PREFACE 



This is an age which demands action, applied thought, and a prac- 

 tical, actual, and workable science. The world is demanding to know, 

 not "What are you?" or "What do you look like?" but "What can you 

 do?" Drones are being culled out in all lines of business activity and 

 rightly so; and the same is true with the poultry business. The hen 

 which delivers the goods is the hen which is in demand. "The hen that 

 lays is the hen that pays." 



We have two reasons for publishing THE CALL OF THE HEN. Some 

 three years ago Mr. Hogan sent us three males, all Single Comb White 

 Leghorns; one was of his 280-egg type, selected according to this system; 

 another was of the 150-egg type, and the third was of a 70- or 80-egg 

 type. He also sent us two pens of hens of his own selection and breeding. 

 We trapnested all the hens, and bred from all three males. The results 

 in every case have borne out Mr. Hogan's claims and the truthfulness 

 of his methods of selection and breeding. We have also tested the hens 

 in the egg-laying contests; taken measurements and made tests and 

 judged their capacity for laying as per this system, THE CALL OF THE HEN. 

 The results so nearly tally with the system in practically every case that 

 we feel that this is a valuable method of selection and breeding, which 

 should be in the hands of everyone who attempts to raise poultry. 



Capacity, condition, type, and vigor must all be taken into con- 

 sideration in determining whether a hen will be a good producer or a 

 poor producer. By making a careful and sensible application of the 

 rules made known in this book, it is possible for any poultry- raiser to 

 avoid great loss. 



We are told and have good reason to believe that it is true, that 

 the average farm hen lays less than 80 eggs per year. If that be true, 

 about half the poultry is being kept at a loss to the owner. If this 

 is the condition, are we not justified in doing something to attract the 

 attention of the farmers and poultry-raisers to methods and practices 

 which will lead to the production of more eggs than the average hen, 

 and to the necessity of culling and selection, and to more careful and 

 painstaking methods? 



The object of THE CALL OF THE HEN is to stimulate an inteiest 

 in increasing egg-production in all varieties of poultry and to encourage 

 the breeding of strains of high-producers. We have come to the point 

 where our efforts to breed fowls with perfect plumage for show purposes 

 has overshadowed that of the ability of our hens to lay; and it can cer- 

 tainly result in no harm to call the attention of the breeders of the 

 nation to the good which would certainly come from a study of the things 

 which would tend to increase egg-production. We should all be vitally 

 concerned in any attempt to better conditions, to increase the pro- 

 ductiveness of the hen, and to give impetus to an industry which is 

 already one of our greatest agricultural factors. 



OH-2 (6) 



