.Vovtmber, 1913 



27i» 



not bought ;i settiu^ from Mr. Sli w- 

 arl, and siibsei|ucntly used the Wyck- 

 off hlood. If Mr. Brooks had not 

 owned a famous rotister, wliieh. w c 

 believe we are eorreet in saying, was 

 never known to throw a poor pullet 

 in his long and very useful career - 

 probably no other single bird did 

 much for the breed — or if Mr. P.ul- 

 nian had happened to prefer his Silver 

 Wyandottes as a starting point. T!ie 

 Leghorn may, of course, have conie 

 out top-dog. We believe it would 

 but it is safe to say that it would have 

 taken longer about it, and would not 

 have become quite so top-doggish. 

 We do not forget that others have 

 , had a big hand in the position to-day. 

 The names of Kinnear, Bertelsmeier, 

 Cosh, and Morrish occur to one in 

 South Australia, not forgetting, of 

 course, General Hart and his contin- 

 gent. 



— .\ Reflection. — 

 How little a few or even a great 

 many individuals can do to leaven the 

 mass, and the quite absurd desire of 

 the hen as a tribe to stand by a con- 

 stant average, and incidentally the 

 evenness of the candidates for honors 

 as they stood in igo6, and the natural 

 laying habit of the unselected hen is 

 shown in the page before us. The 

 Hawkesbury breed averages stand at 

 120 White Leghorns 167 eggs each, 

 120 Silver Wyandottes 165 eggs each, 

 114 Black Orpingtons 158 eggs each. 

 Taking last.j'ear's results (7 years 

 later), "Agricultural Gazette" of New 

 South Wales, the figures are: — 168 

 White Leghorns 189 eggs each, 42 

 Black Orpingtons 175 eggs each, 24 

 Silver Wyandottes 152 eggs each. The 

 Leghorn has gained 22 eggs in seven 

 years, the Black Orpington has gain- 

 ed 17 eggs in the same time, and the 

 average Silver Wyandotte has lost 13 

 on seven years' laying. If Tennyson 

 had happened to write about hens he 

 would probably have amended his 

 famous couplet, and written "Strains 

 may come and strains may go, but the 



hen stops still for ever." Truly, it 

 seems about as diHicult to raise ;i 

 breed aver.age as to break up a Uulf 

 Orpington, which li.is made up her 

 il to become ;i mother. 



Bqas! Bqqs! 



.Sil,i,iMi;s fniin Heavy liiiyin;,' 



More Relleetions. — 



r>y ll>e way, there are two ways or 

 more of breaking a broody — one is to 

 keej) lifting her ofT but leaving the 

 nest there; that is evidently a fool's 

 g.inie. It is just possible that the 

 present system of selection is equally 

 a fool's game. We keep lifting out 

 of our strains the hen that fails, but 

 are we equally careful not to leave 

 the male bird who passes on the 

 weakness to some or all of his daugh- 

 ters. It would certainly be safer in 

 one case to toss the hen out of 

 the yard, and in the other to heave 

 the male bird over the fence and keep 

 Iiini there until you have proved that 

 he can transmit to all his daughters 

 his mother's capacity. At present 

 "selection" and "lifting" appear to 

 pan out very much the same — you 

 keep on doing it, but you don't get 

 much forwarder in the mass. Keep 

 on long enough and something may 

 happen. Nothing much happened af- 

 ter ten years at Maine. Nothing much 

 has happened apparently at Hawkes- 

 bury after seven years, for certainly a 

 average rise of two eggs a year in the 

 three most popular breeds are some- 

 what small potatoes. 



— A Fair Comparison. — 



There is another way of comparing 

 the value of the breeds to the aver- 

 age suburban or farm poultry keeper. 

 Most of such people keep their birds 

 two and soinetimes three years. Un- 

 der their conditions all eggs laid are 

 worth current value, they seldom have 

 enough to worry about cold storage 

 and pickling by which the commercial 

 plant man equalises his summer and 

 winter returns, the actual daily value 



White Leghorns 

 Black Leghorns 

 Black Orpingtons 

 SilverWyandottes 



15 Eggs Lo each seLLing. Guaranteeil 

 fertile or replaced. lO/o per selling 



T. E. YELLAND, 

 S,A. Farmers' Co-Op. Union, Ltd. 



of his eggs rather than the total num- 

 ber is the fairer guide for him. On 

 this basis the Hawkesbury returns be- 

 fore us are of interest. In one two- 

 year test the actual value of eggs laid 

 was per head 34/5 for White Leg- 

 horn, 32/6 for Black Orpingtons, 30/3 

 for Silver Wyandottes. In another 

 32/11 for White Leghorns, 34/2 for 

 Silver Wyandottes, 26/4 for Black 

 Orpingtons. Average, 33/8 for White 

 Leghorns, 32/2 for Silver Wyandottes, 

 29/5 for Black Orpingtons. For a 

 three-years' test the figures arc 45/6 

 for White Leghorns, 44/4 for Silver 

 Wyandottes, and 36/2 for Black Orp- 

 ingtons. For ordinary home or mar- 

 ket purposes at, say 6d. a lb. live 

 weight, and 1/ dressed, the average 

 Wyandotte cockerel is worth 1/ an 

 Orpington, 1/6 more than a Leghorn. 

 We think that is a reasonable com- 

 parison. If we allow each hen one 

 brood a year, and two cockerels 

 reared to the brood, and add the ex- 

 cess meat value, we have on the two 

 years' basis; — Gross returns, 36/2 for 

 •Silver Wyandottes, 35/5 for Black 

 Orpingtons, and 33/8 for White Leg- 

 horns. On the three-year test the 

 Silver Wyandotte leads by 5/ on the 



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