59 



This whole subject of crossing needs to be better understood. 

 Some good must come from crossing, or it would not be so uni- 

 versally practiced. Where does it come from? It comes from 

 the invigoration that always follows the introduction of new 

 blood. The cross-breed pullet lays better than its mother because 

 it is larger and stronger it can eat and assimilate more and stand 

 the strain of egg production better. The average farmer's flock 

 is constantly running out. He does not breed from his best. The 

 introduction of new blood counteracts this tendency. Conse- 

 quently the farmer is converted to a belief in the superiority of 

 the cross. 



But when you go beyond the first cross when you criss-cross, 

 as they say you strike another tendency the tendency to 

 reversion. The mixing up of bloods results in bringing out 

 ancestral characters. The criss-cross is not far removed from 

 the red jungle fowl, and there inevitably comes a drop in egg 

 production. 



All the valuable results that come from crossing can be 

 secured by the occasional infusion of new blood from a male of 

 the same breed as your own, and the breed may be kept pure. It 

 is not necessary to introduce new blood oftener than once in two 

 years. Suppose you send away for a cockerel this fall. The first 

 mating will be with birds with which he is entirely unrelated. 

 Next fall mate him to the best pullets of his own get, and take the 

 best cockerel to mate with the hens in the other breeding pen. If 

 you find a strain of birds that you like follow along with the 

 breeder, getting a male from his yards every two years. 



Breeders for fancy points breed in and in, and have a chart of 

 matings that is as intricate as a bicycle road map. It is impossi- 

 ble to produce show birds that will win in the hottest competition 

 without in and in breeding. But the reader of this book has no 

 necessity to resort to any such procedure that is, if he is after 

 eggs first and not feathers and frills. 



FERTILE EGGS AND HOW TO GET THEM. 

 To get fertile eggs three things are necessary maturity, vital- 

 ity, comfort. The conditions in the breeding pen must be such as 

 to promote maximum vitality. Where the male is immature, 

 where the house is so cold that all the food eaten goes to main- 

 tain the caloric, where the fowls are alive with vermin or rotten with 



