FOREW ORD 
The writer’s introduction into poultry-keeping was in the city of 
Boston, Massachusetts, in the autumn of 1857. By the spring of ’68 
I had a flock of nearly 400 birds, among them a lot of the best Single 
Comb White Leghorns that I could find. I went in person to New 
York City to get them. My friends thought such extensive poultry- 
keeping the limit of folly, and freely remarked that I was going crazy. 
In those days eggs were almost worthless during the spring and summer 
months, but would often sell for fifty cents per dozen in the winter. 
This set me to thinking that perhaps it might be possible to increase 
the egg yield in the winter and by so doing make the fad a better paying 
proposition. Through ’my experiments I found that all hens were not 
alike; that some would be very good table fowl and. poor layers, others 
would be very good layers and poor table fowl, while still other hens 
would be very fair table fowl and very fair layers. At this time we had 
all the old-fashioned breeds we could get, and discarded them all for the 
Single Comb White and Brown Leghorns. I had decided that knowl- 
edge was of commercial value only when applied, and having a working 
knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the hen, I decided to try 
to turn the same to a commercial account, and in a couple of years 
had evolved what is now known as the ‘“‘Walter Hogan System,” which 
consists in ascertaining the value of a hen for the purpose you desire 
by the relative thickness of and distance apart of the pelvic bones. 
Before 1873 I had communicated this discovery to some of my friends 
under promise of secrecy. One of them, Albert Brown, once a well- 
known banker of Amesbury, Massachusetts, and O. H. Farrar of the 
same place, an overseer in the Hamilton Mills, and a light Brahma 
specialist. After using the above so-called “‘system’’ for a number of 
years, I' developed a new method, which I have taught in part privately 
for some years, and which I now introduce to the public under the title 
of ‘‘The Call of the Hen; or, The Science of Selecting and Breeding 
Poultry.”’ 
My friends early prophesied that my penchant for invention would 
land me in the poorhouse in my old age. So by some occult inspiration 
I was induced to abstain from publishing any part of my discoveries 
until 1904, when, by the advice of Ex-Congressman Haldor E. Boen 
of Minnesota, to whom I had confided my poultry secrets some years 
previous, I decided to publish only my first discovery, known as the 
“Walter Hogan System” (which will be found in the latter part of this 
work), after the same had been tested at the Minnesota State Experi- 
mental Station by Professor Hoverstadt, the superintendent of the 
station. However, before taking any steps to bring this matter hefore 
the public, I wrote to some thirty or more poultry judges, who were 
supposed to be selected as judges to officiate at the coming poultry 
show to be held in Buffalo during the exhibition at that place in 1901, 
asking them if they knew of any way to tell when a pullet was about 
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