12 



altitude and latitude and the kind of breed he has. Some 

 breeds develop more rapidly and some less rapidly than others. 

 At the college farm we made observations on three different 

 hatches, — one early, one medium and one late. Whenever a 

 bird began to lay, a mark was placed in the square opposite her 

 leg-band number, and this was continued every day straight 

 throughout the three hundred and sixty-five days that followed 

 the beginning of the observations early in November. About 

 two weeks after the first hatch began to lay the first individual 

 in the second hatch commenced, and about two or three weeks 

 after the second hatch began to lay the third hatch com- 

 menced, and by the time the first hatch had all begun to lay 

 nearly all of the second hatch, but not all, had commenced to 

 lay, and in the course of two or three weeks more all of the 

 third hatch had commenced to lay. In other words, the chick- 

 ens hatched two or three weeks apart in the spring began to 

 lay two or three weeks apart later on in the fall, and so there 

 was a succession of eggs from each of the hatches coming on 

 in about the same proportion as the difference in the time that 

 they were hatched. In other words, we have a new crop of 

 pullets coming on to lay, giving us a new lot of eggs, and these 

 birds that were hatched very late, and therefore did not begin 

 to lay until very late in the fall, had a little tendency to make 

 it up the following spring by laying a little at that particular 

 time when they once got under way, but they did not make 

 up their lost time, and they could not possibly ever make up 

 the handicap in money value that these pullets of the first 

 hatch and the second hatch made by laying eggs in November 

 and December, when they were so scarce and so high. 



Our recommendation naturally is that the policy ought to be 

 to have the pullets hatched at such a time that they will lay 

 the most eggs in the first year, and give us the largest possible 

 number in periods of high prices, and we have worked out that 

 for Leghorns in central New York, under our methods of feed- 

 ing and rearing and handling, there is a time when we can get 

 our largest net yield from those birds, and that is between the 

 15th of April and the 15th of May. In that length of time we 

 should hatch the bulk of our Leghorns and Rhode Island Reds. 

 With Plymouth Rocks that season ought to be probably just a 



