78 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



etc. A few poultrjmen and the experiment stations can and 

 are expected to trap-nest. 



Are there any ways by which we, as practical farmers 

 who haven't time to trap-nest, can get a reasonably accurate 

 method of picking out our highest producing birds ? There 

 are a few indications that will help us, and one of them — 

 understanding that it is not an infallible rule, but you can 

 see from the figures how it works out — is to pick out your 

 birds and group them according to their age. Most poultry- 

 men hatch their chickens within a short period, one big lot 

 hatching in April, another early in May and another in the 

 latter part of May, so that they have a large number in each 

 flock about the same age. If you can keep these birds by 

 themselves as pullets when they are laying for the first 

 winter, and notice which ones lay in the fall and early win- 

 ter, by finding them on the nest and marking them, you 

 have made one big step towards picking out your future 

 winners in egg production. For example, taking the same 

 33 hens that we were discussing a few minutes ago, and 

 grouping them according to the age at which they began to 

 lay, — all having been hatched at about the same time, — 

 grouping them in this order we will have in Group 1, 17 

 that began to lay when two hundred and forty days old or 

 less, averaging two hundred and twenty-one days for that 

 group. These hens laid 176 eggs in their first year, 143 in 

 their second year and 132 in their third year, giving us an 

 average of 451 eggs in three years. Taking the hens that 

 were hatched a little later, in Group 2, there were 9 hens 

 that began to lay from two hundred and forty-two up to two 

 hundred and seventy-two days old, averaging two hundred 

 and fifty-one days old for 28 per cent of them. They 

 averaged 138 eggs the first, 139 the second and 134 the 

 third year, or 411, averaging 40 eggs apiece less than 

 the hens that began to lay thirty days earlier. Do you catch 

 that point? All were of the same variety, — Leghorns, — 

 all were bred together, all fed together, and all the same lot 

 of eggs hatched together, and yet those that began to lay 

 first laid 451 eggs in three years, while those that began to 



