130 THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



THE PASSING OF WALTER HOGAN. 



A Tribute To An Earnest Man and the Work He Did in Behalf of the Poultry Industry. 



BY T. E. QUISENBERRY. 



In the death of Walter Hogan, the poultry world, in my opinion, has lost one 

 of its greatest benefactors. He was the author of the book "The Call of the Hen," 

 which gives a method of distinguishing the good layers from the poor ones by the ex- 

 amination of external characteristics. Mr. Hogan's book has been a great seller and 

 has made him known wherever poultry is kept. 



Unfortunately, Mr. Hogan had been in poor health for a good many years. Dur- 

 ing the year I had charge of the poultry department at the Panama-Pacific Exposition 

 at San Francisco, scarcely a week passed that I did not come in contact with Mr. Hogan, 

 either at his farm or in my office, and I feel that I knew him as well perhaps as any 

 other poultry breeder. He died at his home in Petaluma February 4, 1921, leaving 

 a wife and several grown children. The latter will carry on his work under the title "The 

 Walter Hogan Company." His family has the sympathy and best wishes of the entire 

 poultry world. They are thoroughly conversant with his work for they have had to 

 care for it for several years because of Mr. Hogan's failing health. 



While I was director of the Missouri State Poultry Experiment Station, Mr. Hogan 

 sent me a typewritten copy of his first circular revealing his method of selecting hens 

 for egg production. Little attention was paid to his circular because we felt that there 

 was nothing to it and that he probably was a "crank" on the subject, but Mr. Hogan 

 was persistent in writing personal letters and finally asked me if I would trap-nest a pen 

 of hens which he would test by his method and send to me. Finally he sent me a good 

 male and a poor one to breed from and a good pen and a poor pen to trap-nest and asked 

 me to compare their records with other birds which I had under test. This was 

 done and the results proved to be about what he had predicted, which caused me to be- 

 come interested in his method. That year we had about 1,000 hens in the Egg Laying 

 Contest and before each hen was cooped and returned to her owner, she was tested 

 according to the Hogan method and a comparison made with her trap-nest record. 

 We found that they tallied with Mr. Hogan's system in practically every case. 



About that time I established the American Poultry School and Mr. Hogan re- 

 quested that we publish his book on selection and breeding for egg production, sub- 

 mitting a copy of his book the "Call of the Hen," of which a limited number had been 

 printed. It was poorly bound, poorly printed and poorly illustrated, but confident 

 that it contained worth while facts, I made a contract with Mr. Hogan to revise and 

 improve his book and to advertise and push the sale of it, which I have done from 

 that date. Thousands of copies of this book have gone to all parts of the world. Mr. 

 Hogan authorized us to sell each copy with a "money back" guarantee. Of the thou- 

 sands which have been sold, not one copy has ever been returned. 



The world often hesitates to give credit where credit is due but, in my opinion, 

 no one man has done as much to aid the poultrymen of the world in culling out their 

 drones and nonproducing hens as Walter Hogan. At that time many poultry authori- 

 ties and leading poultrymen made sport of the idea that anything could be told about 

 the productive ability of a hen by her external characteristics, and at the same time 

 anyone who stated he had a hen with a record of more than 200 eggs was regarded with 

 suspicion. A great change has taken place during these seven years and the Hogan 

 method in whole or in part is now in general use. Some new facts are being developed 



