104 THE CALL OF THE HEN. 
fingers between pelvic bones and tail-bone. Sometimes it will take one, 
sometimes. two fingers. In this way you can judge the size of the ab- 
domen, which, with the pelvic development, will be a rule as to a hen’s 
value as a layer, except in rare cases of misplaced or diseased organs. 
Sometimes a. hen will have a large abdomen, but her pelvic bones will 
grow crooked and come almost together, like the horns of a Jersey cow, 
and she will lay better than the distance apart of her pelvic bones will 
indicate, but never will do as well as she should, and should not be bred 
from. She wastes too much nervous force in laying. The farther you 
get away from the crow formation the better your hens will be. 
As a rule, fowls are almost twice as long coming to maturity in 
California as they are in the Eastern and Middle Western States. What 
the reason is I suspect, but do not know, but will find out in the next 
two years. 
No document purporting to be a copy of ‘‘Walter Hogan’s System” 
is genuine without my signature as is set hereunder. Wishing you the 
best of success, I am, sincerely yours, 
THE WALTER HoGAN SYSTEM OF INCREASING EGG-PRODUCTION BY 
SELECTION AND BREEDING. 
It has been estimated that to add one-half dozen eggs to the annual 
producing capacity of every hen in the United States would result in 
additional returns from our poultry sufficient to pay the national debt 
within less than a year. Allowing this to be true, we are prepared to 
show that the method of selection and breeding herein outlined is capable 
of paying off our great debt several times during a single year, without 
having to increase the number of hens kept a single bird or the cost of 
keeping them a single dollar. 
The method—or ‘‘discovery,’’ we might call it—has been tested by 
the writer in every conceivable way, regardless of expense, time, or 
trouble, and has been found absolutely faultless in every particular. 
It has been submitted to one Government Experiment Station (as will 
be shown later) with the same unerring results, and also to a number 
of the foremost poultrymen of America, who fully and without exception 
corroborate all that is claimed. 
This, you will agree with us, means a revolution in economical egg- 
production; it means, too, that no poultryman, however small his flock, 
can afford to go on in the old way a single year longer. 
_Every animal on the farm has a well-defined mission all its own, 
outside of the general one of producing meat. The great mission of 
the cow is to produce milk; of the sheep, wool; and the mission of the 
hen is evidently and pre-eminently egg-production. This being the case, 
her value varies or should vary largely with her ability to produce eggs. 
And still it is a well-known fact that, while every farm animal has been 
selected and bred for the best there was in it along its own peculiar line, 
and all prizes have been awarded accordingly, the hen has been bred 
largely and prizes awarded her almost wholly for feathers and markings, 
the judges seldom or never deeming it important to know whether she 
was capable of laying at all or not. 
The writer was amazed to find this state of things when, some 
years ago, he turned his attention from managing woolen-mill interests 
to trying to manage a poultry-yard. But, in spite of the fact that he 
