type is introduced and the people shown, this can be overcome. 

 I am not down and out, for I like the duck and intend to get on 

 the right track now. At present there are two or three flocks of 

 White Runners here, but I am afraid of them, as all have the 

 Pekin type very much pronounced." 



Another letter, received in February, 1913, says: "Last year 

 I bought from one of the largest and most noted Fawn and White 

 breeder's best eggs, and got just one-half penciled birds — not a 

 bird from the eggs was even average good. I saw the owner in 

 person, and he said probably the manager sent me from his utility 

 pens instead of his best\ This is only one of the many times I 

 have been treated most shamefully. This breeder you know 

 very well, either personally, or by reputation. In both stock and 

 eggs I have seldom gotten more than scrubs, for first price goods." 

 The writer of the letter says of the seller: "He has wonderful 

 birds. I have seen them several times." 



This brings up a fact with regard to the American Standard 

 birds which is the greatest count against them. Breeders of this 

 stock are continually charging that the penciled birds do not breed 

 true to color; actually, however, it is in the American Standard 

 birds that the most culls appear. This is strictly and logically 

 what would be expected, since they have always been bred away 

 from a natural color which is known to be very persistent, just be- 

 cause the American Standard frowned upon that color. Then, in 

 ■order to get better type, more of the original blood had to be put 

 in, when at once the throw-back to this original penciled color be- 

 came more pronounced, making more "culls," from the American 

 Standard point of view, even to "one-half penciled birds." 



Straws proverbially show the way of the wind. One of the 

 straws is found in the 1913 literature of a breeder who claims to 

 breed and offers for sale right along, birds of both types, while 

 publicly crying down the penciled birds in page after page of de- 

 ceptive stuff. Despite the fact that this breeder talks so constant 



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