THE CALL OF THE HEN. 119 



fingers between pelvic bones and tail-bone. Sometimes it will take one, 

 sometimes two fingers. In this way you can judge the size of the ab- 

 domen, which, with the pelvic development, will be a rule as to a hen's 

 value as a layer, except in rare cases of misplaced or diseased organs. 

 Sometimes a hen will have a large abdomen, but her pelvic bones will 

 grow crooked and come almost together, like the horns of a Jersey cow, 

 and she will lay better than the distance apart of her pelvic bones will 

 indicate, but never will do as well as she should, and should not be bred 

 from. She wastes too much nervous force in laying. The farther you 

 get away from the crow formation the better your hens will be. 



As a rule, fowls are almost twice as long coming to maturity in 

 California as they are in the Eastern and Middle Western States. What 

 the reason is I suspect, but do not know, but will find out in the next 

 two years. 



No document purporting to be a copy of "Walter Hogan's System" 

 is genuine without my signature as is set hereunder. Wishing you the 

 best of success, I am, sincerely yours. 



THE WALTER HOGAN SYSTEM OF INCREASING EGG- PRODUCTION BY 

 SELECTION AND BREEDING. 



It has been estimated that to add one-half dozen eggs to the annual 

 producing capacity of every hen in the United States would result in 

 additional returns from our poultry sufficient to pay the national debt 

 within less than a year. Allowing this to be true, we are prepared to 

 show that the method of selection and breeding herein outlined is capable 

 of paying off our great debt several times during a single year, without 

 having to increase the number of hens kept a single bird or the cost of 

 keeping them a single dollar. 



The method or "discovery," we might call it has been tested by 

 the writer in every conceivable way, regardless of expense, time, or 

 trouble, and has been found absolutely faultless in every particular. 

 It has been submitted to one Government Experiment Station (as will 

 be shown later) with the same unerring results, and also to a number 

 of the foremost poultrymen of America, who fully and without exception 

 corroborate all that is claimed. 



This, you will agree with us, means a revolution in economical egg- 

 production; it means, too, that no poultryman, however small his flock, 

 can afford to go on in the old way a single year longer. 



Every animal on the farm has a well-defined mission all its own, 

 outside of the general one of producing meat. The great mission of 

 the cow is to produce milk; of the sheep, wool; and the mission of the 

 hen is evidently and pre-eminently egg-production. This being the case, 

 her value varies or should vary largely with her ability to produce eggs. 

 And still it is a well-known fact that, while every farm animal has been 

 selected and bred for the best there was in it along its own peculiar line, 

 and all prizes have been awarded accordingly, the hen has been bred 

 largely and prizes awarded her almost wholly for feathers and markings, 

 the judges seldom or never deeming it important to know whether she 

 was capable of laying at all or not. 



The writer was amazed to find this state of things when, some 

 years ago, he turned his attention from managing woolen-mill interests 

 to trying to manage a poultry-yard. But, in spite of the fact that he 



