IMPORTANCE OF EARLY HATCHING 241 
more eggs than in any other two months of the year. It is not 
the cold that prevents the hen laying her egg. Nature lays no 
embargo on the laying pullet. 
As a fact Nature has been trying to tell us for ages past that the 
pullet will lay readily in the last three months of the year—almost 
as readily as in any other three months—and that the egg famine 
is all of our own creation. By our own neglectful ways we make 
the famine and then try to cast the blame on Nature. That there 
should ever be a real scarcity of eggs is due to our own crass 
stupidity. 
It seems to me a wonderful provision of Nature that at the very 
time when the yearling hen is beginning to moult and ceasing to 
lay, the six to eight month old pullet is just beginning. As a 
fact the two just overlap. As the hen eases off in late September 
after her fruitful season, the young pullet is organising her egg 
supply and is ready to begin the output. It is all a question of 
“timing ” the pullet for egg-production. If one were to hatch 
light breeds in February—say the White Leghorn—they would 
begin to lay in August, which is just two months too soon. It is 
too soon because the chances are that a bird that lays as early 
as August will go into a moult late in the year and take a couple of 
months to get over it. But there is no necessity to make such 
blunders. The facts are all perfectly well known. One can tell 
to a week or so the time which any given breed will take to mature 
and lay eggs. Why then, may it be asked, do we habitually make 
m stakes ? 
I suppose one must admit that the tendency to delay is to some 
extent inherent in human nature. Procrastination is not merely 
the thief of time; it is also the robber of our profits. And it is 
so easy to do the right thing at the right time! If only we 
register a vow never to delay hatching heavy breeds after the end 
of March and never to hatch light breeds after the end of April 
how much richer would we all be and how much better fed the 
nation. 
