 

 and with rapid approach towards the same results. 



We hope that this chapter will make clear what an 

 amount of intellectual gratification, quite apart from success 

 at exhibitions, is to be derived from watching the steady 

 progress of a strain towards a determined point. Also how 

 the individuality of a breeder must become ultimately 

 stamped upon it, so that his birds can be distinguished, and 

 become known as his. This strange power man possesses ol 



* The cockerel with which we won the cup at the Crystal Palace and 

 Birmingham in 1872 was perfectly black-breasted, and only a little laced on 

 the fluff. Claimed at Birmingham by Messrs. Newnham Manby, he was 

 the progenitor, as is well known, of the most uniform and remarkable lot of 

 pullets ever sent out of one yard. But the accepted pullet colour then was 

 perceptibly richer in tone than now. 



