10 THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



California, a physical and financial wreck. After having 

 regained my health, I began here at Petaluma to build up 

 the same kind of a flock of layers that I had done in previous 

 years, with the idea of publishing my entire work when I 

 should have bred up a strain of 200-egg hens and better. 



After I removed to California, Professor M. E. Jaffa, 

 of the University of California, became interested in the 

 matter, and, at the request of the Petaluma Poultry Associa- 

 tion, had the discovery tested at the California -Poultry Ex- 

 perimental Station for two years, and continued for two 

 years longer for the purpose of determining the value of 

 four-year-old hens as layers, as it is outlined in this book 

 in the chapter relating to the selection of the best layers in 

 a flock. 



It was also tested in New Zealand by D. D. Hyde, 

 chief poultry expert for the New Zealand Government, 

 and Prof. Brown, of the New Zealand Poultry Experiment 

 Station. I have repeatedly been requested by my friends 

 in different parts of the world to publish the full matter in 

 book form, but poor health and lack of sufficient funds have 

 prevented me from doing so until now. As this work will 

 be copyrighted, I do not anticipate the literary pirates will 

 raid it as they have my former work. In justice to the 

 poultry fraternity, I want to say that while I have been 

 and am now a member of the American Poultry Association, 

 and have raised poultry fifty-six years, and now raise them 

 by the thousand, I have never in the past classed myself 

 as a "poultryman" in the strict sense of the word. Neither 

 do I claim that I am the only one who has discovered the 

 facts set forth in this book. I only know that I have never 

 seen them in print .before. I know what the results of fol- 

 lowing this method have been with me, and I feel safe in 

 assuming that the things I have discovered have not been 

 known. Hundreds have known me as an inventor and woolen 

 manufacturer where one would know me as a "poultry crank;" 

 and the only apology I have for offering this book to the pub- 

 lic in a field already crowded with poultry literature is the 

 earnest solicitation of my friends. 



WALTER HOGAN. 



Petaluma, Cal., July 7, 1912. 



