THE CALL OF THE HEN. 139 



tried again and again, with different breeds, but never with 

 different results. 



I was satisfied I was on the right trail now, and deter- 

 mined to spare neither time nor money to make sure I was 

 right. For several years following these discoveries I spent 

 much time and money visiting well-known poultrymen and 

 others, frequently paying as high as $10.00 for best known 

 layers, only to kill them to prove or disprove my conclusions 

 to photograph the live bird, next her dressed body, then her 

 skeleton. In every instance I found my theory correct. I 

 divided my own flock according to my findings into three 

 flocks, and the very first day's lay proved my theory beyond 

 question, so far as one day could. I then divided other and 

 many flocks; but wherever they were and whatever breed, 

 without an exception the same result followed. 



Skipping a number of years, I might say right here that 

 in 1904 I divided the flock of Leghorns, Wyandottes, and 

 Plymouth Rocks at the Minnesota Experiment Station at 

 Crookston into three pens: first, the best; second, medium 

 to poor; third, very poor or-barren. I was about twenty-five 

 minutes doing this in the presence of C. S. Greene, at that 

 time the manager, whom nearly all the leading poultrymen 

 knew, and Mr. T. A. Hoverstad, then superintendent of the 

 station. These gentlemen then had absolutely no faith in 

 the method, not knowing anything about it; but were assured 

 by me that if the barren pen laid an egg or either of the others 

 failed to perform as I indicated, they were at liberty to pub- 

 lish the method and me to the world as a fraud. The first 

 day showed pen No. 1, 45 eggs; pen No. 2, 20 eggs; pen No. 3, 

 no eggs; and this continued, with slight variations, the entire 

 period of the experiment, which lasted for weeks; though not 

 a single egg appeared in the barren pen. The per cent of eggs 

 to the 100 hens for the entire time was: First pen, 60 per 

 cent per day; second pen, 37 per cent; third pen, nothing. 

 But for lack of room I might give many more experiments 

 and tests fully as startling as the above. 



But to go on : Within a few years after selecting my first 

 layers in this way, I had a flock the larger part df which was 

 laying 200 eggs and above per year, individual layers greatly 

 exceeding this. 



