THE CALL OF THE HEN. 85 
be increased or diminished by the breeder; that is to say, feed and 
environment will not materially change the impotent bird into a potent 
ae neither will it change the typical meat-type into the egg-type 
itd. 
“But,” I hear some sarcastic reader say, ‘‘we certainly can diminish 
or increase their prepotency by alternately starving and feeding them 
well.’’ That is begging the question. You could affect their fecundity 
very readily; but what the writer wishes to impress on the reader is, 
that while type and prepotency are fixed before birth, and also the 
ability to govern capacity, and while type and prepotency can be procured 
only by selection, capacity can be governed more or less by environment 
—in other words, feed, care, the right kind of houses, ground, etc. We 
will say, for instance, the reader has a pen of egg-type birds, both male 
and female, with large prepotency and capacity, and suppose they were 
all 200-egg birds. ‘There would be no difficulty in raising chickens from 
them with the same degree of type and prepotency; but if he should 
stint them in feed of the proper kind and quantity while growing, they 
would lose in capacity each generation. I Cevelop the capacity of both 
pullets and cockerels from the time they are three days old to the fullest 
extent by the most liberal feeding, care, and surrounding conditions. 
In concluding this chapter, I would say that the bird with the desired 
characteristics is more or less of a sport, and the value of the ‘‘Hogan 
Test” lies in the fact that with this knowledge you can discover the sport 
and perpetuate it through intelligent breeding. Again, I want to say 
kere that my best cockerels measure four fingers abdomen at three 
months old. -All my stock is developed as much as possible at this 
age, and I try to prevent the cockerels from shrinking. But the pullets 
will develop until some of them are six fingers abdomen. 
The following article from the Petaluma Weekly Poultry Journal 
emphasizes what we have said in regard to the feeding and care of young 
stock. These cockerels were not crammed or penned up and fed, but 
were taken off free range and sent directly to market. I wish to remind 
the reader here that in examining the cockerels for prepotency. he may 
be proficient enough in the matter to examine them by holding them 
between his knees and not be obliged to put each one in a sack. The 
article follows: 
‘WALTER HOGAN CAN RAISE CHICKENS. 
“Walter Hogan backs up his system of selecting the good layers 
from among the poor ones, but he has never made much fuss about his. 
ability as a poultry-raiser. Forthat reason some people have absorbed 
the idea that he is more of a theorist than a practical man. But he 
now has a flock of his own, and evidently he is making good, for he is 
getting results that will convince any one from Missouri or anywhere 
else who must be ‘shown’ before believing. For instance, last week 
there was a spell of most discouraging depression in the prices which 
dealers were willing to pay for young poultry. There were large arrivals 
of Eastern poultry in San Francisco besides heavy receipts of California, 
and nobody wanted any more. Just the same, Mr. Hogan received 
$4.00 a dozen for sixteen dozen cockerels just three months old, when 
