Nov. 1, 1911 



671 



a boy I was interested in tlieni, although the sting 

 was painful and would swell badly. 



HOW APPLE-SEEDS GET ON THE HILL-TOPS, ETC. 



Another thing might be added. You say, " I can 

 not quite make out how any apples originally 

 rolled iiphlll." The settlers in these hill towns 



built on the higher grounds. The old cellars, foun- 

 dations, and stones all indicate that; and, further, 

 cows are very fond of apples, and seeds are scat- 

 tered through that source, as is indicated In our 

 pastures, some of which are grown and others are 

 growing up to forests. Elmek S. Goodrich. 



Stephentown, N. Y., Sept. 26. 



[PCDQULT^^ m)[EF'^^T 



FORECASTING A LAYING HEN. 



■ I think I have had correspondence more 

 or less with Mr. C. \Y. I^eonard, of St. Au- 

 gustine, Fla., for the past two years. He is 

 an enthusiast on poultry, especially laying 

 hens and running incubators. I will intro- 

 duce you to him by a letter which I re- 

 ceived last spring. 



Mi: a. I. Moot.— One of your journals refers to the 

 300-egg hen as a sort of chimera. Well, so far as my 

 knowledge goes she is, as I never saw one: but I 

 discovered a peculiar fact last year, which makes 

 it seem to me that she is not only a probability but 

 a near one. Had we more trap-nests I believe we 

 could find her already with us. A "White Leghorn 

 and a Brown one commenced to lay in November, 

 1909. They were both 24-day fowls. Here is their 

 record for 13 weeks: 



Broun. — 5. 4, 5, 5, 2, 3, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 — 54 (including a 

 rest of 15 days. 



While.— i, 6, 5, 4, 5, 5, 4. 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5—62. 



Here we have a rate of 208 for Brown and 248 for 

 White. White kept at her rate until she became 

 broody — lost two months, and in August was stop- 

 ped by jiggers from further laying (none of my 

 hens laid from August until December). Brown 

 increased her rate of laying as high as 27 eggs in 

 March, and for many weeks showing six eggs. 



Now, it does not require six eggs weekly to get 

 300 for the year: but it does require keeping con- 

 stantly at it, at a trifle under six eggs. Brown laid 

 200 eggs in exactly nine months; and at the rate she 

 was laying when stopped she could have got in 75 

 more. An average of half an egg more per week 

 for the year would have made her rate 300 eggs : so 

 I am of the opinion there are many hens which 

 have done this in the past; and with breeding, 

 there will be many more in the future. 



These two hens were 28-hour ones. They required . 

 28 hours in which to make an egg; but as the season 

 advanced they became 26-hour hens. The whole 

 secret of the 300-egg hen is in this — the number of 

 hours required to make an egg, all hens varying in 

 this particular, the one with the other, and each 

 with Itself, according to season and condition as 

 determined by environment. 



A 26-hour hour hen can lay six eggs weekly; and 

 non-sitters, laying through moult, should lay 300 

 eggs with 65 days to spare. 



The peculiar thing about the manner of laying is 

 that a hen that lays an egg daily for 15 to 25 days 

 will never be a 300-egger, as she will be the sitting 

 kind. An egg each 24 hours is not to be desired. A 

 rest is required between a certain series of eggs. 

 say six. and these rests are equivalent to a lay-off 

 amounting to two months for the year. If you get 

 my meaning, and will trap-nest your Buttercups, 

 and do some figuring, you will see that 300 eggs Is 

 no more impossible than the two-minute trotter 

 was years ago. 



St. Augustine, Fla., April 11. C. W. Leonard. 



After the above there was more or less 

 correspondence in regard to the discovery; 

 and finally, Oct. 7, he writes me as follows: 



My discovery will do all I have claimed. It re- 

 quires but two eggs to be laid, as a rule, although 

 the first few eggs of a pullet should not be depend- 

 ed on; and it Is necessary to note an early morning 

 egg of one day and the second egg on the following 

 day. 



The trap-nest is not required for ordinary flocks ; 

 but as we are to observe each hen temporarily, 

 some method of recognizing her by a mark must 

 be used. Trap-nests do not classify hens in the 



sense I mean. They gather and a.ssist to record the 

 egg, and give total laid. 



Friend Leonard's article contains several 

 pages more; but I have thought best not to 

 submit the rest until we have reports from 

 different localities and from different peo- 

 ple — see page 23, advertising department of 

 our last issue. 



I now wish to make a suggestion right 

 here. Some of you may think it is vision- 

 ary, and getting into "machinery" a little 

 too much. For instance, with all the du- 

 ties I have on hand in Medina it is very in- 

 convenient for me to watch a certain hen, 

 even if she is in a pen by herself, and tell 

 exactly at what hour of the day she lays an 

 egg. If friend Leonard is right in his theo- 

 ry we need a nest attached to a time-clock 

 that will, without any watching, record at 

 what hour she went out on her nest and 

 laid an egg. With this arrangement we 

 could put our hens in a suitable pen by 

 themselves, one after another, and the 

 clock would tell us whenever we came 

 around whe7i the egg was laid. Who will 

 furnish a nest with such an attachment, or 

 any other suitable mechanism to keep rec- 

 ord automatically of the time of day the 

 egg was depositeil i,n the nest ? 



If friend Leonard's letter is correct, a flock 

 of hens will be found to lay something like 

 this: 



One day and a skip; another, two days 

 and a skip; still another, three days and a 

 skip, or something after that fashion. 



Later. — While I have had almost a life- 

 time of experience with poultry, and as 

 much of friend Leonard's theory agrees, as 

 far as I can recollect, with past experience, 

 still I felt somewhat uneasy in regard to it. 

 I remembered that our Ohio Experiment 

 Station at Wooster has quite a poultry- 

 plant, and a skillful man in charge of it, 

 and it occurred to me that our various ex- 

 periment stations are the very best place in 

 the world to get unbiased opinions, based 

 on actual experience. I have seen them, 

 on my visit to the station, removing hens 

 as soon as the hens had laid, examining the 

 leg-band, and noting down their rate of lay- 

 ing. I accordingly submitted the matter 

 to them, and below is the reply: 



Mr. A. I. /^oo<.— Replying to your letter of Octo- 

 ber 17, I am pleased to state what our records show 

 concerning the egg-laying discovery. 



We will consider, first, ' Do all laying hens have 

 a fashion of laying an egg every so many hours — 

 some 27, some 30, some 36, etc.?" From our trap- 

 nest records of about 300 hens we find that they do 

 not follow any such rule. It is true that a few hens 

 lay every other day for a short timp: a few lay two 

 days and skip a day, but seldom i§ nuvh a record 



