THE CALL OF THE HEN. 63 



and act like one parent and some will resemble and act like 

 the other parent. Then again some children will be like neither 

 of the parents. Breeders of horses and cattle are well aware 

 of the variations in offspring from the type and characteris- 

 tics of sire and dam. It is more through persistency in 

 breeding, than the general knowledge of any scientific prin- 

 ciple that we have succeeded in producing, the grand types of 

 animals we see at our State Fairs. The breeding of poultry is 

 no exception to the above rule. While some breeders have 

 good success in breeding for the desired type of bird, whether 

 for fancy, for eggs or for flesh, others will have very poor suc- 

 cess. 



The purpose of this chapter is to explain to the breeder 

 who has had poor success a method that will enable him to 

 breed with the full understanding as to what he is doing. It 

 is a well known fact among the clothing trade, that if a woolen 

 manufacturer has a sample of cloth presented to him, he can 

 manufacture thousands of yards that will be an exact dupli- 

 cate of the sample. The same is true in other industries. But 

 suppose the reader gives an order to one of our well known 

 poultry breeders for 1000 pullets, to be delivered at four 

 months old; these pullets to be housed, fed and cared for as the 

 breeder designates, and to approximately lay a certain number 

 of eggs their first laying year, how many breeders do you sup- 

 pose could fiJl the order. Until a majority of them can do so the 

 poultry industry will not be on a business basis, but will be 

 more or less a gamble. 



I have said that seemingly like does not beget like in 

 some cases. We will take, for instance, a hen that is five fin- 

 gered abdomen in good condition, 1-4 pelvic bones. She will 

 scale up as a 205 egg type hen. We will mate up a pen of 

 these hens with a 205 egg type cockerel or cock bird, we raise 

 100 pullets from this mating and they may scale 175 egg type. 

 We then say like does not produce like. Here is where we 

 make a mistake. In one sense we are right; in another we are 

 wrong. Nature makes no mistakes. We have mated 205 egg 

 type male and female and we get as a result 175 egg type pro- 

 duct. That's as plain as the nose on one's face and We throw 

 up our hands in despair and say it's all luck and chance. An- 

 other party mates up the same type of birds and gets a lot of 

 pullets that average 210 eggs their first laying year. Still an- 



