THE CALL OF THE HEN. 97 



be increased or diminished by the breeder; that is to say, feed and 

 environment will not materially change the impotent bird into a potent 

 bird, neither will it change the typical meat-type into the egg-type 

 bird. 



"But," I hear some sarcastic reader say, "we certainly can diminish 

 or increase their prepotency by alternately starving and feeding them 

 well." That is begging the question. You could affect their fecundity 

 very readily; but what the writer wishes to impress on the reader is, 

 that while type and prepotency are fixed before birth, and also the 

 ability to govern capacity, and while type and prepotency can be procured 

 only by selection, capacity can be governed more or less by environment 

 in other words, feed, care, the right kind of houses, ground, etc. We 

 will say, for instance, the reader has a pen of egg-type birds, both male 

 and female, with large prepotency and capacity, and suppose they were 

 all 200-egg birds. There would be no difficulty in raising chickens from 

 them with the same degree of type and prepotency; but if he should 

 stint them in feed of the proper kind and quantity while growing, they 

 would lose in capacity each generation. I develop the capacity of both 

 pullets and cockerels from the time they are three days old to the fullest 

 extent by the most liberal feeding, care, and surrounding conditions. 



In concluding this chapter, I would say that the bird with the desired 

 characteristics is more or less of a sport, and the value of the "Hogan 

 Test" lies in the fact that with this knowledge you can discover the sport 

 and perpetuate it through intelligent breeding. Again, I want to say 

 here that my best cockerels measure four fingers abdomen at three 

 months old. All my stock is developed as much as possible at this 

 age, and I try to prevent the cockerels from shrinking. But the pullets 

 will develop until some of them are six fingers abdomen. 



The following article from the Petaluma Weekly Poultry Journal 

 emphasizes what we have said in regard to the feeding and care of young 

 stock. These cockerels were not crammed or penned up and fed, but 

 were taken off free range and sent directly to market. I wish to remind 

 the reader here that in examining the cockerels for prepotency he may 

 be proficient enough in the matter to examine them by holding them 

 between his knees and not be obliged to put each one in a sack. The 

 article follows: 



"WALTER HOGAN CAN RAISE CHICKENS. 



"Walter Hogan backs up his system of selecting the good layers 

 from among the poor ones, but he has never made much fuss about his 

 ability as a poultry-raiser. For that reason some people have absorbed 

 the idea that he is more of a theorist than a practical man. But he 

 now has a flock of his own, and evidently he is making good, for he is 

 getting results that will convince any one from Missouri or anywhere 

 else who must be 'shown' before believing. For instance, last week 

 there was a spell of most discouraging depression in the prices which 

 dealers were willing to pay for young poultry. There were large arrivals 

 of Eastern poultry in San Francisco besides heavy receipts of California, 

 and nobody wanted any more. Just the same, Mr. Hogan received 

 $4.00 a dozen for sixteen dozen cockerels just three months old, when 



