14 



were hatched on May 31, 118. We can expect to get our 

 highest fall yield from pullets rather than from hens, and each 

 year, as long as the hens live, they have a tendency to begin 

 later and later in the fall to lay, and then to cease earlier and 

 earlier the following summer, shortening the length of their 

 lajang year. Ultimately we find that hens, as they grow older, 

 up to seven years or more, as we have them at the present 

 time in our flocks, have a tendency to lay less and less eggs in 

 the months of difficult production, — of cold weather, — and 

 whatever eggs they do lay, to lay them in the months that 

 are most favorable, — the months of April and May, — and 

 I predict that when these birds have reached ten, twelve or 

 fifteen years or more of age, as some of them undoubtedly 

 will, the only eggs they lay at that time will be in the months 

 of the natural breeding season, — April and May. The pullets 

 lay heavily in the months of cold weather as compared to the 

 production of the same bird in other years, and the tendency 

 for the third year is to shrink away in the fall of the year. 

 And yet all, whether they are hens or pullets, have a tendency 

 to lay about the same number of eggs in the months of May 

 and June, 



Now the last step in our program is the matter of selecting 

 our hens with regard to productive power by means of the 

 way in which their external characteristics change throughout 

 the year. The only way we can really understand the philos- 

 ophy of this thing is to study the inside of a hen as well as 

 the outside, to see what the relation of the characteristics is. 

 Now, the hen lays her eggs according to a certain law of 

 physical development. It is the perfectly natural, normal 

 thing for a pullet to reach the age of sexual development and 

 production at about six to eight months of age. Sometimes 

 they develop abnormally early and are precocious, and then 

 pullets have been known to lay when they were four months 

 of age. 1 have had hens myself which laid at four months and 

 four days. Sometimes they do not lay until they are nine or 

 ten months old, and we have one hen that did not lay until 

 she was three years old. She only laid three eggs that year, 

 yet she strutted around and made out that she was quite as 

 good as any of the rest of them; she was one of the modern 



