57 



THE THREE LAWS OR PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING 

 REPRODUCTION. 



Breeders now recognize three laws or principles underlying 

 the whole subject of reproduction. 1. Inheritance. By inher- 

 itance is meant the tendency of parents to repeat themselves 

 in their offspring, and of offspring to resemble their parents. 

 It is because of this law of inheritance that anything like sci- 

 entific breeding is possible. If parents did not have a procliv- 

 ity to repeat themselves in their offspring and if offspring did 

 not have a proclivity to resemble their parents, the breeder 

 might well abandon his task as hopeless. 2. Variation. By 

 variation is meant the tendency of offspring to differ from the 

 parents. The infant is never an exact copy of the father or 

 mother; it possesses an independent individuality of its own. 

 thus the product of A and B is never A or B, even AB or 

 BA; it is AB plus X; in other words there enters in an un- 

 known element to influence the result. It is this law of varia- 

 tion that makes it possible to improve the species ; the parents 

 may be so mated that the offspring will be better and stronger 

 than either one of them. 3. Reversion. There is a propensity 

 to go backward as well as forward to return to some primi- 

 tive type. Where mating is indiscriminate the tendency to re- 

 version is very strong. 



BREED FROM YOUR BEST BIRDS. 



We have now reached the point where it is possible to for- 

 mulate some rules for breeding. The first is this : Breed from 

 your best birds. By best birds I mean birds that will best en- 

 able you to reach your ideal. If your ideal is beauty breed from 

 birds that will give you beauty; if your ideal is utility breed 

 from' birds that will give you utility. We now see why it is 

 so difficult to have a show bird and an egg bird in the same 

 specimen. The breeder must sacrifice somewhere either on 

 the score card or the egg record. It is possible to have a good 

 looker and a good layer in the same bird ; but I do not believe 

 that it is possible to have a bird that will win in Boston, New 

 York or Chicago, and at the same time lay 200 eggs a year. 

 The reader must make his choice. I have made mine. Utility 

 first, beauty afterward. I like to see a beautiful bird as well-as 

 anyone, but I can't afford to breed for plumage and points. 

 My White W T yandottes sometimes show some brass; they 

 stand higher than I like ; but they will lay summer and win- 



