112 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



There has been a good deal said here today on the subject 

 of raising our egg production per hen a dozen eggs, and thus 

 add largely to the value of what we receive from this product. 

 It may be of interest to the audience to know what has been 

 accomplished at the Utah Experiment Station along that line. 

 Undoubtedly, there are some here who have read about this. 

 The statement, I believe, has been criticised somewhat in the 

 press, but I will not say anything about that because I am not 

 sufficiently familiar with the facts. I do know, however, that 

 when the average production throughout the county in gen- 

 eral, according to the census figures, was seventy eggs per 

 hen or less, and in Utah it was less than that, at the Experi- 

 ment Station there they had a flock of something like four 

 hundred hens, and the average production that same year 

 was one hundred and fifty eggs per hen. Now this increase 

 w^as achieved by perfectly proper methods ; possibly too ex- 

 pensive for the ordinary small poultryman to use, but that 

 record was obtained. In the first place, when they started 

 poultry work at that station they secured some ordinary fowls, 

 and several pure bred barred Plymouth Rocks, and some White 

 and Brown Leghorns and Brahmas. Then they started to use 

 dark nests, but they finally came to the conclusion that that 

 was not conducive to good laying. Then they brought from 

 all over the United States fowls that had made a good egg 

 record, and they inbred at first to a certain extent by using 

 cockerels from the best known of those different varieties. 

 Then they experimented with foods. They fed them better 

 than most of the farmers of the state did, and they also fed 

 them with a ration that they had studied out. That does not 

 quite agree with one of the speakers of the afternoon, but they 

 did use a balanced ration. The results were surprising. The 

 product increased remarkably until they had an average of one 

 hundred and fifty eggs per hen where the farmers of the state 

 had but sixty-five eggs per hen. 



