10 



THE LEGHORNS 



the writer, and can assure him a cordial welcome if he 

 will call on me. 



It was left for Frank J. Kinney, however, to give the 

 Brown Leghorn a boost that even some of the modern 

 poultry boomers would view with envy as well as admira- 

 tion. Mr. Kinney's remarks appeared in the "Poultry 

 World," December, 1873. We reprint them without further 

 comment, to-wit: 



A great deal is being said about this comparatively 

 new breed. I claim to have owned the first that were ever 

 landed in America, having bought, on ship in Boston 

 harbor, in June, 1853, two hens and one cock, about one 

 year old, the trio weighing 13;4 pounds. They were very 

 handsome and very different from any poultry I had 

 ever seen, and I liked them, but objected to the small 

 size of their bodies and the large size of their combs and 

 wattles, and I commenced immediately to increase the 

 one and diminish the other, by selecting the largest hens 

 and the broadest, lowest cocks, with the smallest combs 

 and finest wattles, to breed from. And by following this 

 course for a long series of years, I have succeeded in 

 breeding hens that weigh from 4j4 to 6'A pounds, and 

 cocks that weigh from 

 SJ4 to 7y2 pounds. I 

 have kept strict ac- 

 count with my fowls 

 from the beginning, 

 and can, by comparing 

 figures, see no differ- 

 ence in the time of 

 their maturing and 

 commencing to lay. 

 Some commence when 

 three and a half months 

 old, and none com- 

 mence older than five 

 months. I could give 

 figures in cases where 

 I have "timed" — if you 

 please — twenty-five pul- 

 ets nearly every year 

 for the last seven years, 

 and a less number of 

 them for the last twen- 

 ty years, were it neces- 

 sary. 

 The best I have ever done, was the past year. I had 

 a large number hatched out the 9th of -August, 1872, and 

 selected twenty-five pullets, to whom I gave an extra run, 

 and moderate feed for five months, when they commenced 

 laying the 9th of January, 1873. These twenty-five hens 

 laid, up to the 9th of August, 1873, 3,750 eggs, or 150 each; 

 their average weight is 5^ pounds, and they will lay, 

 before the 9th of August, 1874, 240 eggs more each, sup- 

 posing they are properly fed and cared for, and they will 

 lay as many every year for four or five years at least. 

 These hens are constantly and closely confined, except a 

 few weeks in moulting time. We carry the out-of-doors 

 to them — all they cannot get through glass and slats — 

 the rest of the year. We had yards of twenty three-year- 

 old hens last year that aveiaged 240 eggs to the hen, about 

 100 more than the same strain laid six years ago, when 

 they were a pound lighter to the hen and had not got 

 used to being forced. 



At another time I will give my experience and views 

 on the subject of forcing poultry. 



I have traveled a large extent of country in my day, 

 and have seen a great many hens that deserve to be re- 

 ported in the papers. I can call to mind instances in 

 many states, where honest farmers have pointed out hens 

 to me, saying: "That is a wonderful hen; she is as old as 

 my second gal, and has allers laid and never sot; is more 

 than ten years old;" or, "There is a hen as old as Jane, 

 and she is twenty years old," etc. One man in Canter- 

 bury, N. H., killed a hen on the twenty-first birthday of 

 an adopted son, and the hen was "older than the boy, and 

 had allers laid up tew last year, and now she had got so 

 fat, was just good for nothing at all." These hens were 

 barn-yard fowls, and of all colors, but uniformly low, 

 square, substantially-built fowls. 



I have never seen a very gamy-looking hen, or an 

 Asiatic, that was a good laying hen very long — not many 



years. We had one hen, old "Red Ribbon," that laid over 

 2,200 eggs, and died at the age of nine years and three 

 months from breaking an egg internally. She was as 

 healthy-looking a hen as any in my yards at the time, and, 

 as near as I could judge, might have laid for years longer 

 but for the accident. "Signora," now in my yards, is six 

 years old and has laid over 1,300 eggs. I have one hun- 

 dred and more chicks in my yards, hatched from eggs 

 laid by pullets which were raised this year; have chickens 

 (November 13th) three months old, hatched from eggs 

 laid by pullets that were hatched from eggs laid by "Sig- 

 nora" after the Sth of March, 1873. The old hen, when in 

 condition, weighs 6]4 pounds; said pullets commenced 

 laying before they were 3^ months old, and weigh, as 

 pullets, more than 4J4 pounds. 



Mr. I. K. Felch may have his Leghorns "at an average 

 weight of 3^ pounds as fowls and resembling, while 

 young, and before commencing to lay, the Derby Game, 

 with cocks never to exceed 5 pounds each, and identical 

 in color with the Black-Red Game," if he pleases. I prefer 

 pullets that resemble good Brown Leghorns — Standard 

 fowls — and weigh 1^ to 2 pounds more than his, and 

 cocks that resemble good Standard Brown Leghorn cocks 

 and weigh 6 to 7 pounds. It seems to me to be not at all 

 in order to compare Brown Leghorns with Games. One 

 might as well compare Black Hamburgs with Black 

 Cochins. 



I. K. Felch, in his most vigorous and characteristic 

 style, replied to Mr. Kinney's criticisms and incidentally 

 riddled the latter's extravagant claims of the wonderful 

 egg records made by Brown Leghorns, in the following 

 number of the "Poultry World," as follows: 



I have read Mr. J. F. Kinney's articles on Brown Leg- 

 horns in the June and September issues of the "Bulletin" 

 and the December issue of the "Poultry World," and have 

 several times been asked by correspondents and friends 

 to answer him. Not wishing fo go into any controversy, 

 I desisted. But in the last-mentioned article he chooses 

 to refer to me in a sarcastic way, which would, to one not 

 used to the breed, give a false impression; viz., that I was 

 breeding Brown Leghorns not true to their type. This 

 and the tall statements he makes, and the braggadocio 

 style in which he does it, I must confess, have irritated 

 me enough to call forth this reply. 



Mr. Kinney tells us he has the only white ear-lobed 

 strain in the world; yet he tells us that he has read "with 

 pleasure" an article on the ear-lobes of Brown Leghorns 

 in the "Bulletin" of December, 1872. 



I presume that which pleased him most in that article 

 was, that the "writer's experience, and that of Mr. 

 Wheeler, or Worcester, Mr. Beard, of Nashua, N. H., and 

 Mr. Jacob Graves, of Boston, was that not one-twentieth 

 part of all the Brown Leghorns had white ear-lobes, and 

 that of the twentieth part of them that had, three-fourths 

 were very defective in plumage;" and as Mr. Wheeler is 

 a neighbor of Mr. Kinney, he ought to know whereof he 

 speaks. As regards the article alluded to, I myself call it 

 a good and truthful one. The writer also says: "If we, 

 to attain this one point, are to sacrifice the rich, beautiful 

 black breast, elegant striped hackle, and handsome 

 shoulder coverts and wing-bar, which are certainly of 

 more importance, what have we gained?" So much for 

 what pleases him to read. 



He tells us in his first article ("Bulletin" for June") 

 that he had the first Brown Leghorns that came to this 

 country and that their ear-lobes were entirely red, and 

 that the next two importations he made were like the 

 others. He also says they were not Black Red Leghorns, 

 but Brown Red. In 1866, he says he had a hen from Leg- 

 horns with white ear-lobes. But before he states this fact, 

 he speaks of an advertisement in 1864, of Brown Leghorns 

 with white ear-lobes, and goes on to tell how they prob- 

 ably came about, giving the impression that those adver- 

 tised were not pure in blood. Was this gentlemanly and 

 honorable, or, reader, do you call it a stab in the back as 

 regards its influence upon the reputation of the advertiser? 

 In the same article he tells of a hen imported in 1866, 

 having a small comb, which, crossed with his, produced 

 fowls, in a few generations, that weighed eight pounds. 

 Following this, he says he breeds for profit, and does not 

 propose to sacrifice twenty years of labor in the perfection 

 of his fowls, because young breeders want things gamy, 



