22 THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



that would be better than their parents along the lines in 

 which the parents excelled, or in other words, transmit their 

 predominating characteristics to their offspring. That is, if the 

 cockerel or cock bird and hens were typical meat type birds, 

 the progeny would excel along these lines. Some of them 

 would excel their parents in the production of meat ; they 

 would be hardier, better feeders, would digest and assimilate 

 their food better, and consequently arrive at maturity sooner, 

 and be of better flavor and more tender, and by breeding 

 these birds along the lines laid down by I. K. Felch, of Natick, 

 Mass., (line breeding he calls it), they would improve each 

 season so that in a number of years, there would be a great 

 difference in their favor over their parents. If the pen was a 

 fancy proposition and had been bred some years for fancy 

 points, the progeny w r ould show a decided improvement in a 

 few years over their parents. If the pen were the typical 

 egg type, the progeny would show an increase over their 

 parents in stamina and egg production. I would also have 

 shown him where the birds he was breeding from were de- 

 ficient in the faculty that governs fecundity, or in other words, 

 which controls the function of reproduction. 



Whittier in "Maud Muller" says, " For of all sad words 

 of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, It might have been.'"' 

 Yes, it might have been. Prof. Gowell might have lived to 

 give many more years of aid to the poultry world and his 

 tragic death been prevented, but he wrote the doctor that ht 

 did not want me to come. He seemed determined to solve 

 the problem himself and no doubt \vould have done so if he 

 had been as care free from routine duties as a man in his posi- 

 tion should have been, and I charge his untimely end to 

 society. The men and women in our public institutions who 

 are giving their lives for the benefit of humanity are not ap- 

 preciated 'at their true value. We demand the full limit of 

 routine duties, forgetting that it is impossible for a tired 

 body to lurnish sufficient nutriment to the brain to solve these 

 intricate pioblems that are continually confronting them, and 

 while we cause them to suffer mentally and physically individ- 

 ually, we cause ourselves to suffer collectively by our parsim- 

 onious treatment of them. 



