THE CALL OF THE HEN. 95 



general type that would score the same egg-capacity and 

 would all be in the same condition, and each poultryman feed 

 and care for his 100 birds for four years the best he knew how, 

 and very few of them would agree on a set of figures that 

 would give the percentage of decrease in egg-production each 

 year. The one who fed the heaviest and produced the most 

 eggs would have the largest percentage of decrease, while the 

 ones who fed for hatching eggs and did not force their hens 

 with condiments and stimulants would get the least number 

 of eggs and the lowest percentage of decrease, not figuring the 

 percentage of decrease from the number of eggs actually laid, 

 but from what the hen would lay each year. 



The writer does not claim that he has discovered a system 

 that will infallibly give results just as he has written them. 

 No poultryman needs to be told this, but for the benefit of 

 the amateurs I have inserted the above caution. The writer 

 claims, by years of investigation and practice, to have formu- 

 lated a poultry code as contained in this book that is commer- 

 cially the approximation of perfection. 



We will return to our two-year-old hens. We said all one- 

 and two-finger-abdomen hens should be sold and we will con- 

 sider them no more than to put them in the market crates 

 when we find one. The reader will remember that in selecting 

 the sixteen-months-old hens we retained only those in the 

 three-, four-, five-, and six-finger-abdomen columns that meas- 

 ured 5 /ie, Vie, Vie, and n /ie of an inch or less, and everything 

 below these lines went to market. In the show-room, 

 when the writer judges utility birds, we use the charts, so as 

 to score each bird according to its capacity for egg-production; 

 but when we cull the poultry on commercial plants, in order 

 to save the time of looking on the charts, we keep in mind 

 only four figures for the hens of any age that we -are examin- 

 ing. For hens about sixteen months old, we use the figures: 

 5, 7, 9, and 11, which represent that many sixteenths; for 

 hens with three-finger abdomens, we use the figures Vie! for 

 four-finger-abdomen hens, Vie! for five-finger-abdomen hens, 

 Vie! and for six-finger-abdomen hens, u /ie- All under three 

 finger abdomen go to the market and all under the line go 

 also. 



For the two-year-and-four-months-old hens we keep in 

 mind the following figures: 3, 5, 7, and 9 sixteenths. For 



