44 COMMON SENSE 
My experience, is, however, that after the first cross the: purer 
the progeny is the worse it is, until we pass the fifth, at which point 
it again begins to improve quite rapidly. 
The cross between Brown Leghorn and ordinary speckled hens 
is most excellent in every point except one—the plumage is a little 
too dark for a market bird—and as fully half our young stock will 
be sold either dressed or to be killed, this is a very important mat- 
ter. I feel now that it would have been much better to have 
selected a White Leghorn cock, but as the question of marketing 
did not occur to me at this stage of my experiment, I made the 
selection I did. 
In selecting the hens I had tried to pick out those that had just 
commenced laying after having been broody. ‘There were several 
of this kind on the place; some we had “ broken up,” others had 
brought out a few chickens, which had been taken away and united 
with other broods, and of some the chickens, from weakness of 
constitution and want of care during Brown’s moving, had entirely 
disappeared. I do not regard it as a settled point by any means, 
but I am inclined to believe that the eggs laid by a hen just before 
she wants to set neyer produce quite as strong chickens as those 
-that'she lays previously. 
I have always had a fondness for a lot of chickens: uniform in 
color, and yet, pethaps, I have been less successful in securing this. 
than other breeder that I know of. Brown’s chickens were of all 
sorts, sizes and colors; pure black and pure white; mottled, red, pen- 
cilled necks, and so on to the end of the list. It was with great 
difficulty that I was able to pick out four or five hens that were 
‘anyway nearly alike, but I thought that next season, seeing that I 
must have a goodly lot of chickens from the same mother as well 
as the same father, I would be able to pick out seven pullets for 
breeding ; and by getting a new cock from some other yard, so as 
to avoid in and-in breeding, I would be able to gradually build up 
a flock that would do me credit. And here let me say a word 
about breeding too closely. I am perfectly well aware that a new 
breed cannot be established without very close in-and-in breeding. 
This. has been the practice of all the great poultry breeders, and it 
