108 THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



prepotency; and if the projection on the back of his head, as 

 in No. 1, Fig. 35, is less than 1 / 8 of an inch behind a line 

 drawn at right angles from the back of the ear (see Figs. 41, 

 42, and 43) we put him in the shipping-crate, no matter how 

 good he is in other points. We take no chances with him, 

 because, if we have made no mistake in measuring his head 

 lines, abdomen, and pelvic bones, it will be a waste of time- 

 to breed from him; but if his head measures up good, we keep 

 him as a prospective breeder. We say "as a prospective 

 breeder," as it is very evident it will not pay to raise all the 

 cockerels to maturity. 



Here in Petaluma, where there are over 600,000 cockerels 

 raised to broiler age in a season, it would be impossible to 

 raise them all and test their breeding qualities, neither is it 

 necessary. If a person has a delicate touch, the comparative 

 value of chicks for prepotency can be judged as well when 

 they are three days old as at any time later. Then again, 

 we are obliged to keep our chicks until we can distinguish 

 the males from the females, and as a rule we will lose nothing 

 if we keep them until they are at least ten weeks old, when, 

 if they have had the right care and feed, they will be old enough 

 to test. If their pelvic bones are thick at this age, it indicates 

 they are more or less of the meat type; if their pelvic bones 

 are crooked, it indicates that they never will be straight; 

 and if they lack prepotency, it indicates that they will always 

 lack it, for they come out of the shell with this organ relatively 

 large or small, just as a baby is born with a nose on its face. 



I want to impress on the reader the importance of using 

 the utmost care in measuring the head for prepotency, as it 

 is very easy for a person to think he has measured the head 

 right when he has not done so; especially if he has large self- 

 esteem, he then thinks everything he does must be right; it 

 would be impossible for him to do anything otherwise than 

 the right way. In my classes I have found workers in the 

 machinists' trade made the most correct measurements, 

 especially if they had the faculty of human nature large, 

 while I have found that professional men who had human 

 nature small make the poorest measurements; this was owing 

 to prejudice, and not to the absence of the combination of 

 the necessary mental faculties. I suppose there will always 

 be found those who will discredit the most obvious fact, if 



