10 LL55ON5 IN POULTRY KLEPING SLCOND 5LRIL5. 



and thus the number of different kinds and degrees of attributes which the fowl may inherit, 

 are reduced, while its inheritance of qualities common in its ancestry, is increased and intensi- 

 fied. Of course this applies to faults as well as to merits. It is because inbreeding increase* 

 or fixes the faults as well as the excellencies of the line that when it is practiced by those who 

 do not give proper attention to selection to avoid weaknesses, or whose methods of handling 

 fowls are injurious, it may make their stock deteriorate more rapidly than if they were con- 

 stantly bringing in new blood. Indeed the frequent introduction of new blood tends to a gen- 

 eral mediocrity in the stock, without either striking excellence or marked degeneracy in any 

 respect. 



The breeder, however, is not working for mediocrity, but for excellence, and the highest 

 excellence obtainable. To get this experience has demonstrated that inbreeding and very 

 close inbreeding is necessary. 



What is Line Breeding? 



Line breeding may mean many different things. The phrase is used very loosely. It is com- 

 mon in advertisements and circulars. Breedc rs speak of their stock as " line bred," or line bred 

 for so many years. So used the term conveys no definite information. 



In varieties in which special Dialings are used to produce exhibition specimens of the different 

 sexes, each sex is prodifced according to a general system of line breeding, the males and females 

 of the different lines being of distinctly different color types. Often a breeder of such varieties, 

 speaking of his stock as bred in line means only that his stock has been bred always from bird* 

 of the appropriate type and general line of breeding. 



Again, when a breeder says he breeds in line he may mean only that his present stock con- 

 tains some of the same blood as that with which he started, or as that from which he dates hi* 

 line breeding. The stock may not have been bred at all systematically, but he calls it line bred 

 because he can follow a certain line of blood back through it. 



But systematic or " scientific-' line breeding is something quite different. As a rule it begins- 

 in the discovery of a single bird of unusual excellence and breeding power, or prepotency. 

 The breeder who is intelligently seeking for certain results may make many efforts to start a 

 satisfactory line of breeding, but not until he begins to get satisfactory results does he settle 

 down to one line. The others are merely tentative. 



Having produced, or procured, and discovered through its progeny a specimen fit to become 

 the head of a line, the breeder proceeds systematically to perpetuate this line. He studies to 

 get the type of the opposite sex best suited to use with his phenomenal bird to reproduce its 

 excellencies. Its finest offspring of the same sex especially are mated as far as possible to main- 

 tain in at least a few of each generation the highest possible development of the excellence 

 reached in it. At the same time other matings are made both along the same blood lines, and 

 with promising combinations, that in case at any time tie main line, or the direct line as main- 

 tained in the finest breeding specimens in each generation should prove unsatisfactory or need 

 reinforcement of the same line of blood, there may be abundant material from which to select. 



Breeding in this way many of our best breeders continue a single line of breeding through 

 many years. Sometimes it is a male line that is kept unbroken ; sometimes a female line. Some- 

 times there is not direct continuity in either male or female line, but an irregular alternation 

 according to the judgment of the breeder as to the best way to use available birds. 



Rarely is the breeding according to a prearranged schedule. Results of matings are too 

 uncertain for that. The successful matings, however, and those which produced birds whioh 

 became of importance in their line are a matter of records, which constitute in a general way 

 the pedigree chart of the stock. This, briefly, is line breeding as practiced by the most succes- 

 ful breeders and fanciers. They breed closely, often breeding in and in, again and again, but 

 always intent on the points of excellence they prize most, and never maintaining a line inereiy 

 for the sake of continuing it. As I stated at the outset, with the intelligent breeder a system 

 is a means to an end, and any special system or line of matings is to be followed only as long as 

 it appears to be the best means to gain the ends sought. 



