CHOOSING AMONG THE BREEDS 29 



much alike to their writers, and I dismissed the com- 

 plaints as perhaps whims of the complainants in question. 



But, withal, I could not see why such a small egg was 

 frequently attributed to this variety ; as, in my hands, its 

 eggs were of larger average size than those from the 

 best White Leghorn breeders, three of whom were repre- 

 sented in my stock. In the spring of 1910, however, I 

 bought some eggs for hatching from a leading winner at 

 the New York show for a number of years in succession. 

 These eggs were very white, but nearly every one was 

 ridged or abnormally shaped in some way, and they 

 were scarcely more than two thirds the size of the eggs 

 which my own Brown Leghorns had always produced. 

 Then I began to understand why I received testimonials, 

 now and then, saying the eggs were larger than the 

 writers had expected to see. The fowls themselves 

 differ almost as much. In the case of the producers of 

 the chalky eggs, double mating had been practiced, and 

 all the red color bred out of the birds, eggs, feathers, and 

 all. In the other type, single mating was the rule, 

 and the red showed in the handsomely colored males, 

 the lovely seal brown of the females, and the cream-white 

 rather than chalk-white of the eggs. All this does not 

 explain why the chalk-white eggs are so much smaller; 

 but the fact remains that, as produced by pullets, not 

 one of them from our hands goes to a customer for table 

 eggs, as we feel it an imposition on the buyer to offer 

 them even to this kind of customer. I think this type 

 must be largely responsible for the well-known lack of 

 size in " grocery eggs." 



In the matter of prize winning in public competition, 

 the Rose-Comb Brown Leghorn holds the breed prize 



