THE CALL OF THE HEN. 113 



chapter on Vitality. The reason is that when I decided to 

 write "The Call of the Hen," I told my wife that I would write 

 nothing that even a blind man could not understand and prac- 

 tice. I have tried to do so, for to her patience, perservance 

 and untiring zeal, I owe much of the success I have had in 

 getting out this book. 



The writer can see only three ways of detecting vitality 

 in a fowl. The most ancient is intuition, then, observation, and 

 lastly, the trap nest. A hen may be a typical 250 egg type hen ; 

 she may have the very best of care and feed, and yet, for lack 

 of vitality, may not be able to lay over 150 eggs per year. Let 

 us take the steam engine for example. There are a great many 

 types of engines besides the high and low pressure ones, as 

 there are a great many types of hen and cock birds. The 

 diameter of cylinder, length of stroke, and revolutions per min- 

 ute give you the capacity of the engine^as the length and depth 

 of abdomen in the fowl gives its capacity. The fuel fed into 

 the fire box generates the steam (vitality) to run the engine, 

 as the food fed into the hen's abdomen generates her vitality. 



The writer has owned steam engines where there was de- 

 fective fire box construction: scale in the boiler, and tubes, 

 loose rin^s in the piston head, cylinder worn out of true, and 

 other defects that reduced the efficiency of the power system 

 a great deal, or in other words, lowered the vitality of the en- 

 gine. In just the same way, a weak digestive system in a 250 

 egrs: type hen will reduce her egg yield. But do not think that 



O O -> ' 1 O O / 



you can make a 150 egef type hen in perfect condition lay 200 

 eggs by any of the feeding formulas now in vogue. If you try 

 to force her she will go to flesh and then break clown with 

 liver trouble. 



If you lack the intuitive faculty, and lack the time to 

 carefully observe individual hens, I would advise you to select 

 the hens by the chart you wish to breed from. When they 

 are about a year old you can breed from them. Then if you 

 wish to breed from only those with the greatest vitality, trap- 

 nest these hens for the next two or hree years. The hens with 

 the greatest vitality will be great layers and strong vigorous 

 birds, and save the time wasted in trapnesting a lot of birds 

 that you will eventually have to discard. 



