112 THE CALL OF THE HEN. 
Approximately 280-egg hens that measure as high as 2°/s inches in the 
flush of laying will show about ?/s to 14 inch less when not laying and 
this shrinkage in measurement will apply to all other grades in about 
this proportion. 
SELECTING FOR FALL MARKETING. 
We do not like to kill birds about to begin laying, that are laying. 
or really good ones that are just through laying, particularly when there 
are plenty in the flock that do not come under any of these heads. 
In this alone the cost of this method, when once well understood, 
ah saved several times in a single season with a good-sized flock of 
irds. 
While the exceptionally heavy layers can be told readily and at 
almost any time, laying or not, and an absolutely worthless bird can 
be told the same way, there is a time, just when the real good layer is 
resting and: the common to poor layer is doing her best, when they come 
—for a short time only—close together in pelvic appearance. 
While it is not safe to kill a bird that measures 1'/s inches or over, 
it is possible for a very fair layer to not be much wider than that at the 
close of laying out her litter. Some good layers, that in the flush of 
laying will measure 134 to 2 inches, at the close of their laying period 
will sometimes close up to about np inches. A very poor layer in the 
flush of her laying time might be 114 to 1'/s inches, so care must be taken 
at this period not to confound the two conditions, which do not exist 
atany other time. This is referred to in the Introduction. To wholly pre- 
vent this—when it is desired to save every at all good layer—it is well 
to make two or possibly three examinations, a week or so apart. In 
this way there will be no danger of confounding the one about to begin 
laying with the one about to quit, and the poor layer can be told from 
the good one. ‘% 
When killing a whole flock at two or three years old, as many do, 
no hen measuring 11/, inches and under is worth keeping; particularly 
is this true if the birds have been well fed and stimulated to about their 
full capacity. No hen of any value for egg-production will have an 
egg in her at this time and measure so small unless she is a slow, in- 
frequent layer at her best. Sometimes this kind of a hen with the very 
small measurements will be found laying an occasional egg late in the 
season. 
SELECTING ROOSTERS. 
We have said how important it is to have males of the right for- 
mation to mate with the great layers for breeding purposes; we need 
not emphasize this; it is so evident that we cannot trap-nest a rooster, 
and equally so that years of trap-nesting hens can be ruinously upset 
in a day by crossing with an inferior male, that it would reflect upon 
our estimation of the reader’s intelligence to say more about it. 
I have found Leghorn roosters that measured 134 inches, but they 
are rare and priceless. A good matured bird should measure 1!/. inches 
and a pretty fair one 1 inch. I would not use one that measured less, 
if I could possibly help it. Many fine-looking birds measure only 4 
inch, but such ones will ruin the offspring of the best layers and should 
be discarded, whatever their qualities in feather, tip of comb, or any- 
thing else. 
