farmers' institutes. 227 



J'C ? 



CAN IT BE DONE 



There are many to rise and cry: "That's all theory; it can't be 

 done." Well, such people are the ones who will also say "A hen can't 

 possibly consume sixteen times her own weight in one year, no more 

 than she can lay six times her weight of eggs in a year." Well, I'm not 

 afraid of a calamity howler nor of the man who continually decries the 

 theories of others but has no good practices of his own to present. Near- 

 ly twenty years ago the writer of this article experimented for a full 

 year with one pen each of Brown Leghorns, Silver Wyandottes and 

 Barred Plymouth Rocks. Our surroundings were very unfavorable, but 

 those hens gave us then a product of 184 eggs, 172 eggs and 160 eggs 

 per hen, in the order named, and convinced us that the hen to lay "two 

 eggs every three days" was a coming reality. In 1890-91 we conducted 

 an experiment with several different breeds, and the variety that stood 

 second in our first test stood first this time, with 202 eggs to the credit 

 of each hen. 



MANY HAVE DONE IT. 



In 1893 t^s writer of this article conducted an experiment partici- 

 pated in by 230 people. There were a few pens of grade and cross bred 

 pullets, but most of them were pure bred and of the Standard varieties. 

 Twenty different breeds were entered and ten different states were rep- 

 resented. One hundred and forty-three of these pens continued in the 

 contest for the entire year and sent in their weekly and monthly reports 

 on blanks furnished them. Many of these reports were verified by cred- 

 ible witnesses and attested by affidavits. Of these 143 full-year pens the 

 twenty leading pens produced each an average of more than 200 eggs 

 per hen, and the average of the total of these twenty pens was 240 eggs 

 per hen. 



When the above contest was started there were some poultry papers 

 that predicted failure and disaster, but after it was completed in all its 

 details their comment was favorable and several of the leading poultry 

 journals devoted pages to publishing its particulars. Its results have been 

 accepted as accurate and it has demonstrated clearly the ability of hens 

 of several varieties to do just what we are urging you in this article to 

 allow and help them to accomplish, namely: to produce 240 eggs per 

 year of an average weight of two ounces, a total of thirty pounds, or six 

 times the weight of the pullet at starting. 



