BREEDING 151 



Early Laying and High Production. — Bearing on this same 

 point, Rice^ offers the records of 169 Single Comb White 

 Leghorn hens, as shown in Table XVIII, which indicate a very 

 marked correlation between early laying and high produc- 

 tion. The four hens which began to lay at an age between 151 

 and 180 days gave the largest average first-year production 

 of any of the groups and also gave the highest average total 

 production for a period of three years. The groups that 

 began to lay at ages lying between 181 and 210 days and 

 between 211 and 240 days gave the second and third largest 

 average production respectively for the first year and for 

 the three-year period. 



Breed and Varietal Characteristics.— Breed and varietal 

 characteristics do a very real service in aiding in the selection 

 of breeders. As pointed out in another connection, strong 

 breed characteristics are generally considered to indicate 

 close and careful breeding and to be a mark of prepotency. 

 Other things being equal, the bird that shows most strongly 

 the breed type and color markings is the bird to choose. 

 Without them there could be no uniformity, which is so 

 vastly important from the standpoints of both feeding and 

 marketing. 



Official Breeding Tests. — ^There is an urgent need of per- 

 manent breeding records of high-producing lines of stock 

 somewhat comparable to the records of the advanced registry 

 for dairy cattle. The enormous numbers involved, the com- 

 paratively small economic value of the individual fowl, 

 combined with the diflaculty of accurately checking a system 

 of reports, seem to inhibit any comprehensive plan for secur- 

 ing ofiicial production records. It is not unreasonable to 

 hope, however, that a scheme for testing breeding males 

 by making an actual trial of their breeding powers under 

 certain specified conditions and later furnishing an official 

 record of the winter production of their daughters may be 

 worked out. Thus a March hatched male could be tested 

 the following March and the winter production of his 

 daughters known early in the following breeding season. 



' Cornell Countryman, vol. xii, No. 7. 



