82 PROFITABLE POULTRY PRODUCTION 



HOW THE PLAN WORKED 



This man was a reader and a thinker. "It's eggs 

 I want," he reasoned, "not show birds ;" and he 

 selected the best yearling male from his flock of 

 common fowls to breed to the two pullets. Every 

 tgg from that pen was carefully kept and set, and 

 that fall he had 30 pullets and 4 cockerels, each half 

 the blood of the dams, and those half-breed pullets 

 shelled out the eggs all the fall and winter. 



In the spring he selected his best half-breed 

 cockerel and mated him to the two Leghorn hens. 

 The eggs from that mating were again kept and 

 religiously cared for, and that fall he was rewarded 

 with 50 chicks three-quarters Leghorn blood. Again 

 he selected the best cockerel and the following 

 spring mated him to the original Leghorn hens. 

 That year he raised but 15 pullets and 2 cockerels 

 from that pen, but these chicks were seven-eighths 

 the blood of the dams, practically full-blooded 

 White Leghorns. The half and three-quarter blood 

 pullets had all been kept and had produced many 

 more eggs than his common stock, and the sale of 

 those eggs helped to pay off the debt on the home. 



LINE BREEDING 



This system is called line breeding, which is scien- 

 tific in-breeding, and may be more readily understood 

 by reference to the chart on the opposite page. 

 The solid lines in the chart represent the course of 

 the male blood and the dots the female blood lines. 

 Suppose a pure-bred cockerel represented by group 

 I to be mated to the pullets in group 2. The progeny 

 of this mating would be represented by group 3. 



