BREEDING AND CROSS-BREEDING, 253 
line. It is best, if possible, to have the pick of a large 
flock, and to choose the males, not for fancy points, but 
for the degree in which they possess the typical qualities 
of the breed. Select from the best egg-laying strain, 
not necessarily from the flock which has taken the most 
prizes in the poultry shows. Care of the breeding stock 
8 very important; good feeding will improve the quali- 
ties of any strain. The older breeds will impress their 
characteristics more strongly than those which have 
been more lately originated. The oldest breeds, like 
the Black Spanish and Games, are likely to be weakened 
by excessive inbreeding, in some strains, and should be 
selected with special attention to health and vigor. 
SYSTEMATIC CROSS-BREEDING. 
The continual advocacy of fancy poultry for common 
farm use is an error. The poultry papers, and most 
agricultural papers, advise the breeding of certain pure 
breeds, as if they possessed merits far superior to the 
barn-door fowls and common poultry. This is a mis- 
take. No one advocates the use of thoroughbred horses, 
well-bred trotters, pure Percherons or Clydes, pure-bred 
pigs, or sheep, or cattle, to the exclusion of common 
ones, but farmers are urged to improve their common 
stock by breeding up, by gradually introducing better 
blood, and breeding with some definite aim. Thus, our 
common mixed sheep, which are regular breeders, good 
mothers, and have plenty of milk, are crossed with pure 
rams of one of the established breeds. It size is wanted, 
with long wool, the Cotswold is perhaps employed ; if the 
wool is to be improved in fineness without so much 
reference to the mutton, one of the Merino breeds will 
be selected ; while if early lambs of fine quality are de- 
sired, one of the Down breeds is chosen by the raiser. 
This is precisely the course which should be followed by 
farmers in poultry raising. The advantage of grading 
