164 CARE AND MANAGEMENT OF RABBITS 
of producing meat animals, it is best to stick 
as close to the Standard as possible, especially 
if you start out with registered stock. 
Under the chapter on Breeding there is a 
discussion as to the value of line-breeding and 
if one starts out with registered stock and 
practices line-breeding intelligently, there is 
no reason why the value of the stock should 
grow less with each generation. But a con- 
stant selection of the breeding stock must be 
kept up in order to make progress all the time. 
One can generally get a pretty good idea as 
to the value of an animal by following these 
exterior characteristics, but they are by no 
means a final criterion. It is wise to keep a 
careful record of the offspring of the respec- 
tive matings and when you find a doe and 
buck that seem to produce better offspring 
than they do when bred to other animals, by 
-all means do not stop breeding them, but get 
all you can out of the combination. Breeding 
records as well as intelligent selection of the 
breeders is necessary to success in picking the 
breeding stock. 
