rUE BREEDING OF CHICKENS 109 



been mated witli anything but pure wliite birds. With 

 other animals all eh'orts to secure a permanent influence 

 of any sort from a previous impregnation liave uniformly 

 failed. There is no reason to believe the results would be 

 different with fowls. 



Maternal Impressions. — In chickens the claims of prenatal 

 influence or the registering of maternal impressions are 

 largely confined to color. One not infreciuently hears the 

 claim that yellow-i)a,intcd buildings about the premises 

 where the fowls spend much of their time tends to induce 

 creaminess or brassiness in the feathers. 



Experimentally, it has been impossible to produce such 

 effects. Brassiness seems to appear only when fowls are 

 allowed to be in the sim. It is possibly a sort of sunburn. 

 Creaminess is usually the result of oil in the feathers and may 

 be increased by feeding yellow corn or green feed freely. 



In this connection it should be clearly understood that 

 while maternal impressions do not appear in the offspring 

 in kind, both the maternal and paternal vigor and physical 

 thrift have very much to do with thrifty offspring. 



BREEDING METHODS. 



In general, breeding is carried on in the hope of securing 

 improvement in one of three ways: (1) by transferring the 

 valuable characteristics of an impro\'ed breed to common 

 stock; (2) by impressing the excellencies of superior indi- 

 viduals on other families within the breed, so as to produce 

 a higher average excellence in them than on the average is 

 possessed by the breed itself; (3) by secm-ing a new associa- 

 tion of characteristics, that is, producing a new breed. The 

 first is the way of the ])roducer and the method is grading. 

 The second is that of the breeder and the method is "line 

 breeding." With the third, the method is cross-breeding. 



Grading. — By grading is meant the practice of mating 

 standard-bred males with mongrel or relatively imimproved 

 females. Technically si)eaking, the reeii)rocal cross is also 

 grading, but, practically, it need not Ije considered. 



Grading is the method of the producer l)ecause it lends 

 itself most readily to his purpose of securing "as many off- 



