BREEDS AND BREEDING 85 



large, well-matured pullets. The result has been 

 strong, vigorous chicks that are ready to grow from 

 the start, while the loss from sickness or disease has 

 been nil. 



In-and-in-Breeding — My observation leads me to 

 believe that nothing is more susceptible to this evil 

 practice than fowls, and no manner of poultry breeding 

 can be more ruinous. It is essential that every breeder 

 iofuse fresh blood each year by securing his male 

 birds from other breeders whose flocks he knows to be 

 of a different strain from that of his own. — [George 

 Underwood. 



PURE-BRED POULTRY ON THE FARM 



It ought not to be necessary to argue the advan- 

 tages of keeping pure-bred hens rather than scrubs and 

 dunghills, but the number of these latter classes still 

 to be seen on the majority of farms convinces us that 

 it is. It is now a half century since our fathers and 

 grandfathers began practical comparisons between the 

 Shanghais and the common barnyard fowls. The 

 Shanghais were followed by the Brahmas, the Cochins 

 and the Leghorns, and in the meantime our own Javas, 

 Plymouth Rocks and,Wyandottes were originated and 

 perfected. Dorkings, -Hamburgs and Houdans were 

 tried. In all these years and with all these varieties 

 and dozens of others, thousands of tests have been 

 made and nearly always with the same results — ^the 

 pure-bred varieties far in the lead, either for eggs 

 or meat. Still we find the mixed and miscellaneous 

 flocks far outnumbering the others. I am pretty 

 familiar with poultry conditions from Maine to Texas, 

 and yet fail to recall a single marked success in the 

 poultry busihess, either eggs or meat, that has not 

 been made either with pure-bred or high-grade fowls. 



