152 Farm Poultry 



production and have won for themselves a repu- 

 tation in this direction, have found by experience 

 that males are of no use in the laying-pen, and are 

 often a positive injury when eggs for food only are 

 desired. Tests that have been made at experiment 

 stations to determine the influence of males on egg 

 production tend to show that the practice of poul- 

 trymen in excluding males is most advantageous. 

 The following paragraph is taken from an experiment 

 station bulletin:* 



"A pen of pullets kept without a male produced 

 eggs at about 30 per cent less cost than an exactly 

 similar pen with which a cockerel was kept. . . . 

 In each of the two pens without male birds some 

 pullets had begun to lay from one to two months 

 earlier than any in the corresponding pens in which 

 male birds were kept." 



BREEDING 



Heredity. Since the earliest times of which 

 any authentic records have been preserved, owners 

 of live stock have made attempts to improve the 

 animals under their charge by the art of breed- 

 ing. Accounts state that the ancients recognized 

 the principle in breeding that "like begets like," 

 and depended on it quite as much as on any other 

 principle. It is on this principle that the poul- 



*Bulletin No. 57, New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 



