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principle. Many seem to appreciate the necessity of careful selec- 

 tion to develop a breed and bring it up to a certain standard, but 

 not to realize so well that just as careful selection is required to 

 keep a flock of thoroughbred fowls up to the average of improved 

 stock of their kind. This is because they do not realize how highly 

 artificial is the development of all improved races of fowls ; how, 

 under the unrestrained influence of natural selection, these fowls 

 would have developed quite differently ; and how the natural ten- 

 dencies begin to assert themselves the moment the breeder relaxes 

 in the least his effort to keep his stock at the highest point of de- 

 velopment. 



Natural selection is, as a rule, unable to make use of marked 

 deviations from established types, or to preserve variations which, 

 however desirable in themselves, would diminish a fowl's chances 

 of living and perpetuating its kind. Artificial selection is not so 

 limited. Almost the only limitation imposed upon it is when ex- 

 cessive development of one quality or characteristic destroys, as it 

 were, the equilibrium of the organism as a whole. Even under 

 such abnormal conditions, it can often be carried to an extreme 

 which, when we consider the original devolopment of the feature 

 concerned, is simply wonderful. Many of the features most prized 

 by those who value fancy points first, and some of those most val- 

 ued by those who keep fowls for economic purposes, could never 

 have been developed under natural conditions. Of such are the 

 abnormal developments of comb and crest in Minorcas and Hou- 

 dans, and the extremely long and abundant feathers on some of 

 the Asiatics. To the farmer who sees them, these monstrous de- 

 velopments are usually objects of ridicule ; yet in one way at least 

 they may be useful to him. From the possibility of maintaining 

 these extreme forms the poultry breeder who keeps to more rational 

 lines may be convinced of the certainty that he can get and keep 

 any reasonable degree of development of a feature or quality which 

 he desires in his stock. 



We may be able to get a still better — a broader — idea of the 

 value of this principle of selection, if we reflect on how well and 

 how quickly the work of making the breeds which we now group 

 together as the American class was done. These are what are 

 called " made " breeds. In one sense, all breeds are made breeds ; 

 but we don't know that any one ever deliberately went to work to 

 make the Light Brahma, or the Black Spanish, or the Dorking, or 

 the Houdan, while these American breeds, with a possible excep- 

 tion, were "made to order." The Barred Plymouth Rock, the 

 oldest of them, has been before the public only about thirty years. 



Varieties so widely popular as the White Wyandotte and the 



