LAWS GOVERNING THE BREEDING 
sums up this fact: that something in the tissues, 
blood and bone of a certain sire which stands for 
color identity, cannot help but reproduce itself in 
the majority if blood of same sire is returned 
enough times in its progeny; in other words sire is 
bred back five years to its own young. 
But even thus, nature fights with forces of a 
certain law of deterioration whenever in-breeding 
is practiced as before mentioned, and again the 
eternal problem of how to succeed confronts the 
breeder who thus dares nature at her most vul- 
nerable point; and by this has the safe plan of 
line-breeding been formulated. (Which is not in- 
breeding in the direct sense. ) 
With apology to some unknown poet, I quote, 
“‘Persistency thy name is e’en more great than all 
the bubbles blown by fortune’s breath.’’ To pro- 
duce exact purity of blood in domestic fowls is an 
impossibility, as proven again and again by the 
law of atavism and can also be proven mathemat- 
ically. A few short minutes of figuring will con- 
vince the most skeptical; after leaving seven- 
eighths blood or eighty-seven and one-half per 
cent. pure blood, the figures get into the nineties 
and after ninety-nine it is always and forever a 
fraction less than one hundred or purity, a con- 
vincing explanation of stubs, side sprigs, off-col- 
ored feathers, etc. 
In mottled breeds the law generally is for 
a predominance of black over the white. In 
some mottled breeds the man-made standard spe- 
cifies one white feather to five black ones; but this 
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