No. 4.] FARM POULTRY. 7 



from scrub cattle. Poor seed means a poor crop, and the plant- 

 ing of fruit trees of unknown varieties or seedling stock is not 

 good business. The same is true of poultry just as much as in 

 any other branch of farming. Good stock is the foundation. 

 No matter how well fed and housed, nor how faithful and care- 

 ful the attendant may be, the best success is not obtained 

 without foundation stock of good breeding. 



Study the kind of product your market demands, and then 

 breed to please the buyer. I take it that you have here a good 

 market for both meat and eggs. This means a discussion of 

 the breeding of the dual-purpose hen, or what may be termed 

 the American breeds in general. No doubt some of you may 

 breed especially for egg production, and others breed largely for 

 flesh production. The same general ideas, I think, will apply 

 in all cases. 



A study of European markets, and to some extent home 

 markets, indicates that in the production of a high-class article 

 uniformity is of prime importance. The uniformity of the goods 

 shipped by Denmark makes a market for Danish produce. A 

 farmer who has a reputation of producing a uniform good class 

 of produce, whose produce is dependable, has less difficulty in 

 selling, and ordinarily gets a premium price. He produces a 

 uniform, dependable article. Uniformity in dressed poultry is 

 not secured from scrub stock, and at times not from pure-bred 

 stock; the same, in a measure, applies to size and color of eggs. 

 In order to produce a uniform product it is necessary to study 

 some of the underlying principles of breeding. With your per- 

 mission I wish to show illustrations of some of the things that 

 happen in breeding, also to discuss for a few moments some 

 common practices in breeding. I am not a biologist, but I am 

 interested in practical breeding, and therefore study as a 

 common layman, and endeavor to try out in a practical way 

 what science tells us. The art of poultry breeding is science 

 applied. The first thing to do is to select pure-bred birds of 

 the type or shape desired. If these cannot be found it may, in 

 special instances, be desirable to cross breeds. In selecting 

 breeding birds constitution or vigor is of first importance; it is 

 the mainspring of the works, so to speak. Then we may select 

 as to shape, size, egg production, color of skin and plumage, and 



