790 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Dec. 15 



I was astonished to learn that he did noth- 

 ing of the kind. They selected their White 

 Leghorn roosters from some pen in another 

 part of the farm. Since then Mr. Swift said, 

 in a conversation with a friend of mine, 

 something like this: 



"For many years I tried buying high-pric- 

 ed males, not only as a cross, but to get 

 something better. Well, I wasted a lot of 

 money year after year. I did not get any a 

 bit better for the egg business than my own 

 stock on my own farm. Therefore my son's 

 statement was true. I stopped buying, not 

 only high-priced roosters but roosters of any 

 kind; and I am well satisfied that the males 

 from a distant part of my farm are just as 

 good as any thing I can buy." 



Now, I can not quite agree with Mr. Swift; 

 but very likely it is true that the high-priced 

 fowls that were advertised and shown at the 

 shows were no better for eggs than those he 

 had at home; and I am afraid this is true, no 

 matter how high a price he pays. 



Now, there is another piece of "iniquity " 

 that crops out right here. Several of the 

 poultry journals are now coming forward 

 and declaring that the high-priced fowls 

 shown at shows and fairs are "doctored." 

 They pull out undesirable feathers, or paint 

 them over with something. They wash the 

 chickens in bluing- water to make a brighter 

 white, and they are doctored up all over, 

 just the way old women used to doctor them- 

 selves up years ago (?) to make believe they 

 were "young ladies" instead of old ones. 

 I suppose this doctoring and making fake 

 fowls is a plan to humbug the judges; and 

 there has been complaint made sometimes 

 that the judges have been bribed. 



Well, some beginner like myself wants to 

 start out with a choice strain. Say he wants 

 to get a start with the very best White Leg- 

 horns. May be he consents to pay $25 00 

 for a choice male, and $5.00 apiece for some 

 choice females to match. Suppose this hon- 

 est, unsuspecting, innocent man pays out 

 his hard-earned money and gets some doc- 

 tored chickens that are no better than he 

 could have gotten. in his own neighborhood 

 for, say, a dollar apiece. 



Our farming friends have been severely 

 criticised because the average flock of chick- 

 ens is of all kinds mixed together. Now, 

 while he may get a good lot of eggs from 

 such a mixture I do not believe it is the thing 

 to do I think he will get more for his eggs 

 if they are all of one color or as nearly so as 

 possible; and I am sure he will, get more for 

 nis "spring chickens" if they are all white 

 or all black, or whatever the color may be. 

 I do not believe it is best to mix things up. 

 Besides, everybody admires a flock of chick- 

 ens all just alike. I paid Howard L. Davis, 

 of Philadelphia, $5.00 for a cockerel, and 

 $1.50 each for three pullets. I have raised 

 something Hke 200 chickens from eggs from 

 these three pullets, and I have not seen a 

 wrong feather so far. All have single combs, 

 yellow legs, and they are true to type. Now, 

 it is worth something to find that your stock 

 has been carefully bred so as to preserve the 



White Leghorn type. I have found them 

 also to be splendid layers; but when I came 

 to selling my young roosters for the table, 

 the buyers all object to the Leghorns, espe- 

 cially if they have been brought up with 

 unlimited range, even though they have 

 plenty of food. The Leghorns, while young, 

 are not the best kind of fowls for the table. 

 I notice in several of the journals a sugges- 

 tion that we might make the Leghorns a 

 little better for a table fowl, and get just as 

 many eggs, and possibly more, by judicious 

 crossing with some desirable breed. Now, 

 all I have written above is only an introduc- 

 tion to the letter below: 



My dear Mr. Root:— I think the inclosed is a very val- 

 uable article, and I believe Mr. Warren is quite correct 

 in his statements. I hope you will find it as interest- 

 ing and instructive as I did, and that you may be able 

 to experiment a little along these lines, as I myself in- 

 tend to do as soon as the opportunity offers. 



South Berkeley, Cal., Nov. 2. W. H. Pearson. 



Below is the clipping alluded to in the 

 above: 



THE GENESIS OF A LAYING STRAIN. 



In the April American Poultry Advocate there was a 

 letter from Mr. F. A. Mason, of Forest Depot, Va., re- 

 ferring to the excellent work done by a pen of twenty 

 White Wyandotte pullets purchased from me last De- 

 cember. The twenty pullets laid 330 eggs, and the ag- 

 gregate was reduced, so Mr. Mason says, by a snowfall 

 of 14 inches on a level, which checked production for 

 a few days. In the communication was an error which 

 neither Mr. Mason nor Mr. Hunter in his comments on 

 the letter seems to have noticed. The average per pul- 

 let for the month of December was given as lOr'? eggs 

 each; but if the reader will divide 330 by 20 he will find 

 that the average per pullet was WA eggs for the 

 month. Naturally I was gratified at the communica- 

 tion, for the pullets I sold Mr. Mason were not selected 

 for their great laying qualities, but simply that he 

 might have a uniform lot. 



In what follows I shall have to be more or less per- 

 sonal; but this article is not intended to be in any 

 sense an advertisement of my White Wyandottes, for 

 I have no White Wyandotte stock or eggs to sell. 



Referring to an old diary I find that I made my " de- 

 but " in the poultry world Sept. 27, 1897. Before that I 

 had been suffering from the hen fever for some time. 

 My temperature was high, and my pulse far beyond 

 the normal. On my study-table with my Greek lexi- 

 con and my commentaries I kept copies of Farm Poul- 

 try, then edited by Mr. Hunter, which I read persis- 

 tently and with great profit. No man ever had the 

 disease in a more virulent form than I. To-day I cross 

 the street to avoid meeting a "hen crank ; " but then 

 hen cranks were my boon companions and friends. 



There was a young man in my parish who had a 

 flock of what he called "White Wyandottes." He 

 had bred White Leghorns for a number of years; but 

 wanting a larger bird he had crossed them with White 

 Wyandotte cockerels. He had done this for two or 

 three seasons. He offered to sell me the pick of his 

 pullets for 75 cents each, and I took up with his offer. 

 One beautiful September evening (how well I remem- 

 ber it after all these years!) I went down to his house, 

 and by the light of a lantern we selected twelve pul- 

 lets. All I knew of a White Wyandotte then was that 

 they should have white plumage and " double " comb, 

 and on this basis I made my choice. We put the pul- 

 lets in three shorts-sacks, and I wheeled them home 

 and put them in the hen-house. The next day, Sept. 

 28, I got an egg. Oct. 19 I bought two more pullets, 

 paying $1.60 for them. 



Lay? Well, you never saw any thing like it. Those 

 pullets were wonders. They laid in season and out of 

 season, early and late. Let me give you their record 

 for one week in November, 1897 — a week so cold that, 

 according to my diary, the water-pipes in my kitchen 

 froze up and burst: 10. 8, 7, 11, 6, 9, 12— total. 63. From 

 Oct. 1, 1897, to Oct. 1, 1898, they laid 2999 eggs — a total 

 of a little more than 214 eggs apiece. 



I did not reali/o what a gold-mine I had stumbled 

 upon, what a trc i' ure I had accidentally found, and so 

 I came very nea, Destroying a wonderful strain. In a 

 short time the fever took a turn. I ran down to Bos- 

 ton to the great poulty show and saw the kings and 

 queens of poultrydom. When I came back, my faith-. 



