476 POULTRY CULTURE 



gives uniformity in results, and that the great evil they have to 

 guard against in breeding is loss of vitality and of " practical quali- 

 ties " through breeding from birds near akin. 



The history of the development of races shows very plainly that 

 the development and preservation of artificial types depends upon 

 systematic, continuous selection. The fact that self-division is the 

 first form of reproduction, and that self-fertilization is the law in 

 both the vegetable and the animal kingdom until a high stage of 

 development through variation is reached and sex becomes neces- 

 sary as a check on variation, shows that inbreeding is not in itself 

 detrimental. The breeder who accepts these two facts at the be- 

 ginning of his work is in a position with reference to it which no 

 one who fails to apprehend them ever reaches. It would be hard 

 to find a successful poultry breeder who did not date the beginning 

 of his success from the time when he came to appreciate the fact 

 that any breed or variety in his hands became what he made it, and 

 that outbreeding tended always to disintegration of well-established 

 types. The effective use of principles of breeding as deduced from 

 phenomena of reproduction depends on the application of principles 

 without prejudice. 



Adaptability of poultry breeding. In poultry breeding, and 

 particularly in the breeding of fowls, we find the one line of animal 

 breeding open to every one who has the use of a little land. The 

 ordinary farmer cannot be an independent breeder of horses or 

 cattle ; the number of animals he can produce and mature on his 

 farm is not large enough to give him either the necessary experi- 

 ence or a proper selection of breeding stock. With sheep and hogs 

 the ordinary farmer may, if he is so inclined, do something in the 

 way of special breeding. With poultry the resident on a village 

 lot may do in a few years more actual work in breeding than most 

 growers of other domestic live stock can do in a lifetime. The rela- 

 tively small individual value of ordinarily good breeders, and the 

 rapid rate of increase in poultry, make it possible for a breeder to 

 secure a few good individuals by a very small investment, and to 

 build up a large stock in a short time. 



Length of life and breeding value. The short life of most 

 kinds of poultry is a disadvantage to the breeder, in that the full 

 measure of the breeding value of an individual may not be found 



