THE ASIATICS. 



57 



especially in this case should females be exempt. To cut 

 bare middle toes one and one-half points would destroy all 

 chances of the specimens winning a first prize. But the 

 card, disclosing her true value otherwise, might discover in 

 her a valuable specimen for the breeder. Any disqualifica- 

 tion that shall work to destroy a really nice specimen is not 

 just and had best be ignored. Therefore, notwithstanding 

 the standard may disqualify for bare middle toes, the judge 

 should and can protect nice specimens. When the plumage 

 grows from instep joint to web of the middle toe and close 

 inspection here should be the rule and cut for the defect for 

 not extending beyond the web, many are disqualified off 

 hand through the adjudicator failing to examine closely. The 

 judge should protect by a cut of two points as defect before 

 going to the extreme of disqualifying. Our standard is con- 

 tinually criticised because of its too meager use of language, 

 but however exhaustively the subject be treated, the novice 

 fails somewhat of its meaning until he has had experience. 

 To excite the reader to investigate is the writer's aim in 

 writing these notes. 



In the past under-color has been ignored, and this has 

 led to discrepancy and differences between judges. 



But show record as made by the score card application 

 surely should be a guide to mating and breeding, not a mere 

 surface consideration. The older breeder understands this 

 and scans closely the under-color. 



THE MATING OF BUFF COCHINS 



It shall be noted that while we may give a set 

 of rules for matings based on the experience of breeders, 

 they must be based upon the antecedents of the breed that 

 have been mated under similar rules and conditions, when 

 we may surely expect first-class results. We may in the 

 foregoing have described the best shape, best color and best 

 conditions which have given the best attained results even 

 the photos of best specimens we have yet seen. 



But now comes the all important question, how shall we 

 produce more like them, with a hope that in a few we may 

 have those that excel in beauty, brilliancy and prolific 

 merit, the best we now have. But decay is written upon all 

 things animate and inanimate, and the vast majority come 

 poorer than the merit we have described. It is nature's best 

 that are the peers, not better than we have portrayed. 



As a rule even in old and tried breeds like this one, we 

 should first cull closely fully twenty-five percent of the 

 males, consigning them to the kitchen's use before making 

 our selections for our breeding pens and exhibition room. 

 This in ordinary flocks of one hundred will leave us some 

 forty pullets for our work. Cockerels may have ten con- 

 sorts, and cocks five to not more than eight. 



We divide the pullets into two divisions, of light and 

 dark under-color, then again we divide each of these into 

 the long-bodied, oval backed, and the short bodied more 

 concaved backed. 



In Pen No. 1. The nearest we possibly have in a 

 male, cock preferred, that fills our foregoing pen picture for 

 the breed, both as to shape and color; to him mate females, 

 which are in surface color as described, but retain the dark 

 under-color, the quills all having the orange ocherous color. 

 This is our pen from which we expect our best male speci- 

 men, having a strong reserve of color, as progenitors. For 

 a mate pen we would select a cockerel that had a strong 

 under-color as well as surface color and with all else as in 

 our pen picture. To him should be mated hens that in molt- 

 ing retained their rich ocherous under-color and a prime 

 even shade of surface color, even if in its general shade it 

 could be considered somewhat light. These hens would in 

 nearly all cases have been, in their pullet form, like the 



dark pullets of our first division, we mated with the cock 

 in pen number one. 



The pullets mated to the cock being the darkest short 

 bodied specimens. 



Pen No. 2. The male as large and as long in body and 

 full in quarters as can be confined within a reasonable like- 

 ness of our pen picture for shape, being a cockerel of rich 

 ocherous color, rich in his profusion of plumage. 



To him we will mate the long bodied convexed backed 

 pullets of good weight and of fairly first-class surface color, 

 with a reasonably medium Shade of ocher, retaining in the 

 quills the color of surface plumage. This pen will produce 

 females the equal to any. 



Pen No. 3. A male that is an even shade of color, but 

 so dark as to have nearly the golden brown shade found in 

 this breed, with chestnut colored tail coverts and tips, with 

 neck and rose of wing a reddish ocher or orange bay shade 

 of color, and a very dark shade of under-color, se- 

 curing in shape all the convexity of form of "wing, 

 thigh fluff, back and roll of tail. To him mate the hens in 

 our second division that have faded to an even light shade 



A Pair of Buff Cochins, Winners at St. Louis. 

 Gelder & Robertson. 



Owned by 



of surface color, which will most likely have a very light 

 under-color and Shafts to plumage — -those long bodied con- 

 vexed backed, nice old business hens that have lost their 

 hold upon the exhibitions. Do not confound these with the 

 white under-colored specimen we abandoned to the cull pen 

 before commencing to mate, for from this pen we will have 

 fine pullets and many fine males. 



Pen No. 4. For this pen we have left the smallest short 

 bodied females from the first division, also the darkest short 

 bodies females of the second division, to these we propose 

 to mate a large boned, long bodied, very dark male, whose 

 tail reaches the chestnut color, with neck and rose golden 

 bay, and with a very dark under-color. The pullets from 

 this pen will be the desirable part of its progeny, for they 

 can be mated to perfect colored males, to produce males. It 

 is a fact that all lose color by breeding; white and gray 

 constantly creeps in. Another fact; we cannot make radi- 

 cally extreme matings for color without producing a mottled 

 or mossy plumage. By the use of these pullets we sustain 

 the color derived from the dark color of their sire, and use 

 it in so diluted a form as to be absolutely controlled by our 

 perfect colored lines in this second year use. 



I do not believe in any disqualifications except the fol- 

 lowing: Crooked back, positive wry tails, and all specimens 



