THE CALL OF THE HEN. 125 



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. 1 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 

 lather, 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 shouM have done better, but 

 1 had not. By the way, I found two high priced and "high 

 scoring" birds used at the Crookston station in 1904, absolute- 

 ly 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, how- 

 ever, with very poor markings that outranked any hen but 

 .her. 



From this time on, breeding hastened matters fully as 

 tnuch 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 

 wide pelvic boned males with narrow boned females, with the 



