A POULTRY COMPENDIUM. 21 



death lies that way. This will lead you to carefully 

 balance the advantages with the disadvantages, and you 

 will not be likely to allow small advantages to lead you 

 far into a course which is so fraught with danger. 



7. The hen leaves the greatest impress upon her own 

 chickens, but the cock leaves his impress upon the great- 

 est number. If you are trying to reach the highest de- 

 gree of excellence in a few chicks, the hen is of more 

 importance than the cock ; if you desire to obtain the 

 highest average results, the cock is of the greater impor- 

 tance. According as your aim is will be your selection, 

 if either the male or the female must be the inferior. 

 The best rule is to have them both superior, 



8. Weight, easiness to fatten, rapidity of growth, fe- 

 cundity, are all qualities which can be bred, as well as 

 those outward qualities — the shape and size of combs, 

 colot of ear-lobes, and markings of plumage. The first 

 are intrinsic, the second extrinsic qualities. If one class 

 of qualities must be sacrificed, it is better that it be the 

 latter, but with time and care both may be united. 

 Prolificacy is no more intangible a quality in a hen than 

 speed is in a horse, and we know in these days, when 

 the seconds, which separate a horse's record from two 

 minutes, are a constantly diminishing quantity, what blood 

 and breeding will do in this respect ; nor is it more in- 

 tangible than the milk-giving or butter-producing qualities 

 of a cow, and we are living in a day when breeding is 

 demonstrating the ability to produce milk and butter in 

 quantities which would have made our grandfathers think 

 that the impossible had come to reign upon the earth. 

 And so, too, with other valuable qualities. The only 



