No. 4.] POULTRY AND EGG PRODUCTION. 37 



that. I would condemn it for this reason: the English white 

 Wyandottes are not, in any sense of the word, white Wyan- 

 dottes as I see them, — I want to be careful what I am 

 saying, — and you are going to introduce into your strain of 

 Wyandottes something entirely foreign to your particular breed, 

 and I am afraid that the sum total of your results will be a good 

 deal worse than if you let it alone. There are white Wyan- 

 dottes bred according to the American standard which will 

 lay just as many eggs as the English Wyandottes, and I believe 

 you will get along better by finding in your own flock birds 

 which are good producers and breeding from those. There is a 

 possibility of doing a lot of harm by introducing these foreign 

 types about which you know little, and furthermore, it is 

 perfectly possible that you have in your own flock birds that 

 are as good or better producers than the birds you are buying. 

 I am convinced more and more of it, the more we get our 

 poultrymen to use trap-nests. One of our big poultrymen, 

 Charles Warner, has trap-nested 200 pullets, and he found birds 

 that are absolute drones and birds that are laying over 200 

 eggs a year. All of you have got good hens, just as good as 

 any hen, possibly, that ever made a record, and the thing is to 

 find them, and after you find them, to use them intelligently, — 

 get cockerels from them and use them in your breeding work. 

 Every one of you here have got birds that are a great deal 

 better than you think; find them, utilize them; that is the way 

 Tom Barron got his birds, — finding out what were the good 

 ones. 



Question. Would you use the second crop of hay for 

 feeding? 



Professor Lewis. Yes, especially if it has clover or alfalfa 

 in it. We go out into the haymow, sweep up the leaves and 

 steam them for the poultry mash next winter, and if you have 

 a lot of them it is a good practice to steam them and put them 

 in troughs. A lot of those things you can use and find them of 

 material advantage. 



Mrs. GooDNOUGH. When you have a pen of good Rhode 

 Island Reds, and have cockerels in that same hatch, would it 

 be detrimental to inbreed for one year? 



Professor Lewis. No; if they were extra good birds I 

 certainly should not object to inbreeding for one year. In- 



