PREFACE 
This is an age which demands action, applied thought, and a prac- 
tical, actual, and workable science. The world is demanding to know, 
not “What are you?” or ‘What do you look like?” but ‘What can you 
do?” Drones are being culled out in all lines of business activity and 
rightly so; and the same is true with the poultry business. The hen 
which delivers the goods is the hen which is in demand. ‘‘The hen that 
lays is the hen that pays.” 
We have two reasons for publishing THE CALL OF THE HEN. Some 
three years ago Mr. Hogan sent us three males, all, Single Comb White 
Leghorns; one was of his 280-egg type, selected according to this system; 
another was of the 150-egg type, and the third was of a 70- or 80-egg 
type. He also sent us two pens of hens of his own selection and breeding. 
We trapnested all the hens, and bred from all three males. The results 
in every case have borne out Mr. Hogan’s claims and the truthfulness 
of his methods of selection and breeding. We have also tested the hens 
in the egg-laying contests; taken measurements and made tests and 
judged their capacity for laying as per this system, THE CALL OF THE HEN. 
The results so nearly tally with the system in practically every case that 
we feel that this is a valuable method of selection and breeding, which 
should be in the hands of everyone who attempts to raise poultry. 
Capacity, condition, type, and vigor must all be taken into con- 
sideration in determining whether a hen will be a good producer or a 
poor producer. By making a careful and sensible application of the 
rules made known in this book, it is possible for any poultry-raiser to 
avoid great loss. 
We are told and have good reason to believe that it is true, that 
the average farm hen lays less than 80 eggs per year. If that be true, 
about half the poultry is being kept at a loss to the owner. If this 
is the condition, are we not justified in doing something to attract the 
attention of the farmers and poultry-raisers to methods and practices 
which will lead to the production of more eggs than the average hen, 
and to the necessity of culling and selection, and to more careful and 
painstaking methods? 
The object of THE CALL oF THE HEN is to stimulate an interest 
in increasing egg-production in all varieties of poultry and to encourage 
the breeding of strains of high-producers. We have come to the point 
where our efforts to breed fowls with perfect plumage for show purposes 
has overshadowed that of the ability of our hens to lay; and it can cer- 
tainly result in no harm to call the attention of the breeders of the 
nation to the good which would certainly come from a study of the things 
which would tend to increase egg-production. We should all be vitally 
concerned in any attempt to better conditions, to increase the pro- 
ductiveness of the hen, and to give impetus to an industry which is 
already one of our greatest agricultural factors. 
(5) 
