72 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Question. Do you have any difficulty in hatching chickens 

 from the eggs that are laid by the Asiatics? 



Mr. Felcii. That is the danger of the whole business. 

 They sometimes become so very fat, that it will be almost 

 impossible to hatch an egg from them. Turn them right out 

 and give them food that will not fat them, and you will find 

 that the eggs will hatch well. 



Mr. Hersey of Hingham. Mr. Felch says that close breed- 

 ing in and in tends to sterility. I would like to inquire if he 

 has had any actual tests of this, and if so, what difficulties 

 he has encountered. 



Mr. Felch. What I mean by in-and-in breeding is breed- 

 ing birds of the same blood or pedigree together. I always 

 take pains when I am breeding in line, "breeding in," as I 

 term it, to so mate that there will be a change of blood, and 

 secure the chick in blood different from sire and dam. It 

 is always better to breed back to the sire than to breed the 

 chicks together. When introducing a new element of blood, 

 I find oftentimes that this works well. That is a rule I have 

 followed for twenty years. I believe I was one of the first 

 to adopt this course. I never buy a male bird, and conse- 

 quently I have been obliged to make this new blood for scores 

 of others ; and when I buy a new bird, I treat it in that way, 

 breeding the pullets of the first cross right back to a sire of 

 that strain, and never use a male bird until I have reduced 

 the foreign blood to one-eighth. Now, if you breed in and 

 in for three generations, that is, breed brothers and sisters, 

 in three generations it will be almost impossible to hatch an 



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Mr. Hersey. Have you had any actual tests of it? 



Mr. Felch. Yes, sir ; I believe, as a rule, the statement I 

 make will hold good. There maybe exceptions; there are 

 exceptions to all rules. But I think if any one follows that 

 rule, so that he will know exactly what he is doing, he will 

 find that I am correct. But the fact is, a great many don't 

 know r . They will have a flock of birds, and they will save a 

 young cockerel from them and breed from them, thinking 

 they are all of one blood. If they will start from one single 

 dam and breed her chickens together, and their chickens, and 

 then a third lot, I am quite sure you will reach a point where 



