THE CALL OF THE HEN. 57 
While some breeders have good success in breeding for the desired type 
of bird, whether for fancy, for eggs, or for flesh, others will have very 
poor success. 
The purpose of this chapter is to explain to the breeder who has had 
poor success a method that will enable him to breed with the full under- 
standing as to what he is doing. It is a well-known fact among the 
clothing trade that if a woolen manufacturer has a sample of cloth 
presented to him, he can manufacture thousands of yards that will 
be an exact duplicate of the sample. The same is true in other industries. 
But suppose the reader gives an order to one of our well-known poultry- 
breeders for 1,000 pullets, to be delivered at four months old, these 
pullets to be housed, fed, and cared for as the breeder designates, and 
to approximately lay a certain number of eggs their first laying year; 
how many breeders do you suppose could fill the order? Until a ma- 
jority of them can do so the poultry industry will not be on a business 
basis, but will be more or less of a gamble. 
I have said that seemingly like does not beget like in some cases. 
We will take, for instance, a hen that is five fingers abdomen, in good 
condition, 14-inch pelvic bones. She will scale up as a 205-egg type 
hen. We will make up a pen of these hens with a 205-egg type cockerel 
or cock bird; we raise 100 pullets from this mating and they may scale 
175-egg type. We then say, ‘Like does not produce like.’ Here is 
where we make a mistake. In one sense we are right, in another we 
are wrong. Nature makes no mistakes. We have mated 205-egg- 
type male and female, and we get as a result 175-egg type product. 
That’s as plain as the nose on one’s face, and we throw up our hands 
in despair and say, ‘It’s all luck and chance.” Another party mates 
up the same type of birds and gets a lot of pullets that average 210 
eggs their first laying year; still another party mates up the same type 
of birds and does not get a chick. 
The reader may smile, but this is no dream. A number of such 
cases have come under my observation. One case was that of a pro- 
fessor in one of the Southern California public institutions. He had a 
pen of twelve Black Minorcas, headed by a splendid-looking cock bird; 
also a pen of twelve Andalusians. He said there was something peculiar 
about these hens, and he wanted to know if I could detect it. I tested 
all the Andalusians, and told him they should average 140 eggs their 
first laying year, and I would expect twelve eggs out of every thirteen 
to be fertile. After testing the Minorcas, I told him they would average 
about 160-egg type, but if they were mine, I would not set any of their 
eggs while they were mated to the present cock bird, because I would 
not expect them to hatch, and if they did hatch, they would be degener- 
ates. He said, ‘“‘This is the second season I have bred from the birds; 
I always get good hatches from the Andalusians; but, although I see 
the rooster serve the hens, I have never been able to hatch a chicken 
from the Minorca pen.” I replied, ‘‘He serves the hens out of sym- 
pathy.” 
Another case was a Barred Rock hen, the only one a neighbor 
had in a small flock of Houdans. He called me one day, saying he had 
a remarkable pullet at his place, and he wanted me to call and tell him 
how many eggs she would lay her first laying year. She had been laying 
two months, and he was keeping her record. I went with him, tested 
the hen, and told him she might lay 250 eggs, but I did not think that 
OC H—5 
