LINE-BREEDING

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 526, 1 December 1928, Page 30

LINE-BREEDING

John R.H., Te Kuiti, wishes to know ■what line-breeding is and its benefits. Line-breeding is systematised inbreeding, and is the method of breeding used to produce specimens conforming to standards of the various bfeeas of domestic stock. During the. progress of a breed from a crude state to near perfection the aim of the breeder is to select and develop those lines or families, which, with the highest excellence yet obtained, have the tendency to vary in the direction of the i'Jeal standard for the breed. Once this ideal standard is established the breeder selects his birds with a view to perpetuating those lines or families that have the least tendency to vary in any way. It is possible that careful selection even without line-breeding, if continued long enough, will give much the same results, but it would take a lifetime to accomplish as much in this way as may be done by line-breeding in five years. Without line-breeding it is practically impossible for any breeder to ascertain the ancestry of his birds as he must do if he is to avoid possible reappearance of latent undesirable characteristics. Every time he goes outside the lines he knows he is taking a risk which may bring about a reversion to faults that were obsolete in his own line. A breeder must work on a scale, giving him a sufficient selection of high-class specimens of his own breeding, and also limit his purchases when introducing new' stock to those of his own line. If he does this he need have no fear that valuable breeding birds will be w'hollv lost for a season through the failure of the mating. PERSONAL NOTES Mr. T. Dowthwaite, Avondale, has had a remarkable season for sales of his Fawn and White Runners. A month ago he sent a pen to a breeder in Southland, and this week he has forwarded another pen of four ducks and a drake to Dipton, near Invercargill. The ducks are full-sisters to Mr. Dowthwaite s team, which is laying so well in the Mount Albert laying test. Mr. Dowthwaite has a grand lot of

White Wyandotte chickens, bred from a typical hen laying two and a-quarter ounce eggs. The youngsters are shaping well, and more than one of them will make a name for itself when the show season comes round. Messrs. Winstone and Curnow will need to look to their laurels. Mr. J. M. Thomson, the well-known poultry judge who recently toured Britain and Canada.with the New Zealand bowling team, has now returned. Mr. Thomson was unable to visit any of the poultry farms or shows in England, but he visited the Toronto egg-laying competition. He tells me the birds in that competition do not compare with our New Zealand birds, the average a bird being in the . vicinity of 200 eggs. Miss Ambler, Glen Eden, has a wonderful lot of English White Leghorns, all bred from her championship and cup winning hen. One cockerel is of exceptional merit, showing great promise.