POULTRY BREEDING. 263 



GENERAL POINTS REGARDING PEDIGREE RECORDS. 



For keeping the pedigree records in the breeding work of 

 the Station the loose leaf system has been adopted. All records 

 are kept on sheets of uniform size (5x8 inches) which are 

 readily removed or inserted in a patent type of binder which is 

 used. After examining into the relative merits of loose leaf 

 and card systems and seeing both in operation in the keeping of 

 laboratory records it was decided that the loose leaf system 

 possesses distinct advantages over the card system for the keep- 

 ing of pedigree records. Some of these points of advantage 

 may be enumerated. Perhaps most important of all is the 

 greater compactness and portability of records kept on a loose 

 leaf system. A record book 5x8 inches in size is much more 

 easily carried about from incubator cellar to breeding pens or 

 laboratory than is a tray containing index cards. Furthermore 

 the thin paper of the loose leaf sheets keeps down the bulk of 

 the records to a minimum as they accumulate. The supposed 

 inferiority of the loose leaf system as compared with the card 

 system in the matter of inserting or removing sheets has been 

 found in actual experience to be imaginary rather than real. 

 The sheets can be inserted or removed from a loose leaf binder 

 just as quickly as cards can be taken from a drawer in which 

 they are locked. 



In keeping the records sheets of different colors are used for 

 different specific classes of data. For example, the mating 

 sheets (cf., p. 264 below) are printed on orange paper; incu- 

 bator records on pink paper; autopsy records on blue paper, 

 and so on. This point of using different colored sheets for 

 different parts of the records is a valuable aid in quickness of 

 reference. 



It will be noted in the account of the system of record keep- 

 ing which follows that an effort is made at every possible point 

 to make the numerical features of the records run in continuous 

 series. This is a very important matter, although it might not 

 he so considered by one who had not had experience in this 

 particular kind of work. If any system of keeping pedigree 

 records is used which involves giving the chicks when they are 

 hatched band numbers which do not run in consecutive series 

 it will be necessary to stamp with a die the leg band for each 



