FOREWORD 



The writer's introduction into poultry-keeping was in the city of 

 Boston, Massachusetts, in the autumn of 1857. By the spring of '68 

 I had a flock of nearly 400 birds, among them a lot of the best Single 

 Comb White Leghorns that I could find. I went in person to New 

 York City to get them. My friends thought such extensive poultry- 

 keeping the limit of folly, and freely remarked that I was going crazy. 

 In those days eggs were almost worthless during the spring and summer 

 months, but would often sell for fifty cents per dozen in the winter. 

 This set me to thinking that perhaps it might be possible to increase 

 the egg yield in the winter and by so doing make the fad a better paying 

 proposition. Through my experiments I found that all hens were not 

 alike; that some would be very good table fowl and poor layers, others 

 would be very good layers and poor table fowl, while still other hens 

 would be very fair table fowl and very fair layers. At this time we had 

 all the old-fashioned breeds we could get, and discarded them all for the 

 Single Comb White and Brown Leghorns. I had decided that knowl- 

 edge was of commercial value only when applied, and having a working 

 knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the hen, I decided to try 

 to turn the same to a commercial account, and in a couple of years 

 had evolved what is now known as the "Walter Hogan System," which 

 consists in ascertaining the value of a hen for the purpose you desire 

 by the relative thickness of and distance apart of the pelvic bones. 

 Before 1873 I had communicated this discovery to some of my friends 

 under promise of secrecy. One of them, Albert Brown, once a well- 

 known banker of Amesbury, Massachusetts, and O. H. Farrar of the 

 same place, an overseer in the Hamilton Mills, and a Light Brahma 

 specialist. After using the above so-called "system" for a number of 

 years, I developed a new method, which I have taught in part privately 

 for some years, and which I now introduce to the public under the title 

 of "The Call of the Hen; or, The Science of Selecting and Breeding 

 Poultry." 



My friends early prophesied that my penchant for invention would 

 land me in the poor house in my old age. So by some occult inspiration 

 I was induced to abstain from publishing any part of my discoveries 

 until 1904, when, by the advice of Ex -Congressman Haldor E. Boen 

 of Minnesota, to whom I had confided my poultry secrets some years 

 previous, I decided to publish only my first discovery, known as the 

 "Walter Hogan System" (which will be found in the latter part of this 

 work), after the same had been tested at the Minnesota State Experi- 

 mental Station by Professor Hoverstadt, the superintendent of the 

 station. However, before taking any steps to bring this matter before 

 the public, I wrote to some thirty or more poultry judges, who were 

 supposed to be selected as judges to officiate at the coming poultry 

 show to be held in Buffalo during the exhibition at that place in 1901, 

 asking them if they knew of any way to tell when a pullet was about 



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