33 



Pair op Ideal Barred Plymouth Rocks 



getting rid of whatever fixed character their fowls possess. The aver- 

 age poultry keeper has a perfect mania for crossing breeds, and nearly 

 always he makes crosses without definite ideas about what he is likely 

 to get or what he wants to get. 



Then not finding the product 

 pleasing he crosses again and 

 again, until, becoming dis- 

 gusted with his chickens, he 

 either leaves them to breed 

 together by chance or gets 

 some new stock and begins 

 another series of crosses. 



Poultry breeding pi'operly 

 consists in the intelligent, sys- 

 tematic mating of fowls to 

 produce progeny havingthe de- 

 sirable qualities of the parents 

 preserved and if possible in- 

 tensified, and the undesirable 

 qualities either reduced or bred out entirel}'. A poultry breeder is not 

 necessarily a fancier or a breeder of thoroughbred stock. One who 

 works systematically and persistently for the development of common 

 or grade stock is really more of a breeder than many growers of 



thoroughbred stock. If his 



ideas are good, and he is 

 reasonably successful in his 

 etForts to realize these ideas 

 in his stock, he accomplishes 

 more than most of those keep- 

 ing thoroughbreds. I have 

 known, first and last, a good 

 many breeders who have 

 made for themselves, from 

 common stock, flocks of fowls 

 in every practical respect equal 

 to average good thorough- 

 breds. They were virtually 

 pure bred, as much so as many 

 of the standard bred stocks. 



But there are two serious 

 objections to working in this 

 way. The first is that it 

 takes very much longer to 

 accomplish any desired re- 

 sults by breeding from com- 

 mon stock than by breeding from thoroughbreds. Though, as has been 

 said, many thoroughbreds are by no means all that they should be, it is 

 always possible to get specimens of some popular thoroughbred variety 

 having the qualities one desires well developed, and from such stock 

 as a foundation a careful breeder can accomplish more in three years 



Pair of Ideal Buff Plymouth Rocks. 



