ANIMAL INDUSTRIES 275 



acres of chicken yards and colony houses, green kale 

 patches and cozy bungalows sitting in the shade of 

 the eucalyptus groves, has a privacy and individu- 

 ality all its own. Some of the homes topping the 

 gently rolling ground are modern bungalows, others 

 are the colonial type each one of them electrically 

 connected with lights, telephone and other conveni- 

 ences of modern homes. Farther out again within a 

 six miles radius of Petaluma are more farms, but 

 more scattered, covering a larger area of rolling hills 

 and valleys with red-roofed bungalows, white senti- 

 nel-like windmills, shade trees and the ever-present 

 flocks of white Leghorns." 



From pioneer times the white egg has been in 

 California the standard of desirability. This pref- 

 erence is conceived to be due to the fact that hens 

 brought from Mexico were originally from the Medi- 

 terranean and, therefore, white-shell breeds, while 

 the eggs which came by ship from northern Atlantic 

 countries were prevalently brown. Therefore, one 

 could tell at a glance the history of the egg and eggs 

 of long experience were discriminated against. Later 

 when breeds of fowls laying brownish eggs were intro- 

 duced the question arose whether such eggs were not 

 really richer, as the shell-color might indicate, but it 

 was determined by careful comparative analyses at the 

 Experiment Station that there was no difference in 

 contents though the shells differed in hue. There 

 seemed then no reason why the old preference for the 

 white egg should not prevail though the reason for 

 it had disappeared long before, when the importation 



