57 



THE THREE LAWS OR PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING 



REPRODUCTION. 



Breeders now recognize three laws or principles under- 

 lying the whole subject of reproduction, i. Inheritance. By 

 inheritance 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 scientific 

 breeding is possible. If parents did not have a proclivity 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 rhe 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, or even ab or ba; it is ab plus x: in other 

 words there enters in an unknown element to influence the result. 

 It is this law of variation 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 backwards as well as forw&rds to 

 return to some primitive type. Where mating is indiscriminate 

 the tendency to reversion is very strong. 



BREED FROM YOUR BEST BIRDS. 



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

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

 best birds. By best birds I mean birds that will best enable 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 afterwards. I like to see 

 a beautiful bird as well as any one, but I can't afford to breed for 

 plumage and points. My White Wyandottes sometimes show 

 some brass; they stand higher than I like; but they will lay 



