82 THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



flock of hens will lay each year as they grow older. Some wilt 

 lose 5 per cent, some 10 per cent, some 15 per cent, and some 

 20 per cent. Some will not lay anything (This will be ex- 

 plained later) after their first laying year. It depends alto- 

 gether on the vitality of the hen and how she has been fed 

 and raised, and the variations in the percentage of eggs laid by 

 exactly the same type of hens will vary with different poultry 

 keepers, and also with the same poultry keeper, varying more 

 or less in each separate pen proving that environment has 

 more or less to do with egg production, all other things as far 

 dS human knowledge is concerned being equal. Some people 

 who aie good mathematicians, but who are wholly ignorant 

 of animal nature, look surprised when I explain to them the 

 difference between classifying the production of a number of 

 like machines, with the production of a number of hens of the 

 same score in egg production. As a scientific proposition it is 

 impossible to write a chart before hand that will fit every case. 

 If we look 1000 hens of any pronounced type, say 100 egg type 

 w! ich were fed, housed, and cared for in exactly the same 

 manner, and one of them laid five, ten or fifteen eggs more or 

 less some year than the other 999 hens, it would prove our 

 contention or theory, from a scientific point of view. I am .sure 

 that one hundred expert poultrymen could take 100 hens of 

 the same general type, that would score the same egg capacity 

 and would all be in the same condition, and each poultryman 

 feed and care for his 100 birds for four years the best he knew 

 how, and very few r of them would agree on a set of figures that 

 would give the percentage of decrease in egg production each 

 year. The one who fed the heaviest and produced the most 

 eggs, would have the largest percentage of decrease, while the 

 ones who bred for hatching eggs, and did not force their hens 

 with condiments and stimulants, would get the least number 

 of eggs and the lowest percentage of decrease, not figuring the 

 percentage of decrease from the number of eggs actually laid 

 but from what the hen would lay each year. 



The writer does not claim that he has dicovered a system 

 that will infallibly give results just as he has written them. 

 No poultry man needs to be told this, but for the benefit of 

 the amateurs I have inserted the above caution. The writer 

 claims by years of investigation and practice to have formu- 

 lated a poultry code as contained in this book, that is com- 

 mercially the approximation of perfection. 



