140 THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



Then came another discovery, fully as important as the 

 first. I noticed that, though I hatched all my pullets from the 

 best layers' eggs, some of them were exceedingly poor layers ; 

 now and then one of them barren. I studied upon this for a 

 long time, spent more money, and killed many more birds. 

 Then with another idea, which as suddenly as the first dawned 

 upon me, I made for the slaughter-house once more. I soon 

 had a row of forty or so dressed male birds this time laid out 

 before me; and then at a glance I saw my long-sought solution. 

 There was the same great difference in the pelvic formation 

 found in the hens. I examined my roosters to find that half of 

 them were absolutely worthless. Why do I say that the 

 rooster "is MORE than half the flock?" Because later I 

 found, as many know, that the female offspring take largely 

 after the father and the male offspring after the mother. It 

 is so with all animals, and almost always so in the human 

 family. Had I used males of my own raising, I should 

 have done better, but I had not. By the way, I found two 

 high-priced and "high-scoring" birds used at the Crookston 

 Station in 1904 absolutely without value, and Mr. Greene 

 now agrees with me fully that they were, although he was at 

 the time quite indignant when I pronounced his costly beauties 

 worthless. 



I may say here that, while I found one very good exhibi- 

 tion bird in this experiment station flock that was wholly 

 worthless as a layer, I am pleased indeed to be able to state 

 that one bird which had taken several prizes for markings, etc., 

 I found to be a priceless layer. I never saw but one bird that 

 came anywhere near being that hen's equal. I found one, 

 however, with very poor markings that outranked any hen 

 but her. 



From this time on breeding hastened matters fully as 

 much as selection, and I soon had or rather, to be accurate, 

 at the end of six years from my first start I had a FLOCK 

 AVERAGING CLOSE AROUND 250 EGGS EACH PER 

 YEAR; A FLOCK PAYING ME MORE THAN DOUBLE 

 THE PROFIT MY FIRST FLOCK COULD. During the 

 last few years of this period I again and again, for experi- 

 mental purposes, mated excellent hens with narrow-pelvic- 

 boned males, and every time a crop of pullets that varied 

 greatly in egg-yield was the result. Again and again I bred 



