S6 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



grew the more striking the contrast became, so that at the 

 time they were seven months okl the Leghorn chickens 

 weighed 3.42 ponnds, while the Rock weighed 5.05 pounds ; 

 the Rock on Leghorn cross weighed 4.35 and the Leghorn 

 on the Rock cross weighed 3.75. In other words, the Rock 

 was the biggest, the Leghorn the smallest and each of the 

 crosses about halfway between the two combinations. So we 

 gained nothing in meat production over the Rocks by cross- 

 ing with Leghorns, and we gained nothing in egg production 

 over the Leghorns because we lost by crossing with Rocks. 



And what did we have in color? Every chick in this 

 cross of the Barred Rock male on the White Leghorn hen 

 was white and shaped like a Rock, both male and female. 

 They looked like the White Rocks with a little deeper plum- 

 age, and the reciprocal cross were four colors, some white 

 or nearly so, some barred or nearly so, and combinations be- 

 tween these, slate color and otherwise. Yet they looked like 

 mongrels, and we had lost practically all pure-bred qualities 

 by bringing those two combinations together. It has taken 

 several generations to bring about the development of one of 

 the most magnificent races of egg-producing fowl, — the 

 White Leghorn, — and one of the finest breeds we have in 

 the line of general-purpose birds, — the Barred Rock. When 

 they were brought together it was like IIimipty-Dumpty who 

 sat on the wall and who took a great fall, and you know 

 what happened to the eggs, — you couldn't bring them to- 

 gether again. It is like scrambled eggs, they cannot be sep- 

 arated. Keep a breed reasonably pure, but breed them 

 strong. 



There is a picture of "Lady Cornell" (Fig. 13), the hen 

 that laid 257 eggs the first year, 200 the second and 191 the 

 third. This pile of eggs (Fig. 14) is not her own laying, but 

 the same number and same size and color, weighing 29.2 

 pounds. She weighed 3.58 pounds. Think of a little hen 

 weighing 31/0 pounds laying 20.2 pounds of eggs in a year! 

 And every time an egg is laid it is no more or less than a 

 reproductive as well as a secretory process. It isn't com- 

 parable to the giving of milk on the part of a cow; there is 

 an exact process of reproduction in the laying of the egg, so 



