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BREEDS OF CHICKENS 
daughters of birds purchased from the original home of 
Langshans in North China. Other pens of Langshans in the 
test failed to make remarkable records, but this pen of 
Chinese stock, with a record of 246 5-6 eggs per hen for the 
first year and 414 1-2 eggs per hen for two years, is the world’s 
record layers beyond all quibble. This record is held by a 
breed and a region in which we would not expect to find 
great layers. 
This holding of the record by a breed hitherto not con- 
sidered a laying type, would be comparable to a tenderfoot 
bagging the pots in an Arizona gambling den. If the latter 
incident should occur and be heralded in the papers it would 
be no proof that it would pay another Eastern youth to rush out 
to Arizona. It is probable that the man who, on the strength 
of this single record, stocks an egg farm with imported 
Chinese Langshans, will fare as the second tenderfoot. 
The year following the Langshan winning, the first eleven 
winning pens were all S. C. W. Leghorns. This is also remark- 
able—much more remarkable in fact than the Langshans rec- 
ord. It is like a royal flush in a poker game. Standing alone, 
this would be very suggestive evidence of the eminence of 
the breed. Standing as it does, with the combined evidence of 
years and numbers, it gives the S. C. W. Leghorn hen the 
same reputation in Australia as she has in America and Den- 
mark—that of being the greatest egg machine ever created. 
Isolated evidence is misleading. Accumulated evidence is 
convincing. The difference between the scientist and the en- 
thusiast is that the former knows the difference between these 
two classes of evidence. 
The Hen’s Ancestors. 
To one who is unfamiliar with the different types of chick- 
ens found in a poultry showroom, it seems incredible that 
these varieties should have descended from one parent source. 
It was, however, held by Darwin that all domestic chickens 
were sprung from a single species of Indian jungle fowl. Other 
scientists have since disputed Darwin’s conclusion, but it does 
not seem to the writer that the origin of domestic fowls from 
more than one wild variety makes the changes that have 
taken place under domestication any less remarkable. 
The buff, white and acminique colors, unheard of in wild 
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