POULTRY expe;rime;nts. 95 



No. 676, record 209 eggs. The eggs from both of these hens 

 were very large and dark brown. They were mated to sons of 

 No. 303 and 318 before spoken of. Males for the pullet breed- 

 ing pens of the next year were bred from other matings of hens, 

 that had produced 200 eggs, with males whose mothers had 

 yielded over 200. 



That year (1902-3) we were crowded for room and could 

 accommodate only 53 pullets for testing. They were the first 

 pullets that we tested that were sired by males bred from 200 

 egg producing hens and show the first results of the breeding 

 practiced. They had been laying quite heavily out on their 

 summer range during September and October, although they 

 were not hatched until April and May. The 53 birds laid 7,952 

 eggs in the year forward from November ist, a little better than 

 150 eggs each. Could they have been in quarters where their 

 eggs could have been traced to them a month earlier, when they 

 were laying so well, they would have shown a better year's work, 

 as the twelfth month of their testing was really the thirteenth 

 month of their laying, and the record sheets show it to be nearly 

 bare of eggs. As it was, nowever, seven of the 53 show records 

 of from 201 to 240 eggs each in the year, and 23 of the 53 laid 

 over 160 eggs each. 



During the breeding season of .1903, hens No. 1,001, record 

 213 eggs; No. 1,003, record 240 eggs; No. 1,005, record 222 

 eggs and No. 1,140, record 211 eggs, were bred to male birds 

 raised the year before whose dams had yielded over 220 eggs 

 each, for the purpose of procuring males, for the male breeding 

 pens of 1904. 



All pullets raised that year (1903) were, as in the preceding 

 three years, out of hens that had laid over 150 eggs in a year, 

 and they had the advantage over their predecessors, in that their 

 dams and maternal grand dams were sired by males whose 

 mothers had yielded 200 eggs, or over, as they themselves also 

 were. 



That year (1903-4) 160 pullets were tested in the trap nests. 

 They laid 21,202 eggs; an average of 132 each. Forty-four laid 

 over 160 eggs each ; 8 laid 200 or over, viz. 200-205-210-217-220- 

 221-222 and 225 each. We have not to seek far for an expla- 



