Part IL] FO\M.S FOR EGG PRODUCTION. 11 



and that is the fact that it is going to force people to cut down 

 the number of birds they have got on their farm and keep only 

 the good ones. If it accomplishes this purpose it is going to 

 mean almost a revival of the profitableness of the poultry 

 business. 



Another factor looking in the same direction is the high cost 

 of labor, and you people in Massachusetts know better than we 

 do over in New York what it means to compete with the 

 munition factories and other mercantile concerns that are 

 pulling labor from your farms. This means that we must re- 

 duce to the lowest number the birds we have, and every one 

 must be a good one, and then increase them as rapidly as we 

 can up to the full capacity, every one a good one. Our objects 

 in breeding should, first of all, be to secure birds that will live, 

 — birds that will have high vitality and will live with us for 

 many years. The greatest weakness of our business is the fact 

 that the bird is a short-lived individual, comparatively; that 

 she is a small individual as compared to other kinds of live 

 stock; and therefore it becomes important that we breed our 

 birds in such a way that we are not going to lose even 3, 5 or 

 10 per cent, mortality or more per year and have to replace 

 them. It means that when we find a good bird we must be 

 able to keep it for a period of several years for breeding, to 

 establish that factor of a long-lived race. It means that we 

 must have birds that inherit a tendency to produce, an inborn 

 tendency to lay or to grow meat, and to do this better than the 

 average. It means that we must breed those birds to produce a 

 high-quality egg, because the quality of an egg as to its size, 

 color and shape, as well as the number of eggs she lays, is 

 going to measure the money-earning power of the bird. It 

 means that we must breed those birds so that they are going 

 to lay their eggs when they will give us the highest price rather 

 than mere numbers of eggs or quality of eggs. So we have a 

 number of factors there, including also fertile and hatchable 

 eggs, coupled with constitutional vigor, in order that we may 

 reproduce our flocks and get as good or better every year. 

 Those are the main cornerstones of our breeding program. 



Now, coming to specific problems, the next step is that we 

 shall have an ideal; that we shall know what we are breeding 



