76 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



to 12 dozen; 11 dozen we feel is a good average year, 150 

 is called very good production and 175, rare. This hen 

 laid 180 the first year and got started and couldn't stop, and 

 laid 18G the second year and 196 the third year. That is 

 most contrary to the usual expectations. We find that 33 

 hens here laid on an average for three years 153 eggi 

 apiece the first year, 136 apiece the second year and 127 

 apiece for the third year. You see the order of the gradual 

 slight decline from the first year to the third year. We 

 made the same kind of a study with another flock of 38 

 hens and the same with a flock of 88, and we find that the 

 same general principal holds true, — that hens usually lay 

 best the first year, less the second and still less the third. 

 This decline is about 1 to 3 dozen eggs per year. We find, 

 however, that in many, many instances the third-year produc- 

 tion of some hens was equal to or better than the second 

 year, and we frequently find that where hens have struck 

 the blue mark in the first year of high production they may 

 strike the brown mark of low production in the second and, 

 after resting a while, come up in the third. We find that 

 generally with the Leghorns, where they have made a high 

 production the first year, they are quite likely to make as 

 high or higher production in the third year than they do 

 in the second. 



There is one point I am trying to lead up to, which I 

 want to emphasize to-day as vigorously as I may be able, 

 and that is that we as poultrymen have been committing 

 the crime of ignorance in the breeding of our fowl in the 

 past, largely because we did not know the individual pro- 

 duction of the birds. The mistake is this. It has been the 

 custom of some of us to breed from immature males and 

 females instead of the matured birds, and in so doing we 

 have made two mistakes: first, breeding from immature 

 stock has had a tendency to reduce the size of the bird ; and 

 second, a tendency to reduce the normal length of life of 

 the race. Many hens will produce well in their first year 

 and die in their second or third. If we had bred from those 

 fowls that in their first year gave good production and 



