120 POULTRY PRODUCTION 



Line breeding is as near as the poultry breeder can come to 

 securing the benefits of asexual reproduction, which the 

 horticulturist secures through cuttings. If an unusually- 

 fine tree makes its appearance among seedlings it is preserved 

 and multiplied by asexual means, and thus "the blood" is 

 transmitted to the next generation in perfect purity. This 

 cannot be done in the case of a correspondingly unusual 

 bird. The nearest that the poultry breeder can approach 

 this is by mating such a bird to its own progeny and thus 

 found a family whose blood lines carry a preponderance of 

 its influence. 



The purpose of line breeding is to purify and render per- 

 manent in the breed some highly desirable quality or quali- 

 ties of an individual or family. 



In somewhat the same way that the continued use of 

 standard-bred males raises the average quality of a flock 

 of mixed breeding by fixing standard-bred qualities, the 

 continued mating of an unusually excellent breeder with 

 offspring of his or her own get, or even a more indirect 

 introduction of that individual's blood, tends to raise the 

 quality of further offspring to as high grade of excellence 

 as either of the original parents, by fixing the characters 

 of the parent whose blood is most desired. 



Felch's Breeding System. — A well-known practice in poul- 

 try breeding is that represented in the very excellent chart 

 adapted by H. C. Pierce from one worked out by I. K. 

 Felch, a veteran Light Brahma breeder, and shown 

 herewith. 



In this chart the breeding operations are represented as 

 beginning with a pair of unrelated birds which are indicated 

 by the circles "A" and " B." Throughout the diagram, 

 solid black indicates the average proportion of blood of the 

 original male A. In the same manner, white always indi- 

 cates the average proportion of blood from the original 

 female B. 



Thus the members of group C, which are offspring of the 

 original pair, will on the average receive half \ of their inheri- 

 tance from each parent. If a pullet from group C is now 

 mated with her sire A, the resultant offspring represented 



