148 POULTRT-CRAFT. 



have in the way of a hen, that is not so poor that for very shame they cannot 

 use her, trusting to a good male to stamp his quality on all the offspring. 

 Thus they lumber their premises with a lot of cull chicks, which over-crowd 

 the better ones, and prevent the few good ones from developing into what 

 they might become if given more room and better care. Others, who breed 

 from several pens, instead of mating best males to best females, make com- 

 promise matings * in order to get more and larger breeding yards ; sacrificing 

 quality to quantity at every point. This is not good breeding, neither is it 

 good business policy. Good breeders breed only from the best of their good 

 birds. 



200. One Law for Fancier and Farmer. The wisdom of close cull- 

 ing in breeding fancy stock is generally admitted, but many amateurs still 

 insist that for them such close culling is impracticable. Most practical breeders, 

 also, do not cull as closely as they should. One who has not much room will 

 say that it is not worth while to take such pains for a few chicks. He ought, 

 rather, to think it most important that none of his limited space be wasted on 

 poor chicks. If he has room to rear chicks, he certainly has room to separate 

 as many of his best hens as are needed to lay the eggs from which to hatch the 

 chicks. One who must rear a large number of chicks will say that if he culls 

 as closely as he knows he ought to, he will not have hens enough to lay the 

 eggs he needs for hatching. That by no means follows. What is more likely 

 to happen is, that with better average breeding stock, less crowded and better 

 cared for, he will rear more and better chicks, though not as many eggs are 

 set. 



201. The Points to be Considered in Selecting, are: Pedigree, 

 Appearance, Performance, Condition. 



202. Pedigree. Good fowls from poor stock are worth little as breeders. 

 Good fowls of unknown ancestry are to be used with extreme caution. Good 

 fowls of known good ancestry are valuable in the breeding yard in proportion 

 as their ancestry was continuously uniformly good, when measured by the 

 standard by which the progeny are to be measured. The mere fact that a 

 fowl is "pedigreed," the names, or band numbers of its ancestors known, is 

 worth nothing at all in breeding. The important thing to know is, how like 

 they were to the desired type, and in what they differed. 



203. Appearance includes Shape, Size and Weight, and Color. Typ- 

 ical shapes of pure bred fowls are shown in the illustrations in Chapter V. In 

 selecting for breeding, the breed type should be followed closely ; departures 

 from it should be made only for the purpose of strengthening a feature in 



* NOTE. Every mating is to some extent a compromise, a balancing of merits and 

 defects. The reference here, however, is to the practice of using birds that for the good 

 of the breed should go to the pot, in extreme matings which produce many birds that 

 look all right, but are of little value as breeders. 



