No. 4.] EGG PRODUCTION. 97 



weather, so that in order to keep the hen house comfortable 

 there should be upon the north side some sort of hinged 

 door which could be opened in the summer to let the air 

 circulate through without making a draft on the hens, and 

 which could be shut down in the winter so as to have it abso- 

 lutely tight on the coldest side. 



I want to call jour attention to the variation in egg pro- 

 duction each month in the year between the United States 

 and Australia, to show how the climate affects production 

 (Fig. 26). There are plotted the curves of production for 

 the months of April, May, June, July, August and Septem- 

 ber, across the cut over to April the following year. They 

 show how Australia's lov/est production is in April, May 

 and June, how it goes up in July and August, is highest in 

 October and i!^ovember, and begins to go down in December, 

 January and February to this point, while all of the lines 

 on the lower side represent the curves of the fluctuation in 

 production each month for eight or nine flocks of fowl in 

 jSTew York State, showing that our production is almost 

 identical with that of Australia in April, May and June, but 

 in July, August and September will go down, and is lowest 

 in October, jSTovember and December, whereas in Australia, 

 exactly on the opposite side of the earth, they are highest 

 during those same months. It is simply a question of cli- 

 matic conditions. 



Dr. Stimson of our college has made temperature examina- 

 tion of a great many hens and compared the temperature of 

 the hens in each month with the temperature of the weather, 

 the length of the day in sunshine, the egg production, and so 

 forth, and he flnds that as the temperature of the weather 

 changes, covering a period of two years, the temperature of 

 the fowl goes up or down slightly, according to the warm or 

 cold months of the year. The same is true as regards hours 

 of sunshine each month of the year, from the lowest in win- 

 ter to the highest in summer. So you see the hen is a crea- 

 ture of circumstance who responds to her environmental con- 

 ditions. 



Selecting eggs for hatching and keeping them in the right 

 way for the right length of time is of great importance. A 



