Breeding First-Crosses. — The crossing of one pure breed with another
has its advantages, so long as the first cross is kept to. It is the
" mongrel " hen that we must not tolerate. Where a white-egg
variety is mated to a brown-egg breed the progeny lay tinted or
brownish eggs. The advantages of such crossing of non-sitter and
sitter lie in the fact that the progeny will lay more eggs and yield
fuller winter egg-baskets than the original parents if the latter are
well selected. It is advisable to rely on the hen to preserve the tinted
characteristics of the egg, so that in any such crossing hens of the
brown-egg breeds should be mated to males of the white-egg varieties.
40 POULTRY-KEEPING ON MONEY-MAKING LINES

The following first-crosses between non-sitters and sitters are good :
Black Leghorn — Croad Langshan, Black Minorca — Croad Langshan,
Ancona — Croad Langshan, Ancona — Buff Orpington, White Leghorn
—White Wyandotte, White Leghorn — Light Sussex, Buff Leghorn
— Buff Orpington, etc.
The accompanying sketches will explain the method of breeding
first-crosses. We start with a White Leghorn cockerel mated to
White Wyandotte hens, and the main idea is to use a White Leghorn
cockerel one year, a White Wyandotte male the second, a White
Leghorn male the third, and a White Wyandotte cockerel the fourth.
