70 THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



any of them would hatch. After her first laying year was up, he showed 

 me her record. She had laid 258 eggs, and although he had a good 

 Barred Rock cock bird with her, and had set a number of settings under 

 hens, he failed to hatch a single chick. I could cite a great number of 

 such cases. 



In the first of these cases the fault was with the male bird; in the 

 last case the fault was with the hen ; in both cases the trouble was caused 

 by a lack of prepotency (amativeness) , and not through any defect in 

 the anatomy of the birds. Everything in the universe is governed by 

 certain immutable laws. If we understand these laws and can discover 

 a way to control them, we may be able to use them to our advantage. 

 Does the reader ever stop to .consider these matters? What, in your 

 opinion, is the greatest effort of Nature? The writer thinks it is the 

 effort to reproduce the species in all their different forms of animate 

 and inanimate life. If the case were otherwise, this earth would be 

 barren of grass and shrubs, of flowers and fruits, and of every living, 

 moving thing on land and in the sea. What a desolate old world this 

 would be with only bare dirt and rocks and water. And when we consider 

 what a wonderful thing life is, can we doubt that Nature has made 

 some extraordinary provisions for controlling its inception? In the 

 wild state the survival of the fittest prevented degeneracy of the species, 

 but under domestication 'birds cannot follow their instincts; and their 

 owners should be familiar with Nature's laws in order to be able to 

 breed intelligently. 



When the writer was twelve years of age he took up the study of 

 human nature, and later had help from that great teacher, Professor 

 O. S. Fowler. Years of practice in dissecting and in anatomy and in 

 the study of the skulls of animals and birds gave me the opportunity 

 to study the construction of the different skulls and classify them as to 

 the known habits of the birds or animals under consideration. The 

 knowledge gained in this way was of inestimable value in later research 

 in the selection and breeding of poultry. I am positive that without 

 this early training I never could have accomplished what I have. 



After raising my first lot of Leghorns in 1869, I decided to dispose 

 of all breeds but the Leghorns and Light Brahmas. I said I would raise 

 Leghorns for eggs and Brahmas for meat. Up to that time I had not 

 paid much attention to the individual laying qualities of the birds. 

 Experience had taught me that the Light Brahma, when fed right and 

 of the right age, made a delicious table-fowl, and I was led to believe 

 the Leghorns were all great layers. That was a good many years ago; 

 and we have made wonderful discoveries and progress in science and the 

 arts since that time. The reader can imagine my surprise when I found 

 by experience that some of my Leghorns laid very few eggs and laid 

 them only in the spring months; others laid large numbers and laid late 

 in the fall and early winter. In those days we had no cold-storage 

 plants, and while eggs were very cheap in the summer, they were very 

 dear in the winter, and I decided to experiment with my Leghorns, 

 with a view to getting more eggs in the winter. After a few years of 

 study and experiment, I mated the best egg-type birds and from some 

 pens got good results, from other pens not so good, and from still others 

 very poor results. My previous studies in anatomy had enabled me 

 to select the matings from birds that were all of the same type, and I 

 expected to raise a lot of poultry that would be duplicates of their 



