HOW TO GET EGGS 101 
It is new blood although related some way back on the genealogical 
tree. If a few special breeders—and after all they only are a few 
—dominate the markets for prolific utility fowls it must follow 
that the bulk of our stock; in this country at least, is inter-related. 
There are, of course, importations from Australia, Denmark and 
the United States made from time to time, but it does not follow 
that the birds thus brought into this country are not part of our 
own original stock. The “ unrelated cockerel,” so often advertised, 
seldom is unrelated in any sense of the word, although it may be 
some way removed from the advertiser’s own pullets. 
What is known as line-breeding is practised with great success 
in this country. Line-breeding is simply a form of inbreeding 
that, pursued on right lines by capable men, has raised the pro- 
ductivity of our hens to its present efficient state. 
But inbreeding as such is only for the specialist and not for the 
novice. It is a study in itself, and carefully carried out marks the 
evolution of the deep-laying hen. Prolificacy is added to prolificacy; 
care always being taken to preserve the health, strength and 
stamina of the flock. In the hands of unscientific men inbreeding, 
while it might be successful for a time on the side of prolificacy, 
would lead to the grave danger of rapid race deterioration. 
One ought to know that what we call “ pure breeds ” in fowls 
are frequently types that have been recently evolved by artificial 
selection. The various Orpingtons, the Faverolles, the Wyan- 
dottes, and the Rhode Island Reds are all cases in point. These 
are merely cross-breeds that by inbreeding have been fixed into 
atype. They are, of course, ‘“‘pure’’ in the accepted sense, but 
have been evolved out of cross-breeding from three or four different 
sources. It follows that all other “pure breeds” are also the 
result of ‘‘sports” of nature or artificial selection, or both, only in 
many instances they go so far back that we cannot trace their 
origin. All modern fowls in their infinite variety have undoubtedly 
been evolved from the one type commonly referred to as the 
“* Jungle Fowl.” 
So that there are cross-breeds and cross-breeds, and pure breeds 
and pure breeds. Fowls, and indeed birds of all kinds, can, by 
