180 



One part ground oats. 

 Mixed with milk. 



Use one and one-half pounds of milk for each pound of ground 

 grain. 



BREEDING TO INCREASE EGG PRODUCTION AND IMPROVE 

 THE QUALITY OF EGGS. 



(Prof. James E. Rice, Cornell University.) 



We believe most emphatically in the principle that we can make 

 more money and make it easier by improving the quality of the eggs 

 than we can by attempting simply to increase the quantity of eggs 

 that a flock of hens may lay. In saying this, we are not assuming for 

 a moment, however, that we may not also increase the quantity, but 

 that as between the two ways by which we may increase the net in- 

 come per hen, we can make our gains more rapidly with less trouble 

 and make a great deal bigger profit in the end, by improving the 

 quality of eggs. Perhaps I can illustrate that fact best by giving a 

 concrete example. It is found that eggs will differ in their selling 

 value in the large cities from ten to twenty cents a dozen, depending 

 upon the size, the color and the shape of the eggs. The average hen 

 is expected to produce eleven or perhaps twelve dozen of eggs per 

 year. If you increase the quality of the eggs that a hen lays five cents 

 a dozen, which is only one-fourth to one-half of the actual difference 

 in price that may exist, that would make a gross difference of fifty- 

 five cents per hen in the selling value of the eggs. In order to get the 

 same gross increase in selling value of the eggs a hen would lay by 

 increasing the number without changing the quality of eggs, assum- 

 ing a selling value of twenty-five to thirty cents per dozen through- 

 out the year, you will readily see that it would take two dozen or more 

 eggs per year per hen. That is to say, a hen would be obliged to lay 

 two dozen or more eggs of the same quality per year in order to get 

 an increase of fifty-five cents gross income. Practical breeders will 



generally agree, I think, that it is 

 easier to get the hen to lay a little 

 larger or better shaped or more uni- 

 form colored eggs, either white or 

 brown, than to increase materially 

 the number of eggs. Those of us 

 who have had any experience in 

 trying to bring up the average egg 

 production per hen know that it will 

 require years and years of careful 

 selection for vigor and prolificacy to 

 increase very materially the number 

 of eggs per hen over and above the 

 mean average of all the flock, and 

 we also know that it is a compar- 

 atively easy matter, a matter of 

 only a very few years' time, to very decidedly change the color and 

 the size and the shape of the eggs that the hens lay. There are a 

 number of things that we can do to accomplish advancement in both 



Light Brahmas. 



