BREEDING 189 
sponding number on the egg chart. In this way an exact record 
was kept of her doings. If she laid, say, 30 eggs before Christmas 
she was acquitted of malingering, and if she laid 150 or more per 
year she was given a chance to reproduce her kind. Sooner or 
later in her second year she was introduced to a male bird that 
had come from a mother of her own breed with a high egg-record. 
The mating was termed “successful” if the female progeny 
equalled or surpassed the laying qualities of the mother. The 
process was repeated with the younger generation, and only te 
exceptional layers were kept to breed from. Changes in the male 
bird were made from time to time, always, of course, with the eye 
on the main chance of more eggs. It was found in the course of 
experiments that the male bird had a greater gift of transmitting 
the egg germs or laying qualities than the female bird, and 
therefore it was most desirable that he should come from a highly 
respectable; hard-working, vigorous family who devoted all their 
time and talents to laying eggs. 
By selecting always the most vigorous birds and most prolific 
layers the puny figures of the pre-trap-nest days are left far behind 
and the hands of the egg clock are being gradually turned round 
to 865. This in very unscientific language is what is taking place 
in the breeding world with the laying hen. 
The mode of inheritance may be stated in a form that can be 
easily understood. If a hen is a poor layer the cockerels from her 
will sire poor laying pullets. A male bird bred on both sides 
from a prolific stock will impart the laying faculty to pullets of 
poor stock. Again, if a highly fecund hen be mated with the son 
of a poor layer the pullets will be indifferent layers, while the 
cockerels will sire prolific pullets. The large egg is equally trans- 
missible through the male bird, so that it is useless to mate a hen 
with a high egg-laying record of big eggs with a male bird unless 
the latter has a record on the maternal side of high fecundity and 
large eggs. 
This, in a nutshell, is the finding of scientific breeding. Be it 
remembered that the highly tested hen mated with a poor 
pedigree cockerel will not produce highly fecund pullets, but the 
