1 Ave., 1901.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 203 
IN-BREEDING. 
ITS USE TO THE POULTRY-KEEPER. 
This is a subject of considerable interest to poultry-breeders, but one 
which is very little understood. Nothing is more common than to read whole- 
sale denunciations of the system from the pens of amateur poultry-keepers, 
and many others who have not even a superficial knowledge of the subject, but 
who like to air their views on that or any other subject if they can only get 
people to listen to them. The experienced breeder knows how wrong such 
ideas are, out he seldom takes the trouble to confute them. 
To what class of poultry-breeders is in-breeding of most service? To the 
fancier, undoubtedly. Without its aid he would never know what results he 
should expect from any mating, and the result of many a season’s breeding 
would be unsatisfactory in the extreme. At great expense he might have gota 
beautiful pen of birds together, with a typical unrelated male at the head of it; 
just such a pen as most people would say ought to breed a preponderance of 
first-class stock, and yet, at the end of the season, he would be amazed as well 
as disappointed to find that not 5 per cent, of the produce were fit for the 
show-pen. On the other hand, had the male bird stood in the relation of, say, 
nephew to the hens, and he had been well bred on the other side, there would 
probably not have been more than 10 per cent. of real rubbish in the whole 
progeny. We do not mean to say that the whole of the remainder would have 
been fit for the show-pen, but a very satisfactory proportion of them might 
reasonably be expected to be so, and the balance fit for the breeding-pen or for 
sale as breeding stock at more or less remunerative prices. 
NOT PRACTICAL IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES. 
It is not possible to practise in-breeding successfully under all circum- 
stances. It would be great folly to in-breed birds whose constitutions were 
defective in any particular whatever, and it would be a great waste of time to 
in-breed birds which had any marked external fault. For we must remember 
that although in-breeding when judiciously used can be made to intensify all 
the good points of a fowl, it also intensifies all the bad ones, too. If a hen is of 
sound constitution, is a very good specimen of her breed, with no very marked 
fault about her, she may be safely mated with a related male equally sound, 
and especially if he has points which counterbalance any little external faults 
she has, and vice versd; for we must remember there is nothing absolutely 
perfect in any domain of stock-breeding. From such a mating strong, vigorous 
birds will result, some of them probably better than their parents, and most of 
them very typical of their breed, just such a flock as the fancier loves to 
possess. Particularly in well-established breeds will this be the case, although 
we must look for something not quite so good in the later introductions which 
have not yet had time to settle into a fixed type. Without in-breeding the 
propagation of new breeds is hopeless, with its aid the work is uphill for a long 
time, but every year bringing the marks of a new race into bolder prominence, 
until the general type stands out clear and distinct, and capable of reproducing 
itself for all future time. 
Eyen in breeds which have been established for forty years or more the 
union of totally unrelated birds often produces in the first season almost 
worthless offspring from a standard point of view. But if the best of such 
progeny is mated back again to the parents, the pullets to the sire, and a 
cockerel to the old hens, the difference is at once surprising. A. large propor- 
tion of the progeny from either of these matings is most satisfactory, and if the 
same thing is continued for another season, or for another two, for the matter 
of that, still better results are obtained. 
HOW FAR CAN IT BE PRACTISED? 
How far can in-breeding be safely practised with stock of originally 
sound constitution? We doubt if anyone living can answer that question. 
For ourselves, and chiefly as an experiment, we carried it on without a single 
