The mongrel chicken is a production of chance.  Its ancestry represents everything available in the barn-yard of the neighborhood, and its offspring will be equally varied.  In the pure breeds there has been a rigid selection practiced that gives uniform appearance.  The size and shape requirements of the standard, although not based on the market demands, come much nearer producing an ideal carcass than does chance breeding.  Ability to mature for the fall shows is a decidedly practical quality that the fancier breeds into his chickens.  Moreover, poultry-breeders, while still keeping standard points in mind, have also made improvements in the lay and meat-producing qualities of their chickens.  Considering these facts it is an erroneous idea to think that mongrel chickens offer any advantage over pure bred stock.

In the broader sense we may regard as pure-bred those animals that reproduce their shape, color, habits, or other distinctive qualities with uniformity.  In order that we may get offspring like the parent and like each other we must have animals whose ancestors for many generations back have been of one type.  The more generations of such uniformity, the more certain it will be that the young will possess similar quality.

One strain of chickens may be selected for uniform color of feathers, another for a certain size and shape, another for laying large eggs of a certain color, and yet another strain for being producers of many eggs.  Each of these strains might be well-bred in these particular traits, but would be mongrels when the other considerations were taken into account.

This explains to us why the family or strains is frequently more important than the breed.  In fact, the whole series of breed classification is arbitrary.  This is especially true of the American or mixed breeds.  Humorously turned fanciers at the poultry show frequently have much sport trying to get other fanciers to tell White or Buff Rocks from Wyandottes, when the heads are hidden.  From the dressed carcasses with feet and head removed, the finest set of poultry judges in the world would be hopelessly lost in a collection of Rocks, Wyandottes, Reds and Orpingtons and, I dare say, one could run in a few Langshans and Minorcas if it were not for their black pin feathers.

What Breed.

The writer has great admiration for breeding as an art.  He would rather be the originator of a breed of green chickens with six toes, than to have been the author of “Afraid to Go Home in the Dark.”  But I do want the novice who reads this book to be spared some of the mental throes usually indulged in over the selection of a breed.

So-called meat breeds, that is, the big feather legged Asiatics save on a few capon and roaster plants in New England, are really useless.  They have given size to American chickens as a class, and in that have served a useful purpose, but standing alone they cannot compete with lighter, quick growing breeds.