Page:Care and Management of Rabbits.djvu/74

64 a position to get returns without the delay necessary where the start is made under any other method.

The ideal way to make the start is to buy two unrelated pairs of breeding age animals. This will enable you to start two distinct and unrelated strains and cross breed them for more than eighteen generations without inbreeding once. Where line breeding is to be followed, this is the only way to start, as it will give you two distinct lines and the characteristics of the two strains as shown in the parent stock will be perpetuated forever in the offspring.

It is necessary to be very careful in the matter of buying stock. We have already hinted at the operations of the dishonest dealer and sharper who is not a producer of blooded stock, merely a dealer, and who does not hesitate to do anything short of murder to get your money.

There is really only one way to be safe in buying stock and that is to go to recognized