100 MY POULTRY DAY BY DAY 
Even in outward markings, as well as in the qualities of in- 
heritance, the male bird dominates his children. If you mate a 
Leghorn cockerel with a Buff Orpington hen all the pullets will be 
white with a faint tinge of brown on the neck or head, while the 
cockerels will also be white with deeper brown markings on the 
wings. One can practically tell the pullets from the cockerels 
the moment they are hatched. 
It is important to remember, then, the importance of getting 
male birds from a prolific egg-laying strain. Even if your hens 
are only cross-breeds, your cockerel must be pure. No one knows 
just what a cross-bred cockerel will produce, excepting that the 
progeny will probably deteriorate from the standard of the 
parents. If the farmers of England—the general farmers—were 
to introduce regularly pure-bred cockerels of high pedigree into 
their farmyards, they would soon revolutionise their stock and 
increase the egg-yield from 50 to 100 per cent. 
If more eggs are wanted it will be found infinitely cheaper and 
more effective to buy the best cockerel possible than to purchase a 
flock of pedigree hens and mate them with a second-rate male bird. 
Remember that you will get practically all the inherited ability 
to lay transmitted by the cockerel. It does not follow that the 
male bird must come from a totally different stock from your 
females. 
Note on INBREEDING 
While inbreeding has been deprecated among the higher animals, 
a certain amount of it is no doubt beneficial when applied to birds 
generally. There can be no question that most of the best laying 
strains of fowls of the present day are largely the result of in- 
breeding, and are more or less related. One may say that Cam, 
Barron and Collinson fowls are to be found in every big poultry 
farm in England. These men have achieved a name and fame as 
breeders, and what more natural than that poultry-farmers wanting 
to improve their stock should apply to these breeding specialists 
for ‘fresh blood.” The fact that the blood may be, and probably is, 
related to the farmer’s own stock does not negative the new blood. 
