BULLETIN 231. 



IMPROVING EGG PRODUCTION BY BREEDING;- 



By Raymond Pearl. 



It is safe to say that never has there been so keen and wide- 

 spread an interest in the improvement of poultry in respect to 

 egg production as exists at the present time. All over the world 

 poultry keepers are waking to the fact that som.e hens lay more 

 than others ; that it costs no more to hatch, rear and care for 

 those which lay more ; and that they want this sort in their 

 flocks. 



There would seem to be little doubt that this awakening is due 

 in considerable degree, at least, to the rapid development during 

 the last ten years of egg laying contests in different parts of the 

 world. We are indebted for the inauguration of such contests 

 on a large scale to the enterprise of the Australians. In recent 

 years we have seen their development in this country. It seems 

 likely that we shall see a much further growth of the laying con- 

 test idea in the United States, as well as in European countries. 

 To be sure some writers for the poultry press, who apparently 

 see little or nothing of value in laying tests of any sort, have 

 been predicting that the laying competition has about run its 

 course, and that the end is now in sight ; that we are, in point of 



^The substance of this paper was presented as an address to the Ameri- 

 can Pouhry Association at its annual meeting in Atlantic City, August 13, 

 1913. The address as originally read has been widely published in the 

 poultry press. For some time past the Maine Agricultural Experiment 

 Station has anno. need that there would be published a popular discussion 

 of the scientific results regarding the mode of inheritance of egg pro- 

 ducing ability set forth in Bulletin 205. It has seemed best to meet the 

 demand for such a publication by taking as a basis the Atlantic City 

 address and adding to it such amplifications and illustrations as seem to 

 be necessary. This accordingly has been done in the present bulletin. 

 The fact that the material was put into form originally for the purpose 

 of the spoken address, accounts for the personal style. 



