86 MAKING POULTRY PAY 



I would as soon go hunting for birds with a bulldog as 

 to go into poultry or egg production for the market 

 with a dunghill or much mixed flock. 



The practice of top-crossing every year or two 

 with new males of a different variety is most harmful. 

 You can't begin to guess what you will get as a result 

 of any particular cross on such a mixed foundation. 

 If you cannot start with pure-bred males and females 

 of some variety, at least be persistent in grading 

 toward some particular point by using the same variety 

 of males year after year. One step further let me 

 urge : If you are breeding some variety in its purity 

 do not even change the strain. For fresh blood, if you 

 must have it, go back to the man from whom you 

 got your foundation stock rather than throw away the 

 characteristics he worked so long to secure by crossing 

 another strain upon your females which will probably 

 fail to "nick" with them. 



The farmer is the real fancier by nature and loca- 

 tion. All he needs to do is to rid his premises of 

 all oddities in the feathered line, kill, eat or sell every 

 specimen not known to be pure bred of his chosen 

 variety, and he has made a good stride on the road to 

 success as a fancier. So soon as his neighbors, and 

 even the passersby, see a flock of hens in his fields "as 

 much alike as peas in a pod" they will respond to this 

 effective advertisement. and stop to buy breeding birds 

 or eggs for hatching. He does not need to build 

 expensive poultry houses or high fences to keep his 

 varieties from getting mixed. If he has but one 

 variety the mixing of these is not dangerous. Let me 

 urge for the farmer some pure-bred variety and but 

 one. Two years' careful experience will convince him 

 that he cannot aflFord to go back to the mixed flock of a 

 dozen different characteristics and colors. 



