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is, therefore, a tendency to trace back to original types, and hence 

 the tendency to get an assortment of eggs of various colors. For this 

 reason it is difficult to keep the color uniform in the case of any one 

 of the American breeds. Unless the person has been very careful in 

 selecting eggs for shape, color and size, as well as prolificacy, there 

 is quite a wide range of variation. From two thousand Barred Ply- 

 mouth iiock hens, bred for many years from trap-nest records for 

 increased egg production, and where little or no attention had been 

 paid to uniformity of the eggs, the eggs, as I saw them, varied from 

 nearly white to darkest brown. There was the widest range in color 

 that I have ever seen in eggs from a single variety. In breeding it 

 had been simply a case of keeping the hens who had laid the most 

 eggs without regard to the shape, size or color of her eggs. 



We have selected a bunch of eggs from one of the stores and we 

 will now examine them. There is an egg weighing less than an ounce, 

 and there is one weighing two and one-half ounces, there is one pretty 

 nearly round, and there is one that is very long and slender, and there 

 is an egg pure white, there is one that is d^rk-brown, there is one 

 rather light buff, another light-brown, anotlier mottled, here is a 

 pink, a tinted white, and a skim-milk color, and a cream-colored egg, 

 and they all came out of the same case in one of the stores in this 

 town. They all went together to the market and brought the lowest 

 average price. The man who ultimately purchased these eggs would 

 have given much more for them if they had been properly graded or 

 all of one good grade. If you will figure out what you are getting in 

 a case of thirty dozen of eggs, you will find that in the grade of eggs 

 that weigh two and one-half ounces and one and one-fourth ounces 

 each, there is twice as much food value in the one as in the other. So 

 we must find some means by which we can change the quality of eggs 

 so that we can be producing eggs that bring not the lowest prices 

 but eggs that bring the highest prices. 



How shall we breed in order to improve the quality of eggs? 

 First, by seizing upon the law of inheritance that a hen is born to 

 lay an egg of a certain size, shape and color and that she will lay 

 essentially that kind of an egg as long as she lives. Of course, as a 

 pullet she lays a little larger egg each day until she is mature, and 

 in a very slight degree the size of the egg varied from day to day. 

 That is to say, there is but a slight variation. Shape almost never 

 varies except by injury and the color, as I have indicated, changes 

 but slightly. I have frequently examined a big tray of eggs and picked 

 out all of the eggs that were laid by certain hens and did this by 

 appearance of eggs only. 



The next point in In-ceding to improve the quality of eggs, is to 

 select and use for hatching only that kind of an egg that we want to 

 produce for the best market, i. e., eggs that weigh not less than two 

 ounces and up to two and one-quarter ounces, that are pure uniform 

 brown, or pure uniform white, or some other uniform color, and of 

 perfect shape and smooth sound shell. We should use males for mat- 

 ing with these selected hens that came from hens that laid that kind 

 of eggs and in the future generations we should use only such stock 

 and eggs. We can very materially and very quickly change the 

 entire grading of our eggs so that when we come to undertake to 

 grade them for market each year a larger and larger percentage of 



